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Microsoft Earth

How Microsoft Employees Pressured the Company Over Its Oil Industry Ties (grist.org) 144

Posted by EditorDavid from the act-locally dept.
The non-profit environmental site Grist reports on "an internal, employee-led effort to raise ethical concerns about Microsoft's work helping oil and gas producers boost their profits by providing them with cloud computing resources and AI software tools." There's been some disappointments — but also some successes, starting with the founding of an internal sustainability group within Microsoft that grew to nearly 10,000 employees: Former Microsoft employees and sources familiar with tech industry advocacy say that, broadly speaking, employee pressure has had an enormous impact on sustainability at Microsoft, encouraging it to announce industry-leading climate goals in 2020 and support key federal climate policies.

But convincing the world's most valuable company to forgo lucrative oil industry contracts proved far more difficult... Over the past seven years, Microsoft has announced dozens of new deals with oil and gas producers and oil field services companies, many explicitly aimed at unlocking new reserves, increasing production, and driving up oil industry profits...

As concerns over the company's fossil fuel work mounted, Microsoft was gearing up to make a big sustainability announcement. In January 2020, the company pledged to become "carbon negative" by 2030, meaning that in 10 years, the tech giant would pull more carbon out of the air than it emitted on an annual basis... For nearly two years, employees watched and waited. Following its carbon negative announcement, Microsoft quickly expanded its internal carbon tax, which charges the company's business groups a fee for the carbon they emit via electricity use, employee travel, and more. It also invested in new technologies like direct air capture and purchased carbon removal contracts from dozens of projects worldwide.

But Microsoft's work with the oil industry continued unabated, with the company announcing a slew of new partnerships in 2020 and 2021 aimed at cutting fossil fuel producers' costs and boosting production.
The last straw for one technical account manager was a 2023 LinkedIn post by a Microsoft technical architect about the company's work on oil and gas industry automation. The post said Microsoft's cloud service was "unlocking previously inaccessible reserves" for the fossil fuel industry, promising that with Microsoft's Azure service, "the future of oil and gas exploration and production is brighter than ever."

The technical account manager resigned from the position they'd held for nearly a decade, citing the blog post in a resignation letter which accused Microsoft of "extending the age of fossil fuels, and enabling untold emissions."

Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the news.
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How Microsoft Employees Pressured the Company Over Its Oil Industry Ties More

How Microsoft Employees Pressured the Company Over Its Oil Industry Ties

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  • Aristocracy. Aristocracy never changes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Monday May 13, 2024 @06:41AM (#64468385)

    How dare they allow poor people to get access to cheap energy that couldn't get it before, the founding block for elevating themselves out of poverty?

    They should forever be sucking at the teat of the aid agency, to which proud microsoftie very publicly donates to get status among his other high class peers who all obviously fly to their vacations several times a year.

    Seriously the amount of hypocrisy among Greens never ceases to amaze me. People who's lives are so hilariously carbon intensive we could uplift entire families out of poverty if they halved their trips to vacations... actively seek to damage and destroy ways to provide cheap energy to the poor. While using it as a status symbol among others in their peer group who are just as wasteful.

    Truly, aristocracy hasn't changed a bit. It's all the same "we have benevolent goals, and we're willing to sacrifice a lot of poor to get to them".

    • You forgot to show your math.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        You forgot google scholar exists and a single search for "how much does a single vacation flight cause in relative emissions" will demonstrate that this is a well studied issue with math far better than what "I" could show.

        Or are you going to try to deny that rich microsoftie managers do not fly to their vacations as a norm several times a year, as most rich American upper class twats do?

    • Your attempt to change the subject and play people's morals against them is so clever and original.

      Oil is literally driven by aristocracies, you moron. People who actually claim to have medieval feudal titles in the Middle East, as well as Russian oligarchs and Texas land-baron dynasties.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SvnLyrBrto ( 62138 )

      Ahhh, yes.... the old "We were stupid and did this horrible thing. So it's 100% A-OK hunky-dory for anyone else to do the same horrible thing." talking point rears its head. No one is saying that poop people should not be able to improve their lives. The point is that they have the opportunity to learn from our own mistakes and do better by not repeating them.

      But Douglas Adams was prophetic in yet another way: "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of oth

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        >No one is saying that poop people should not be able to improve their lives.

        Actually a lot of people are saying this. In scientific research and popular culture. Google "degrowth".

        But on top of that, they also do a lot of things to make sure that "poop people" (hell of a freudian slip, tell me more what you think about the poor) stay poor. Denying them cheap energy is one of the biggest things being done. And note the present rather than past tense. Block on loan money to build cheap power across poor n

    • +1 agree.

      People don't seem to understand that, even if we wave a magic wand tomorrow and get all our energy via sunshine and fairy farts, we'll still need petrochemicals. They are an incredibly valuable resource, so valuable that it doesn't make sense to burn them if we have better alternatives.

      • Amount of fossil fuels used for non-combustion purposes in the United States: 7% [eia.gov].

        And of that 7%, because we're not burning the materials, very little ends up in the air.

        If we waved that magic wand you speak of, even in the absolute worst case where we burn all the plastics, fertilizers, lubricants, etc. after use, we would drop fossil fuel based atmospheric carbon emissions by ~93%.

        So, you were saying?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          This is another gross misunderstanding by Greens. Oil contains ALL of the fractional distillation elements. You don't get to pick and choose. And it makes no sense to just extract some and leave most to poison the earth.

          This is why reducing demand for individual distillates doesn't really work for reducing total oil consumption. This is why I bitch about rich twats flying. Almost everywhere, the main limiting distillate is kerosene. Jet fuel precursor. The only exception to this was during the pandemic grou

    • You should take a moment to examine the entities feeding you the "lifting people out of poverty" and "somehow that's hypocriscy!" bits. I'll give you a hint: There's a conflict of interest.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        There certainly is hypocrisy to go around, but nothing comes even close to the Green hypocrisy. Greens hate the poor and want them to die off, so they don't rape Mother Gaia as they do en masse today. Degrowth being the mainstream Green ideology today is literally nothing but that once you squeeze out all the pretty words and go to what it means to "degrow humanity". They don't hide this either, just google the papers on Degrowth and read the shit that would make the most hardcore eugenicists of the 20th ce

  • It is the opposite of a free society, and can be observed on the small scale in any place subject to a mafia's whims.

    Want to do X or hire Y to do Z? Only if The Boss says it's okay. Otherwise, tough shit.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by sound+vision ( 884283 )

      You can't breathe money. The longer you deny that, the more the hunger grows for the Stalin you're so afraid of to arise and sweep you away.

      Personally, I'm a conservative. I'd rather keep capitalism and make it work for people. Your head-in-the-sand, "let them eat cake" attitude is not conducive to that. Neither is foaming at the mouth about mafia bosses or deep states. Meanwhile the adults are trying to solve problems. You are why "conservative" is a dirty word and the movement has no credibility.

      • All economic activity has costs of some kind.

        If I built a road, or a train track, or a bike path, or a dock, that's one epsilon less wild land for some bird to frolic in beyond the reach of Man. Question is, do I value that bird more than I value the utility we all get out of that road, or house, or factory. And even if I do, can I get broad consensus from society at large to seize that land by eminent domain so its owner can't build on it?

        If not, then demanding my employer not sell to that land's owner bec

  • These idiots act like we aren't switching off oil and natural gas quicker by choice, as if renewables were easy, if only we'd try!

    Out here in the real world, gas and oil are hard to replace mainly because rich kids' parents like theirs won't let anything be built anywhere near them. These kiddies are focusing on oil because they're radicalized and selfish.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      Out here in the real world, gas and oil are hard to replace mainly because rich kids' parents like theirs won't let anything be built anywhere near them. These kiddies are focusing on oil because they're radicalized and selfish.

      Their parents fought for oil, and they're fighting against oil, so they're selfish? OK there sport

      • No, it's that they're just playing with a fad, just like their parents did. If they actually cared about the subject, they'd stop virtue signaling that they hate oil, as if that's gonna reduce oil usage.

        • If you don't care about anything or anyone it's easy to assume that nobody else does, either. But the first thing to know about assuming everyone else is like you is that you're wrong.

      • so they're selfish?

        Yes. Well not just selfish, selfish implies they got theirs and are just keeping others down. They are, hypocritical too. In the current world it is not possible to sustain your quality of life without oil. Those who think otherwise simply have zero concept of how oil is fundamental to every aspect of our lives.

        This post brought to you by a PC made with lots of polymers that come from oil, aluminium manufacturer using coke made form oil, circuit boards manufactured with solvents that come from oil, shipped

  • Micro$oft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday May 13, 2024 @07:36AM (#64468451) Journal
    Imagine working for Microsoft for 10 years before realizing they were unethical. When the chairman of the board of your company is hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein after he was convicted.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HBI ( 10338492 )

      To be fair, the private affairs of Bill Gates did not become common knowledge until much later. Him screwing around on his wife, etc.

      • A while before today, bro.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HBI ( 10338492 )

          I was working for MSFT when it happened - it was after Gates had left any active role at the company. Somewhere in 2017-18? He left as chairman in '14.

          • Oh, I see what you are saying, I misunderstood before.

            Still though, that was just one example of many unethical things Microsoft does. No one joins Microsoft thinking, "I am now working at a charity." It's all business.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by HBI ( 10338492 )

              No question. I knew they were sleazeballs since the 1980s. I also knew my retirement planning was not up to snuff, and they fixed it during my 5 year purgatory there.

    • Never mind that. Imagine going to work for Microsoft 10 years ago and not already realizing they were unethical. I suppose way back in the '80s, before there was much in the way of a tech press or common internet access, one might have been able to be fooled and sign on to the house of gates without realizing that they were abandoning all ethics and principles. But anyone joining a decade ago... or, hell, any time since the "Windows isn't done until Lotus doesn't run." days... knew exactly what they were

    • Imagine working for Microsoft for 10 years before realizing they were unethical.

      I'm still trying to figure out what is "unethical" about a company selling a service to another company that is operating perfectly legally, providing a highly in demand energy product.

      I'm beginning to think we should keep a list of people involved in "just stop oil" campaigns and use that list to cut them off from all oil based services. No gas, no power sourced from oil and gas, no plastics, no lubricants, I honestly wonder how quickly these people's tune will change.

  • Not really (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday May 13, 2024 @08:27AM (#64468549)

    Microsoft's offerings aren't unlocking anything that wasn't available before. Oil majors largely use the cloud services to compensate for shitty laptops, not for doing advanced computational analysis. Actual production is unlocked through high performance computing which companies invested in themselves.

    Here's a list. And this list is just made up of companies which have published publicly their stats to the Top500 Supercomputer list. There are many in the industry who have not:

    24: HPC5 - Eni
    29: Discovery 5 - Exxon Mobil
    37: Dammam-7 - Saudi Aramco
    53: Gwahr-1 - Saudi Aramco
    60: Pangea-3 - Total Energies
    81: HPC-4 - Eni

    Several of these supercomputers are above many of the Microsoft Azure HPCs available for lease.

    • Oh I should also mention I only looked at the first page. There's more super computers owned by oil companies ranked between 200 and 500.

  • In a capitalist economy a for-profit company's goal is to maximize its profits for its shareholders, within the law but WITHOUT ANY ETHICAL OR MORAL CONSTRAINTS.

    • In a capitalist economy a for-profit company's goal is to maximize its profits for its shareholders

      And that's the best thing possible. Everywhere adopted, Capitalism lifts most people out of poverty within a generation, whereas Communism — after it is done killing off millions [researchgate.net] — keeps the survivors perpetually poor.

      Compare Soviet Estonia with Finland, Eastern vs. Western Germany, Northern vs. South Korea: identical peoples, same cultural and religious backgrounds, yet vastly different quality of

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by RUs1729 ( 10049396 )

        In a capitalist economy a for-profit company's goal is to maximize its profits for its shareholders

        And that's the best thing possible. Everywhere adopted, Capitalism lifts most people out of poverty within a generation, whereas Communism — after it is done killing off millions [researchgate.net] — keeps the survivors perpetually poor.

        Compare Soviet Estonia with Finland, Eastern vs. Western Germany, Northern vs. South Korea: identical peoples, same cultural and religious backgrounds, yet vastly different quality of life and prosperity levels.

        WITHOUT ANY ETHICAL OR MORAL CONSTRAINTS

        That's a false statement. Ethical and moral constraints have their role [lawliberty.org] and do affect business-decisions.

        Indeed: when ethical and moral considerations help with profit they are adopted; otherwise, they are ignored.

  • You mean they didn't setup camping in Nadella's office in protest? How do they expect to foment change without tents?

  • Wrong tree to bark at (Score:3)

    by bolek_b ( 246528 ) on Monday May 13, 2024 @09:40AM (#64468715) Homepage
    Some charts from Our World In Data [ourworldindata.org] - there are regions where oil consumption decreases (e.g. Europe), US remains rather stable. But not China - China shows a massive growth since around late '90s.

    By the way, can any country in the world sustain its army without oil? Especially in a conflict with equal-strength adversaries who don't limit themselves in this aspect? I believe a collapse of western fossil fuel industry would be a nice bonus for Xi's plans.

    • By the way, can any country in the world sustain its army without oil? Especially in a conflict with equal-strength adversaries who don't limit themselves in this aspect? I believe a collapse of western fossil fuel industry would be a nice bonus for Xi's plans.

      Could any nation sustain its navy without nuclear power? Especially in a conflict with a near-peer that doesn't restrict themselves from nuclear power?

      China doesn't fear any navy that lacks nuclear powered ships. A possible exception to that might be Japan, this is because Japan is close and by having nuclear power plants they can't have their energy supplies cut off in a naval blockade like so many other nations.

      World War Two showed that future naval warfare would depend on who had the best aircraft carr

      • You seem to have forgotten about the largest naval battles that were ever waged, and that exactly 0% of the ships involved were nuclear powered. This would have been in the period of 1939 to 1945, also known as World War 2.

        It can be done with diesel, and has been for like 80 years. Nuclear navies are obviously superior, but let's not pretend that it can't be done without when the most obvious glaring examples are right there on the History Channel like every hour of every day (unless they are showing abso

      • Could any nation sustain its navy without nuclear power? Especially in a conflict with a near-peer that doesn't restrict themselves from nuclear power?

        You can't nuclear power tanks, drones, or planes. But you can run navy on oil. Then answer is yes, you absolutely could sustain a navy without nuclear power. But more critically, just having a navy won't win you any wars.

  • so? (Score:2)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 )

    Are they putting forth some sort of idea that microsoft providing these services would put out more co2 than some other provider?

    How high up their buttocks are their heads anyway thinking that microsoft is in position to provide truly unique services for databases and analyzing?

    • Are they putting forth some sort of idea that microsoft providing these services would put out more co2 than some other provider?

      This is how "cancel culture" starts. You have a group pressure various organizations to deny services to some group in the hopes everyone follows along, and if enough people follow along then presumably the personae non gratae would fade away for lack of a market for their products or a platform from which to gain members.

      Like you I believe this to be a poorly thought out tactic since if there is profit in the business of fossil fuels then someone will want to participate in the business. This may be beca

  • Who do they think they are working for? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Monday May 13, 2024 @10:47AM (#64468903)
    Seems odd to me they would take an IT job. When they truly want to be activist, ordering others how to live. Guess they didn't like the activist pay scales!
  • Right now oil literally fuels our economy. Any obstruction to it will have the world economy go downhill, and those employees will be out on their asses. If they are so righteous, they can give up their cars, all their gadgets, and electric first.
    • over 90% of the tools and equipment these mindless MS minions use for their work environment, as well as the very clothes on their backs, relies on petroleum - e.g. crude oil

  • "Idiot resigns saving MS the trouble of sacking them"

  • O&G is needed for Chemical usage.
    What is NOT needed is burning O&G.
    So, MS should continue to sell services to O&G and deny it to those employees that drive their large LICE SUV to work.

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