Google Supports Factory Farms in Effort to be “Green”

Seems a bit of an oxymoron, I’m sure you would agree.  Google has made strides to become carbon neutral by building energy efficient data centers, purchasing renewable energy, and purchasing carbon offsets.  This purchase of carbon offsets is realized by Google’s funding of a project ran by Duke University and Duke Energy, in which a $1.2 million system has been built to capture methane gas from pig, dairy and poultry farms and convert it into power for residential areas.

In essence, Google is helping fund, create, and otherwise perpetuating a market for a byproduct of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations)- an industry that is one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide worldwide.  This action is helping to make it more profitable for CAFO’s to exist.

Carbon offsets are controversial and convoluted, but it’s not hard to see the cause and effect here.  I’ve come to expect more (perhaps mistakenly) out of Google- a 21st century “idea” company, one on the proverbial cutting edge of technology, one who has demonstrated the ability to think and act progressively.  To help make animal exploitation more profitable is downright cruel, and for Google to not seem to make the connection is a bit irresponsible, to say the least.

Americans and the rest of the global citizenry need to work on conserving energy, not wheeling and dealing carbon offsets.