Well moving on from CB's possible immaculate conception Before we put this thread to bed, I was greatly amused by Rod Liddle's take on the "Google Virtue Signalling Fest"in yesterday's Sunday Times. Whilst he's not everyone's cup of tea I do like his unique brand of "piss take" on issues such as this one, and boy do we need that sometimes. Here's an extract.
"Prince Harry was there and addressed the throng barefoot, because he's a totally chilled dude. Google sent a private jet to pick him up and the last leg of the journey was done by helicopter.
In fact, an estimated 114 private jets brought in the guests. I don't have all the figures about what that sort of carbon footprint extravagance does to the environment and thus to climate change It may have, by itself, increased the temperature of the world by a degree or two. It's something like the equivalent of personally strangling 6,290 polar bears to death. But the happier news is that they all felt much better about themselves for having attended and that's the important thing. Not only filthy rich but dead "woke" too.
I wonder if, while they were there, they talked about one of the fastest growing contributions to climate change the internet? I suspect not, because it's something which Google declines to talk and for which it has refused to release figures. It is estimated that a single Google search could power a low-energy light bulb for an hour. There are 2 trillion Google searches per year, 63,000 per second. Close down Google and you'd save half of Antarctica, but I don't suppose that was on the agenda.
As the German newspaper Der Spiegel described the computer companies: "It is a world built on real-world data processing factories that, when it comes to power consumption are reminiscent of the early days of industrialisation. Computing with electrons is just as physical as melting steel or rolling of sheet metal. In both cases, no one cared much about resource consumption in the early phases".
Being lectured about woke stuff by Harry, Leonardo and lots of other exceptionally privileged people who know four-fifths of sod all, is of course irritating. But not half as infuriating as when big companies do it. We live with welfare capitalism because it is probably the best system available, but we are still aware that the big multinational companies are venal, grasping, amoral bastards who would flog their own grannies twice over for a penny share dividend. Fine we get that, it's how the mercantile world works, but corporate weakness rubs our noses in it and it has become terribly au courant.
It is partly the staggering hypocrisy that rankles and partly the knowledge that these smug gilded monkeys are doing it solely to improve their brand image with deeply gullible young people. They really care no more about the environment, racism or gender issues that a grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan".