Three years ago, on this day, April 12th, 2022,
“an alliance of prominent Silicon Valley companies—including Google, Meta, Shopify, and the payment company Stripe—announced that it is purchasing $925 million in carbon removal over the next eight years. In a world awash in overhyped corporate climate commitments, this is actually a big deal” https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/04/big-tech-investment-carbon-removal/629545/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 418ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was having actively opposed any carbon mitigation, or sat around while the fossil interests opposed it (amounts to the same thing) for thirty plus years, now “good” corporates were realising that it was very late in the day for everything, including their reputations. So, promising to invest in unicorn technologies like carbon removals was a think.
What I think we can learn from this
Only unicorn technologies can save us.
What happened next
MARC TO CHECK OUT WHERE THESE ARE UP TO
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
April 12, 1992 – seminar asks “How sustainable is Australian Energy?” (proposes switch to gas)
April 12, 1993 – “environmental economics” gets a puff piece