Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#51

Post by Grimm1 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

santoshalper wrote: post #42

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is, equities are ill suited incentives for even economic profits, let alone environmental "profits." What is your alternative proposal? It's not like Amazon's $2B investment in climate tech is mutually exclusive with government initiatives or other climate research. It's another angle to approach the problem, using the tools they have at their disposal. I don't understand the desire to assume the most cyni…

They could pay taxes and we could, as a nation, decide how best to coordinate efforts to fight climate change.

I don't trust the nation to coordinate tying shoes much less fighting climate change. Our federal system is broken and our populace is generally ignorant on scientific matters relying on it to bring sweeping changes at this point in time would be a critical misstep.

I think the best think individuals can do at the moment is vote to bring in new blood on both sides of the aisle, subsequently vote reform on local levels and for education reform then wait a decade or two and then vote to reform our federal systems.

In the meantime backing long term thinking companies and boycotting bad acting companies because the private sector is going to have to shoulder the fight until we fix the government. In the meantime

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#52

Post by bloudermilk » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

toomanymike wrote: post #28

Anyone have pointers to interesting companies in the climate tech space? Or tips for finding them?

A group of us built the open source website https://climatescape.org for exactly this purpose. You can browse by sector and technology.

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#53

Post by dave5104 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

santoshalper wrote: post #42

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is, equities are ill suited incentives for even economic profits, let alone environmental "profits." What is your alternative proposal? It's not like Amazon's $2B investment in climate tech is mutually exclusive with government initiatives or other climate research. It's another angle to approach the problem, using the tools they have at their disposal. I don't understand the desire to assume the most cyni…

They could pay taxes and we could, as a nation, decide how best to coordinate efforts to fight climate change.

Are you implying that Amazon is not paying the taxes they're legally required to?

If not, then I don't think the problem is solved by saying they "could pay taxes" since they already are, but rather that the government could be levying more taxes on businesses like Amazon.

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#54

Post by gregdunn » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

TotempaaltJ wrote: post #32

depr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases, Amazon uses e.g. subsidied wind energy for new data centers. However, this means the renewable energy is not going to neighboring homes, which are instead still using non-renewables.

I think Google is not just being renewable energy, but also building new solar/wind farms to "offset" their use so this is not the case. Maybe Amazon is doing something similar?

>Maybe Amazon is doing something similar?

Yep!

https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/sustainab...

Disclaimer: Amazon employee, not speaking on behalf of the company, just posting a link to something I am aware of.

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#55

Post by PragmaticPulp » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

lukifer wrote: post #47

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is, equities are ill suited incentives for even economic profits, let alone environmental "profits." What is your alternative proposal? It's not like Amazon's $2B investment in climate tech is mutually exclusive with government initiatives or other climate research. It's another angle to approach the problem, using the tools they have at their disposal. I don't understand the desire to assume the most cyni…

> What is your alternative proposal? According to the "The Largest Public Statement of Economists in History": a carbon tax and dividend [0]. The technology of markets is one of price signals and feedback loops, generally on time horizons between nano-second HFTs and quarterly earnings reports. Ecological events, occurring on the scale of decades or centuries, require governments (or other forms of collective action)…

> At any rate, I completely agree that there's nothing wrong with this initiative. Every bit potentially helps; I don't see this diverting resources from other efforts.

That was the point I was trying to make. Amazon's $2B investment isn't mutually exclusive with government efforts to combat climate change. It's additive.

The knee-jerk reactions to Amazon's climate initiatives from the HN comments are disappointing.

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#56

Post by reizorc » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,... CO2 will need to be reduced ...to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that - Hansen et al.(2008)" [1]

Neutral is not enough. So I hope they will be plowing large amounts of the fund into negative-emissions technologies. Either that or make large swathes of the planet into a disco ball.

[1] Young People's Burden: Requirement of Negative CO2 Emissions. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1609/1609.05878.pdf

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#57

Post by Kalium » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

bttrfl wrote: post #49

Kalium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. Let's say a magic wand is waved, and all of us Americans have bikeable and walkable cities with excellent public transportation. Let's say this happens literally overnight. How do you expect this would change Amazon's logistics and how favorable they are for consumers? For my part, at the very least, I'm still likely to get a lot of things delivered. Local stores are very rarely cheaper for anything non-immediate…

Perhaps, we should wave this magic wand to make you order less stuff? No tech can save us unless we start to consume less. Also, we should care less about optimising our time which we are likely to waste anyway on netflix and co.

I'm a very strange person in many ways. I personally prefer to be able to make my own choices about how I waste away my free time - Netflix, books, biking, walks, prayer, meditation, yoga, etc. Trading that in for spending more time to get my groceries (or toiletries, or dry goods, or similar) does not sound like an attractive choice to me.

I understand that this is an unusual personality trait. Still, I'm reluctant to give it up.

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#58

Post by tosers4 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #45

ronnier wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker news is a total unnecessary luxury. By using it, you are contributing to the problem. This website consumes resources and energy to run and view.

It's actually a very efficient website ;)

Sure! but even if it's environmental costs are close to 0, it is not 0 and you are using it without an actual need. as GP said, it's luxury

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#59

Post by lukifer » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #55

lukifer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is your alternative proposal? According to the "The Largest Public Statement of Economists in History": a carbon tax and dividend [0]. The technology of markets is one of price signals and feedback loops, generally on time horizons between nano-second HFTs and quarterly earnings reports. Ecological events, occurring on the scale of decades or centuries, require governments (or other forms of collective action)…

> At any rate, I completely agree that there's nothing wrong with this initiative. Every bit potentially helps; I don't see this diverting resources from other efforts. That was the point I was trying to make. Amazon's $2B investment isn't mutually exclusive with government efforts to combat climate change. It's additive. The knee-jerk reactions to Amazon's climate initiatives from the HN comments are disappointing.

Yes, I agree. There are arguably some corporate initiatives that are trivial PR stunts, or attempts to pre-empt government intervention; but $2B is a big chunk of change, and this doesn't seem like either.

From Amazon's perspective, this a good move (and I'm sure as much in the interests of their bottom line as long-term planetary altruism). But from a citizen's perspective, we shouldn't rest on our laurels and assume that corporations and private investment will solve the problem on their own.

Re: Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

#60

Post by oh_sigh » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

reizorc wrote: post #56

"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,... CO2 will need to be reduced ...to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that - Hansen et al.(2008)" [1] Neutral is not enough. So I hope they will be plowing large amounts of the fund into negative-emissions technologies. Either that or make large swathes of the planet into a disco ball.…

Proactively attempting to change the planet to fit our presumed desires seems even more irresponsible than trying to simply negate our effect on the planet. And realistically, the planet was more like an iceball than it is today for a vast majority of the timeline of homo sapiens.