Google changed its Google Flights carbon calculator in a way that has 'airbrushed' the real environmental impact of aviation, experts say
Business InsiderJUL 2022
The Spin
Narrative A
Google is greenwashing the effects of the aviation industry and hundreds of millions of users are underestimating the environmental impact of their journeys as a result. Carbon footprint calculations are crucial to understanding the cost of human activity - Google needs to be held accountable for misleading consumers.
Narrative B
While Google's poor practices are certainly irresponsible, the very notion of a "carbon footprint" was the brainchild of big oil, designed to shift accountability for climate change from corporations onto individuals. Rather than concentrating on private individual actions to tackle global warming - as is encouraged by programs like carbon calculators - we must seek collective action and policy reform.
Metaculus Prediction
There's an 85% chance there will be at least 2˚C degrees of global warming by 2100, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
