Free Exchange: Google aims to make entire world wealthier, advertises effects on atmosphere
IN THEIR ongoing effort to not be evil, Google has announced plans to invest heavily in R&D in renewable energy. The company's PR flacks are hailing it as far-sighted environmental stewardship. And no doubt Google's chiefs have Mother Earth in mind above all. However, since Google's stock price would plummet should the initiative fail to redound to the benefit of the bottom line, the company must, in passing, also make a little money from its loving efforts to save the climate. ...
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If Google's stable of high-powered nerds can come up with a way to make renewable energy cheaper than the fossil-based alternatives, lowering the cost of just about everything that involves energy for its production (i.e., just about everything), while reducing environmental externalities, then, by God, each and every one of them deserve to become richer than... already extremely wealthy Google engineers.
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...And, again, the reason they would make a lot of money is that this technology, should it be possible, would lower the cost of producing wheat, cars, clothes, houses, hamburgers, widgets, etc. That would amount to an enormous increase in real wages and human wellbeing. And that seems important!
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This last paragraph is great.
OK, economic development is terrific, but aren't they sort of obscuring the real story? Speaking as a humanitarian (either "old fashioned" or "post-environmentalist"--take your pick), I find it exceedingly odd that an announcement of what would be among the most important technological advances ever should emphasise its effects on carbon emissions, and not more directly its enormously salutary effects on human life. Their effect on human life is, after all, the only reason I am worried at all about carbon emissions. Making everything less expensive in real terms, as profit-seeking capitalists over time tend to do, is precisely how we conquer the various miseries of deprivation and enhance the extent and quality of life. Doesn't that seem worth touting?
Excellent question!
Google is really starting to believe they can wield real power huh?
Posted by: Benjamin P. Glaser | Nov 30, 2007 at 12:48 PM
LOL
Sounds like it.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Nov 30, 2007 at 08:15 PM