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Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

nytimes.com

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Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#81

Post by wolverine876 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #48
olivermarks wrote: post #43

'Mr. Doerr joins a growing list of ultrawealthy men donating huge sums of money to the fight against global warming. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in 2020 said he was committing $10 billion of his own money to a new initiative he called the Bezos Earth Fund, and last year detailed how some of the money would be spent. Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, said in 2019 he would spend $500 million to help close co…

I too feel somewhat skeptical & cynical... but given the political situation in the US, and specifically the deadlock in the US Senate (filibuster), the philanthropy of billionaires seems like one of the most viable ways towards making progress at this point. It's not ideal, but we don't seem to have a lot of other viable options at this point.

> given the political situation in the US, and specifically the deadlock in the US Senate (filibuster), the philanthropy of billionaires seems like one of the most viable ways towards making progress at this point

It's probably not coincidence that the party that serves the power of the wealthy does things in the Senate to shift power to the wealthy.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#82

Post by atlasunshrugged »

photochemsyn wrote: post #40

Stanford's last major foray into this area was "The Global Climate and Energy Project"... a major sponsor was ExxonMobil. As you might guess, that didn't really do much in the way of producing renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels... more like a green PR initiative. Somehow I don't think oil companies are thrilled about everyone driving EVs and seeing their market share collapse. https://gcep.stanford.edu/abo…

Doesn't petro-state imply heavy economic dependence on energy sources for government tax revenue? I don't think that's the case in America and if it were we'd see far more federal involvement in the sector even with state run companies and far fewer tax breaks for the industry.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#83

Post by RosanaAnaDana »

_vdpp wrote: post #41
perihelions wrote: post #33

They don't even have a nuclear engineering department! They might as well endow a theology seminary; it's the same category of problem-solving. This is mainly prestige signalling, isn't it? He's a Silicon Valley oligarch, and this is the elite Silicon Valley school. If there's some additional, meritocratic factor specific to Stanford, for this type of billion-dollar gift... what is it? edit: Perhaps it's synergies wi…

99% of climate change effort is social signaling, the other 1% is engineers and scientists working on more efficient, cleaner technologies. What I see here is lots of money for talks, articles, conferences, and “awareness.” Climate conferences are always held in nice places that you have to fly to. They’d do more for the environment by taking that money and paying people to pick up trash on the side of the highway. O…

Thats simply not true. Engineering 'solutions' to climate change like more efficient or cleaner technologies, or things like direct air capture are also social signaling, although more veiled and perhaps self delusional. These solutions are the equivalent of building more lanes on a highway instead of going with public transportation solutions. If anything many of these technologies may end up making climate change demonstrably worse through increased consumption.

The only real solution to climate change is to decrease the rate of consumption and the overall size of the human population. 'Technical' solutions to climate change aren't. They'll simply increase our bandwidth for pollution.

The answers to climate change aren't technical, they're social. Society needs to become comfortable with the idea that doing less, being less productive and less consumptive, are fine. UBI, socialized healthcare, a guarantee of a basic social safety net so people can be very unproductive and still live safe, reasonably comfortable lives is what we need to solve climate change.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#84

Post by devoutsalsa »

supersync wrote: post #20
daterdots wrote: post #11

I am concerned about the incredible concentration of money and resources into a few academic institutions. Obviously Stanford is an incredible school, but I am not sure Stanford will do more with $1B than 10 2nd tier schools would do with $100M each.

This is a very fair concern. First off, most of this funding will go to a building. The rest will go mostly to an endowment. The concentration of mega-gifts at the top has very perverse impacts. Harvard built a $100M building a few years ago that is used by a total of 100 people a year. Philanthropy combines prestige, PR, and “legacy” in a way that massively overvalued those three vs. any kind of measurable impact. T…

John wanted his name on the Doerr.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#85

Post by wolverine876 »

tofuahdude wrote: post #65
olivermarks wrote: post #43

'Mr. Doerr joins a growing list of ultrawealthy men donating huge sums of money to the fight against global warming. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in 2020 said he was committing $10 billion of his own money to a new initiative he called the Bezos Earth Fund, and last year detailed how some of the money would be spent. Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, said in 2019 he would spend $500 million to help close co…

Taking private money and making it public for the purpose of combating a global crisis is objectively a good thing. Cynical paranoia is not helping.

> Cynical paranoia is not helping.

I agree.

> Taking private money and making it public for the purpose of combating a global crisis is objectively a good thing.

It doesn't necessarily work out that way. It can distort the market and consume resources. For example (and IIRC from a journal article about 10 years ago), in western Africa philanthropic funding from a foundation went toward treatment for a disease (AIDS?); their money bought up all the healthcare resources, including medical personnel, diverting them from where they could have saved more lives.

More broadly, that much money is not just economic activity but also power, and it can be misused even with the best intentions.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#86

Post by hervature »

tofuahdude wrote: post #63
perihelions wrote: post #33

They don't even have a nuclear engineering department! They might as well endow a theology seminary; it's the same category of problem-solving. This is mainly prestige signalling, isn't it? He's a Silicon Valley oligarch, and this is the elite Silicon Valley school. If there's some additional, meritocratic factor specific to Stanford, for this type of billion-dollar gift... what is it? edit: Perhaps it's synergies wi…

> They don't even have a nuclear engineering department! Why criticize that they're establishing something on the basis of not having something?

The implication they are making is that nuclear power will solve the climate problem.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#88

Post by defterGoose »

dr_orpheus wrote: post #61
aresant wrote: post #13

The most encouraging signal on climate to me is that the “money” seems to finally be waking up. ESG policies - backed by data monitoring requirements to combat greenwashing from sovereign wealth funds are real, arduous, and creating business and capital incentives with environmental alignment. Early stage climate tech funds - of which their are many today where there were few even a few years ago - are giving a new g…

> Early stage climate tech funds An interesting fact in this vein is that by some estimates 14% of all venture capital is going towards climate tech [0]. Its a pretty broad category and really a hard number to pin down but it is still encouraging. They define "climate tech" as something that: 1. Directly mitigate or remove emissions 2. Help us to adapt to the impacts of climate change 3. Enhance our understanding of…

They/you forgot:

0: Establish venture-funded "marketplaces" for various climate-facing tokens to skim value while providing no real value-add.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#89

Post by whack »

wolverine876 wrote: post #78
KMag wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some loopholes with donations, mostly regarding difficult-to-value benefits and also around donating dificult-to-value things rather than cash, stocks, and/or bonds. But, if you donate $1.1 billion to an eligible charity (and claim to have gotten nothing in return), then the US government basically pretends that you never made that money, and your tax bill goes down by roughly your marginal tax rate times t…

> But, if you donate $1.1 billion to an eligible charity (and claim to have gotten nothing in return), then the US government basically pretends that you never made that money, and your tax bill goes down by roughly your marginal tax rate times the size of the donation. There are limits and caveats, but in general, it's a pretty fair treatment. I think it's highly unfair in that it shifts decisions on social spending…

The US government gets $0.16B less that it can control in social spending. But in return, a regulated non-profit institution gets $1.1B more in its budget. That's a pretty good tradeoff for the social good.

For an alternative way of looking at things - almost any economist would tell you that it is wise to tax negative externalities and subsidize positive externalities. This is one of the most foundational insights from microeconomics. And charitable giving is the closest to an ideal positive externality that you will find. Person spends money to a cause because it makes him feel good to do so. That transaction ends up helping other 3rd parties as well. Textbook positive externality.

https://www.economicshelp.org/micro-economic-essays/marketfa...

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#90

Post by tofuahdude »

wolverine876 wrote: post #85
tofuahdude wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking private money and making it public for the purpose of combating a global crisis is objectively a good thing. Cynical paranoia is not helping.

> Cynical paranoia is not helping. I agree. > Taking private money and making it public for the purpose of combating a global crisis is objectively a good thing. It doesn't necessarily work out that way. It can distort the market and consume resources. For example (and IIRC from a journal article about 10 years ago), in western Africa philanthropic funding from a foundation went toward treatment for a disease (AIDS?)…

Is there any negative externality in this particular version? Opening a new school to educate future generations such that they contribute new solutions seems totally positive to me.
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