Why I abandoned Google


Opinion – No Planet B – By Peter Matthews.

Yesterday I changed my search engine. That is to say I set the default search engine in the web browsers on all my electronic devices to something other than Google. What is this madness?

Google reportedly processes around 70,000 search queries every second. That means six billion searches a day. That’s mainstream by anyone’s standards so you’d have to have a pretty good reason to deviate from that path, wouldn’t you? It is well known that Google has generated enormous wealth and continues to do so. As long ago as 2011 one of the founders spent $45 million on a superyacht. And there’s the reason – a superyacht is about as green as a bonfire in a coalfield with no reason for being other than the gratification of the owner. I do not propose to discuss whether or not any of us would choose a life of ultimate luxury were we able to afford it – I’ve done that in a previous column – but there is a better way.

It’s called Ecosia. It is a search engine founded by a 35-year-old called Christian Kroll, and it gives away 80% of its profits to tree-planting charities. Rather than a superyacht, Christian takes to an inflatable dinghy for his boating enjoyment, and he has placed legal restrictions on his company to ensure that shareholders and staff may never personally sell shares or take profits outside the company.

To date Ecosia has funded the planting of over 105 million trees and there are grand plans for expansion – and the future planting of billions of trees.

A couple of weeks ago a reader from Te Awamutu wrote to the editor to take issue with a column I wrote. I think his point was that I wasn’t being as green as I was claiming to be. Of course I welcome any kind of response to my thoughts because that makes it a discussion and the world is a better place for it. Anyway, this reader was talking about glomalin (search it on Ecosia), and the beneficial effects on the environment of this recently discovered substance. He also said that “Pasture locks far more soil carbon per hectare than forest.” My initial reaction to that statement was that it can’t possibly be true, but I think it might be a matter of semantics; pasture may lock more “soil” carbon than forest but that doesn’t take into account the biomass of the forest itself, which incidentally is rocking a fair bit of glomalin on its own account. However my aim here is not to prove anyone right or wrong – my aim is to encourage thought, debate, and where possible, action in the arena of conservation and climate change. I hope our Te Awamutu reader and I can both agree with Christian Kroll when he says – “Ego consumption is not appropriate in a world where there’s climate change.”

Therefore I would recommend that everybody uses Google one last time to find the Ecosia website – and take it from there.

More Recent News

The friendly five

19 September, 10am *The print version of this story incorrectly placed Crystal Beavis in the Jacqui Church camp. 18 September 8am It’s highly competitive – but it’s also very cordial. Five candidates – including the…

Scouts make waves

The winter cobwebs have been well and truly blown away. Scout cutters, kayaks and sunbursts took to Lake Rotoroa for the first official boating event of the organisation’s 2025/26 season with the 49th Alistair Kerr…

Money still unpaid

The resource consent application for a waste to energy plant in Te Awamutu remains suspended, a month after the applicant told The News its outstanding bill would be settled. The Environmental Protection Authority suspended processing…

Marae – like village halls

Tamahere residents have been given a different take on why they should support the retention of Waikato District Council’s Māori wards. Ngāruawāhia based Tilly Turner will be returned unopposed to the council’s Tai Runga Māori…