I have been growing up in an era when the planet’s fate has been hanging by a thread and this has shaped my view of the world dramatically. Every day, I watch news stories about wildfires, floods, droughts, conflicts and other deadly effects of climate change. Huge tech businesses claim to be part of the solution while secretly increasing the problem.
We live in a world where these tech giants claim to be champions of sustainability. They plaster their websites with images of wind turbines and solar panels, boast about their carbon-neutral goals, and fund flashy environmental projects. But behind this glossy facade lies a dark reality: greenwashing.
Greenwashing is when a company gives a false impression of its environmental efforts. Many of these corporations are masters at it. They divert our attention with their so-called “green” initiatives while continuing to exploit natural resources and contribute to pollution on an alarming scale. Their operations are far from sustainable, but they hide this fact with slick marketing campaigns and hundreds of pages long “sustainability reports” advertising goals and targets but providing little information about actual progress and real impact.
The carbon credit trading system was said to be a game changer: it was introduced as a market-based approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The idea was simple: companies would buy and sell carbon credits, each representing the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide. By putting a price on carbon, the system aimed to create financial incentives for companies to reduce their emissions and projects that actually aimed to pull CO2 from the air would get compensated for it. However, despite its promise, the carbon credit trading system has largely failed.
It goes beyond greenwashing alone. These same large tech giants are skilled at moving their earnings to tax havens and dodging taxes thus not contributing to public finances, communities are deprived of infrastructure and necessary services, which exacerbates socioeconomic inequality. They take advantage of our society’s resources without contributing anything back.
Even more insidious is the ability of large tech corporations to sway public perception: They control the algorithms on their platforms, dictating what information we see and what is concealed. These algorithms are intended to increase engagement and profit, not to inform or educate. As a result, misinformation spreads rapidly, while legitimate climate research struggles to gain momentum. The actual inner workings of all of these algortihmns is a trade secret – completel intransparent. Those who control the algorithmn control public opinions, election outcomes, and ultimately resulting global actions: wars, conflict and the faith of nations.
Who has the power to still oppose the new overlords?
