Google Pulls Out Of ALEC Over Climate Change Issues
Google Pulls Out Of ALEC Over Climate Change Issues
Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, recently announced that the company will stop funding a conservative group on the basis of climate change issues. The group is known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The company has lost crucial funding from the tech company because of its stand on issues of climate change.
The bone of contention is that ALEC opposes climate change policies and has even challenged a number of government regulations concerning coal-fired power plants. It has also been seen to cast doubt on well known scientific research on climate change and even approves of the Keystone XL pipelines. This may be because it is underwritten by companies such as Exxon Mobil and Kock industries.
The chief executive officer of ALEC has commented that the organization believes in freedom of opinion and speech and therefore encourages free market policy perspective on issues surrounding denial of climate change. The company has also been dumped by other tech companies in the past for this reason, so its views are not exactly popular with many key fund providers.
Microsoft Also Drops Support For ALEC
In August this year Microsoft dropped its support for ALEC based on the same issue of climate change as well as other sensitive issues. The tech company felt that ALEC’s stance on the contentious issues was a polar opposite of what it stands for, therefore, seeing no need of backing it up.
Google has been adamant that climate change is an important concept for the company as its effect on the earth is no longer in question. Hence, for ALEC to be skeptical over the effects of climate change, it means that it does not hold similar values to the tech company on the issue. Hence, funding by Google for such a company is unjustified.
Google has been championing renewable energy issues and is committed to green initiatives. Hence, it makes sense that it has cut ties with the said company. It is surely walking the talk. Recently it contributed significantly to a solar power plant in Southern California, too bad for ALEC as it will have to lose out on similar funding in the future.
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