• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate & Society Climate Denial & Greenwashing

U.S. Conference Peddles Climate Denial, Sponsored by Google, Facebook, Microsoft

January 27, 2019
Reading time: 2 minutes

Students For Liberty/Facebook

Students For Liberty/Facebook

1
SHARES
 

Google, Facebook, and Microsoft paid a combined US$45,000 to sponsor the annual convention of a libertarian student group that promotes climate denial, even though all three tech giants acknowledge the climate crisis and have been working to decarbonize their own operations.

When LibertyCon, the annual convention of Students for Liberty, went onsite at a downtown Washington, DC hotel earlier this month, its funding included a $25,000 platinum sponsorship from Google, and $10,000 gold sponsorships from Facebook and Microsoft.

“The donations put the tech companies in the top tier of the event’s backers,” Mother Jones reports, in a story republished by National Observer. “But the donations also put the firms in company with some of the event’s other sponsors, which included three groups [actually, at least four—Ed.] known for their work attacking climate change science and trying to undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions.”

Those groups include the CO2 Coalition, which formed in 2015 to spread the “good news” about increased greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the climate-denying Mercer Family Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute. The Heartland Institute also bought a gold sponsorship.

The CO2 Coalition’s exhibit booth included brochures that declared its mission to “explain how our lives and our planet Earth will be improved by additional atmospheric carbon dioxide”. In a Saturday presentation, Coalition board member and retired statistics professor Caleb Rossiter cast carbon dioxide as a fertilizer that has made Africa greener, boosted food production, and reduced human misery.

“I’m happy when carbon dioxide is up, because it means poverty is down,” he said. “I come not to bury your carbon but to praise it.”

That position puts Rossiter “on the far fringes of the climate denial world,” Mother Jones notes. “Not even Exxon is trying to make such arguments anymore. And it’s a long way from what Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have said about the dangers of carbon dioxide; all three companies have committed to reducing their own carbon footprints.”

The three tech sponsors’ support for a libertarian conference “is not itself unusual, as governments around the globe move to try to regulate social media and online privacy. Tech companies see libertarians as natural allies in the fight against regulation,” the U.S. investigative publication notes. “But the companies’ underwriting of a conference with a climate denier on the schedule shows the hazards of trying to advance a policy agenda through interest groups without also supporting their fringe elements.”



in Climate Denial & Greenwashing, Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

David/flickr
United States

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1
Graco/Facebook
Food Security

Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use

June 26, 2022
2
Adam E. Moreira/wikimedia commons
Transit

Suspend Transit Fares, Not Gas Tax, Climate Advocates Urge Biden

June 26, 2022
1

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

The federal government's Cliff Street Power Plant is at the centre of Ottawa's plans to reduce natural gas demand. Photo: PWGSC

EXCLUSIVE: Ontario Regulator Refuses New Pipeline, Tells Enbridge to Plan for Lower Gas Demand

May 30, 2022
5.2k
Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
341
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
219
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.6k
eloialferez66/pixnio

Toronto’s New Backyard Homes Will Help Fight Sprawl

June 24, 2022
70
Greg Goebel/Wikimedia Commons

Canadian Pension Board Invests $141M in Chinese Coal Projects, Undercutting Federal Phaseout Policy

July 29, 2020
2.3k

Recent Posts

David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1
pxhere

Environmental Racism Bill Passes Second Reading in House of Commons

June 26, 2022
1
Graco/Facebook

Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use

June 26, 2022
2
stockvault

Animal Agriculture Could Reduce Future Pandemic Risk, UK Researchers Say

June 26, 2022
1
Gustavo Petro Urrego/flickr

Colombia’s President-Elect Has ‘Ambitious’ Plans to Halt Amazon Deforestation

June 26, 2022
1
Adam E. Moreira/wikimedia commons

Suspend Transit Fares, Not Gas Tax, Climate Advocates Urge Biden

June 26, 2022
1
Next Post
Jeremy buckingham/Flickr

Solar, Efficiency Offer Some Relief as Australian Grid Strains Under Epic Summer Heatwave

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}