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Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

nytimes.com

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Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#91

Post by legitster »

adventured wrote: post #88
legitster wrote: post #38

$10b is an insane initial endowment. That's about a quarter of what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have after 20 years. It would be nice to have more details about the goals or objectives.

It's a huge initial endowment for sure. It would be a little more fair to include the other $50 billion the Gates Foundation has already given (ie they're up around $100 billion so far, with perhaps another $250 billion yet to come). The Gates Foundation has ~$45-$50 billion in assets currently and has given away more than $50 billion thus far (~$23 billion of that giving is from Warren Buffett's contributions; Buffe…

Thanks! Those are some really interesting numbers.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#92

Post by selectstatement »

jschwartzi wrote: post #66
tdstein wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing shit information like this is why the average human is blocking climate change out. No one is suggesting going back to the Stone Age. Your plastic straw use isn’t warming the planet. But, you should consider the impact flying a jet has on the earth.

Or eating meat. Or drinking milk. Or eating cheese. or eating corn. Or the thousand and one little things that you can do to vote with your wallet. And remember the point of the exercise doesn't have to be to stop doing it completely, but to do less of it and to consider whether you really want or need that. It's a far cry between maybe ordering the 8 oz instead of the 12 oz steak versus burning your house down and k…

Why can't I just keep doing whatever I want and offset my carbon like these kinds of initiatives do?

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#93

Post by rpiguy »

tpmx wrote: post #46
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the gross revenue of a public company he owns some of have to do with it?

Just for your sake I included the market cap as well. Edit: Seriously: this topic seems really hot. So many people seem to care about it when it's spoken about in a negative way. Maybe calm down a bit? Am I experiencing outright bullying right now? That's not a great visual for anyone, just saying.

It’s incredibly difficult to present a dissenting opinion on certain topics here because of the downvoting system. It used to bother me to see points go down (upon reflection the upvote/downvote system really seems to reward groupthink). I think it would better to just have upvotes.

The way the system is designed today the only people who will present a dissenting opinion on a hot topic are either very inured to social pressure, or intentionally trolling.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#94

Post by rapind »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #78
inerte wrote: post #20

After reading Winners Take All my level of cynicism is through the roof with headlines like this. $10b of his own personal fortune? That won't results in tax breaks / deduction because can be considered a donation? Or does that include money Amazon-the-company is spending on "climate change" efforts, such as buying electric delivery trucks instead of gas ones? Investments in "green datacenters"? Is any of this new in…

As others said, why should it matter? I would be happy even if he got an 100% tax credit. what percent of tax revenue would have gone to climate change vs bombing some civilians in Afghanistan.

We shouldn't care because it's better that a billionaire chooses where that money goes instead of a democratically elected government?

I'm not poking fun either. That's really what you seem to be saying. Does this still work if he puts this money towards a cause you're not keen of?

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#95

Post by bensonn »

This says he "commits" 10B to a new initiative named after himself. What do terms like "commits" and "pledges" mean? From the article it looks like all he did was post on Instagram.

Is there more to this than an IG post? Is there anything legally binding, anything that actually moves the money outside of his control? Did his networth just drop 10B?

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#96

Post by inerte »

planetzero wrote: post #58
inerte wrote: post #20

After reading Winners Take All my level of cynicism is through the roof with headlines like this. $10b of his own personal fortune? That won't results in tax breaks / deduction because can be considered a donation? Or does that include money Amazon-the-company is spending on "climate change" efforts, such as buying electric delivery trucks instead of gas ones? Investments in "green datacenters"? Is any of this new in…

Why does this matter? If he truly is pledging $10B, it can only be a win for society and the future of humanity. It shouldn't really matter if he gets a tax break or not.

Well, three things.

First of all, I searched and couldn't find he's actually giving $10b. What I mean is that I don't know if the $10b accounts for any Amazon investments / costs.

Second, it's not -$10b if he's getting a tax break for some of this. It's $7.6b as someone else mentioned. I know, still a lot of money! But he's not loosing $10b from his fortune.

Third, in this case you happen to think it's a win for society and the future of humanity. Other billionaires give money for causes they believe, like The Koch family for "advancing liberty and freedom", or Bloomberg advocating for a third term as mayor. The lack of accountability for the influence billionaires have in our society should be a concern. We praise when they give to causes we believe, but the system that allows them to do this has nefarious byproducts. It's like we're watching billionaires shape our society and our culture and think that's alright.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#97

Post by thstart »

adventured wrote: post #88
legitster wrote: post #38

$10b is an insane initial endowment. That's about a quarter of what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have after 20 years. It would be nice to have more details about the goals or objectives.

It's a huge initial endowment for sure. It would be a little more fair to include the other $50 billion the Gates Foundation has already given (ie they're up around $100 billion so far, with perhaps another $250 billion yet to come). The Gates Foundation has ~$45-$50 billion in assets currently and has given away more than $50 billion thus far (~$23 billion of that giving is from Warren Buffett's contributions; Buffe…

$210 billion in cash?

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#98

Post by admiral33 »

beachy wrote: post #34

On one level this is to be applauded. On another, shipping cheap plastic junk from China all over the world, to finish up in landfill a few years later, is the very definition of environmental vandalism and is Amazon's core business model.

If it winds up in a landfill consider that a success.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#99

Post by jordigh »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #7

Do we know how much emissions can be attributed to Amazon / AWS? I'm curious if this $10 billion fund could offset that or if it's too small to cover their own use. Though, to be fair to Amazon, this is at least a good goal: > Amazon expects 80% of its energy use to come from renewable energy sources by 2024, up from a current rate of 40%, before transition to zero emissions by 2030.

> Do we know how much emissions can be attributed to Amazon / AWS?

No, the CDP routinely gives Amazon an F grade because they don't disclose anything:

https://www.cdp.net/en/responses/658?queries%255Bname%255D%3...

The purpose of the CDP is precisely for this kind of public shaming or praising, for keeping track of which companies are reporting what. Amazon is really bad for not disclosing anything.

Compare with Google:

https://www.cdp.net/en/responses?utf8=%E2%9C%93&queries%5Bna...

You can even read Google's reports here (I ignore most of the fluff and go straight to the appendix that has the actual numbers):

https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/google_2019-enviro...

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#100

Post by rpiguy »

hurricanetc wrote: post #27
rpiguy wrote: post #2

Billionaire invests $10B dollars to virtue signal and control the behavior of the poor, while not changing his lifestyle at all. 165M dollar environmentally excessive mansion, private jets, and a rocket program that dumps carbon into the air. I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves, rather than just write checks. Checks are important, but let’s be real about these people.

Who cares? $10 billion could fully fund global fusion research for the next 5-10 years.

I would be thrilled if that were the case!
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