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Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

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Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#91

Post by pfannkuchen »

colechristensen wrote: post #32
boeingUH60 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos’s annual reported income during these years of $832 million put him only at number 15. He paid an effective tax rate of 23.2% ; as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods. https://www.propublica.org/article/americas-top-15-earners-a...

>as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods. This is the part people are bothered by. Regardless of why, billionaires should never be paying $0 in federal income taxes. Our tax code and the people finding loopholes in it should not do this. Executives should not be able to be "unpaid" for years because they'r…

> paying $0 in federal income taxes

> a year with no taxes

These are two very different things, and the former does not imply the latter.

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#92

Post by ch4s3 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #75
ch4s3 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my my that any time there is an attempt to invest in the built environment of poor communities, someone always cries gentrification.

They're not entirely wrong: if you make some area nicer, people with more money still start outbidding people with less money to live there. The solution is to fix the situation with housing: * Enable vastly more housing supply so there's less direct 'competition' with people competing for housing slots * Protect tenants' rights to housing stability; if you haven't broken any rules, you should generally be able to st…

Yes, I too am pro building more housing. It's generally the people that call restoring parks or adding bike lanes "gentrification" that oppose building more housing.

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#93

Post by Havoc »

kasey_junk wrote: post #66
Havoc wrote: post #39

Quite confused by this. Trees and parks are obviously beneficial in numerous real ways. ...but if you ask someone that is really struggling I doubt their answer as to what they need is "more trees outside my door". From my admittedly ignorant and priviledged position the answer is more likely to be "I can't apply to jobs if i don't have internet". With people that have their back against the wall you have to address…

I’ve done volunteer work (tangentially) with one of the organizations that got a grant in Chicago. They are very much grassroots, very much from an extremely disadvantaged area, and are routinely praised by their constituents. Turns out that poor people have diverse needs and desires, some of which is access to clean green spaces.

>Turns out that poor people have diverse needs and desires, some of which is access to clean green spaces.

Indeed. As I said I'm not denying said needs, but simply suggesting prioritizing more existential ones.

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#94

Post by Havoc »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #70
Havoc wrote: post #39

Quite confused by this. Trees and parks are obviously beneficial in numerous real ways. ...but if you ask someone that is really struggling I doubt their answer as to what they need is "more trees outside my door". From my admittedly ignorant and priviledged position the answer is more likely to be "I can't apply to jobs if i don't have internet". With people that have their back against the wall you have to address…

As someone that lives in an underserved community... the most impactful thing any billionaire could do is to just give the people living in these communities money directly. Trees are one of those things we know have some impact on quality of life, whether they're mental health benefits from spending time in nature, or temperature impacts in urban areas (poorer neighborhoods have less vegetation, and therefore locall…

> people here don't care about trees because they're much further down on the hierarchy of needs

Agreed - that's precisely my point

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#95

Post by notatoad »

Havoc wrote: post #93
kasey_junk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve done volunteer work (tangentially) with one of the organizations that got a grant in Chicago. They are very much grassroots, very much from an extremely disadvantaged area, and are routinely praised by their constituents. Turns out that poor people have diverse needs and desires, some of which is access to clean green spaces.

>Turns out that poor people have diverse needs and desires, some of which is access to clean green spaces. Indeed. As I said I'm not denying said needs, but simply suggesting prioritizing more existential ones.

fixing fixable problems is always a good thing. planting trees is one of those things that doesn't tend to start a culture war.

poor people have a lot of existential needs, but providing food, housing, or health care tends to draw out the people who think that's a bad thing.

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#96

Post by phatskat »

dannyobrien wrote: post #79
phatskat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never attribute to irony what can be attributed to fuckery. I don’t know Bezos or Amazon’s stance on cops but I do know that corporations loooooove police - it’s where cops came from. I wouldn’t be surprised if this infusion is specifically to detract from the bad press of Cop City. Oh wait, I do know Amazon’s stance - I was lying, you see. Amazon, via Ring, has really cozied up to law enforcement. The terms of what…

Do you have any pointers to the history of cops coming from corporations? In the UK, they came out of a government response against the inefficiencies of volunteer enforcement groups in the 19th century, and were mostly opposed by civil liberties groups (including the City of London, which was, I believe, was an institution dominated by merchant interests even then).

The podcast miniseries Behind the Police does a better job with the details, but policing in the US came out of two places: in the north, it came out of protecting the assets of businesses. In the south it was the same thing, but those assets were…people. Either way, policing came from the need for those with money to protect their “property”.

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#97

Post by phatskat »

Evidlo wrote: post #80
phatskat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never attribute to irony what can be attributed to fuckery. I don’t know Bezos or Amazon’s stance on cops but I do know that corporations loooooove police - it’s where cops came from. I wouldn’t be surprised if this infusion is specifically to detract from the bad press of Cop City. Oh wait, I do know Amazon’s stance - I was lying, you see. Amazon, via Ring, has really cozied up to law enforcement. The terms of what…

What does it mean to attribute something to irony?

I was just making riffing on the quote “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”.

The idea there being that OP said it was ironic, and my guess is that it’s less ironic and more intentional.

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#99

Post by bobthepanda »

Havoc wrote: post #93
kasey_junk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve done volunteer work (tangentially) with one of the organizations that got a grant in Chicago. They are very much grassroots, very much from an extremely disadvantaged area, and are routinely praised by their constituents. Turns out that poor people have diverse needs and desires, some of which is access to clean green spaces.

>Turns out that poor people have diverse needs and desires, some of which is access to clean green spaces. Indeed. As I said I'm not denying said needs, but simply suggesting prioritizing more existential ones.

Trees are more existential than it seems.

In urban areas, poor people are the most likely to lack air conditioning. Trees provide shade, preventing absorbent materials below like concrete and asphalt from absorbing heat and baking; and they also evaporate water, cooling the air.

As the climate continues to change, a lot of places will become more susceptible to heat-related death. Trees are a fairly uncontroversial way to mitigate at least some of that; some estimates have the cooling effect as high as 12 C. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2298675-trees-cool-the-...

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#100

Post by kthejoker2 »

LOLTITTIES wrote: post #12
kevmo wrote: post #3

Be better if he just paid taxes.

In the (great) scenario that Bezos spends his money to do good, he likely spends his dollars more efficiently than the government does.

"His" doing a lot of lifting in this comment.

And I strongly disagree with the premise we should let our capitalist and genetic lottery winners solely determine what problems society needs solving.

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