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posted by martyb on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:00PM   Printer-friendly

Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it aims to:

By 2030 Microsoft will be carbon negative, and by 2050 Microsoft will remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975.

Further coverage: from The Verge, BBC, CBC
"direct emissions" but those they may have caused. If they can achieve it though, it will be a positive step.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:13PM (3 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:13PM (#944983) Homepage Journal

    ...canceling out its emissions by purchasing renewable energy and carbon offsets.

    Getting forgiveness doesn't mean you didn't commit the crime. And did they factor in their destroying actual carbon sinks? You know, the trees cut down to have a place to build their campuses?

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:22PM (#944985)

      Shhh greta, they are just paying hush money so hush, planet earth saved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c [youtube.com]

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:28PM (#945014)

      The carbon sinks provided by the footprint of their buildings aren’t much in the math of completely offsetting approximately fifty years of power consumption and manufacturing.

      Here’s a thought experiment to illustrate the orders-of-magnitude problem involved:

      Your house (or apartment/rented room/basement/tent/whatever).
      Assuming you are in the United States (but any highly developed country will not be off by much), you produce about 10-20 metric tons of carbon per year. Over the same period in question — fifty years — that’s on the order of somewhere between 500-1k metric tons. Now, if represented as solid carbon, which has a density of about 2,266 kilos per cubic meter. That’s about 330 cubic meters of solid carbon.

      That’s got to translate, roughly, into mass of trees.

      So, tree species obviously vary pretty significantly in their growth/sequestration rates, but as a ballpark lets assume, generously, about 25 kilos per year each. Over 50 years, that’s about 1,250 kilos of carbon sequestration (or, roughly, “more tree”). We’re looking for on the order of 750,000-1M kg of “more tree” over that time, so you’d need about 600-800 trees. Per person.

      Now, how many trees do you think were sacrificed to make room for your house? For it to actually matter, you’d have to live in the middle of a forest and live in a soccer stadium. Again, this is per person. So, if you have a family of four, you’d need to live in an olympic village.

      Now, from that thought experiment, imagine 1/3 of your foortprint were generated while at the office. Now, look at the size of your office and count the people. That’s .33life*nPeople*750 trees.

      In the case of Microsoft HQ, that works out to .33*56k*750=13.86 million trees. That HQ exists on about 500ha of land, so if it were a dense forest of say 2500t/ha, you’re talking 1.25M/13.86M=9%.

      ...and that’s just the average footprint of the employees themselves for the time spent sitting at their desks.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:30PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:30PM (#945015)

      What's your point? Without cutting down trees there would be no development in that region possible. You'd have to build around the trees and moving from point A to point Be would take several times as long as you wouldn't be able to use a truck and would have to divert around every tree and mound of dirt.

      I get that your thing is being incapable of getting the point, but Jesus H. Christ, this is ridiculous. This is a bit like if the cows escape the pasture, putting them back in the pasture and then cleaning up some of the mess. As long as this happens before the cows cause too much trouble, then it's all well and good. But, if you don't bother to do that, then well, it's never going to get any better.

      It's also worth realizing that MS alone is a small part of the problem, a small handful of corporations are responsible for the vast majority of the emissions. But, even with that in mind, if all corporations were committed to going carbon neutral, then any of them going carbon negative would result in an eventual return to previous levels of carbon in the atmosphere.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:08PM (1 child)

    by Gaaark (41) on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:08PM (#944990) Journal

    Microsoft is going out of business!

    Yaaaaaay!

    losers.

    Now can they just undo all the harm they've done?

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Sunday January 19 2020, @12:03AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday January 19 2020, @12:03AM (#945136) Journal

      Wonder what the carbon cost of winding up a company the size of Msoft would be.. Probably just lawyers and paper..

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:05PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:05PM (#945008)

    Windows runs a quad core CPU at 100% for the first 5-10 minutes after booting, during any update which takes 10-45 minutes, during video playback, when playing any game, when opening email, when downloading any file, and when it feels like fucking with you when you're trying to get anything done. Windows is the most obnoxiously bloated piece of shit I've ever used.
    Linux boots in less than 30 seconds and is ready to go.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:46PM (2 children)

      by Bot (3902) on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:46PM (#945018) Journal

      And that's the tip of the iceberg.
      Microsoft made entire football stadiums of gear obsolete by incompatibilities. Caused zillion hours of lost productivity for his intentional undocumented behavior and attacks on the competition. Promoted closed source, closed hardware. Together with hardware manufacturer conspirators ofc. What about sales of unneeded office packages to schools and public sector? Not even gates probably grasps the amount of damage he caused to society.

      --
      Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:17AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:17AM (#945224)

        How many millions of iPhone 5 and below devices will be thrown out due to Apple's decision to cut support?

        How much waste is it to build devices that will be thrown out in a matter of years when they could be designed to last at least a decade?

        • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:22PM

          by Bot (3902) on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:22PM (#945453) Journal

          Apple is in the same boat. The days of the openfirmware macs are gone.

          --
          Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:06PM (#945280)

      No major distro boots in 30 seconds these days.

  • (Score: 2) by chewbacon on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:27PM (3 children)

    by chewbacon (1032) on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:27PM (#945013)

    If we only knew during the industrial boom that throwing money at this would've negated that whole pollution thing. Also, what the FUCK is going on in LA with all the smog and those rich celebrities? Why aren't they doing their part burning dollar bills to fix that?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @06:03PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @06:03PM (#945022)

      What makes you think they're not? The reason for the smog is that LA is in a basin and air can get trapped, there's insufficient new air carrying the pollution away, like in many other areas. Any pollution that happens in the valley is going to be a lot more obvious than it would be in Kansas where the air is free to move on to the next state rather than being trapped.

      • (Score: 2) by dwilson on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:58PM

        by dwilson (2599) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:58PM (#945104) Journal

        The reason for the smog is that LA is in a basin and air can get trapped, there's insufficient new air carrying the pollution away, like in many other areas. Any pollution that happens in the valley is going to be a lot more obvious than it would be in Kansas where the air is free to move on to the next state rather than being trapped.

        You're not wrong, but the fact that the population of the entire state of Kansas is 2.9 million, while the population of LA (just LA-the-city, not the greater LA area and all the other cities in it) is 4 million, has a lot more to do with it.

        Population density is the root of a lot of the problems the world faces today. Fixing the root of the problem without becoming monsters? That's the real problem.

        --
        - D
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:14PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:14PM (#945450)

      If you think LA in 2020 has “smog” you must be under 35yo, blind, or just staggeringly unaware or all of the above. The improvement in air quality since 1980 in Los Angeles is damn near fucking miraculous to anyone who has resided on this planet for longer than that.

  • (Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday January 18 2020, @06:02PM

    by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Saturday January 18 2020, @06:02PM (#945021) Journal

    So it can keep producing tyrannical software without any constraints other than the continued thermal radiation of the nearest star.....

    Is it terrorism is I wish inside my head for this entire company to spontaneously disappear?

    thesesystemsarefailing.net but especially microsshaft as i have said before

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by slap on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:38PM

    by slap (5764) on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:38PM (#945095)

    Considering all the methane that Microsoft has released during its existence, this will be quite an accomplishment.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @01:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @01:05PM (#945268)

    Free ad, plus you feel they REALLY CARE. There is of course no way of holding them accountable.

  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:28PM (#945284)

    i propose to hijack EVERY article that mentions m$ ('cause useless).

    so i "need" some suggestions on a smallish electro motor that is also a generator, runs on DC and has a corresponding controller that right-smartly drains or charges the connected battery.
    the system voltage should be something a big PV-panel (30-50VDC?) can comfortably charge via a own MPPT charger (of which there are many).
    i will weld the frame myself. thinking about placing the motor and battery in the middle and transferring motor output/input via shaft to the (one) backwheel, no chain.

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