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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

#111

Post by frontman1988 »

bachmeier wrote: post #62
_vdpp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 99% of climate change effort is social signaling, the other 1% is engineers and scientists working on more efficient, cleaner technologies. China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, and Iran combined produce about four times the GHG emissions of the US (and nearly half of all world emissions). Move forward in time 30 years and add in countries with large populations like Pakistan, and it's clear that making alternat…

> China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, and Iran combined produce about four times GHG emissions of the US

And? These countries combined have ten times the population of US and still only emit four times that of US. The per capita emissions of West are staggeringly high. Not to forget the west has already developed while these are all developing countries who will pollute more due to their growth phase. The responsibility of dealing with climate change primarily lies with the west only.

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

#112

Post by codekilla »

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…

I worked in the Broad building at Caltech (Eli Broad), and I watched for 2 years as they demoed the parking lot outside my office to build the 200 million dollar Chen neuroscience building. It is a complete and total waste of money, and I say that cognizant of arguments like 'attracting talent'...etc. At one point we calculated the number of neuroscience postdocs we could hire for that money and easily came to the conclusion that we could have pulled off a Manhattan project of neuroscience with that kind of money. It's pathetic that donors delude themselves into thinking that projects like this do ANY good.

Edit: link: https://www.henselphelps.com/project/chen-neuroscience-resea...

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

#113

Post by mrtnmcc »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #50
cure wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates also has a $500M short bet against Tesla. Exactly how big are all those efforts he's allegedly making to do something about climate change?

I wonder if he cashed that out in recent days now that his short position is in the money? If so then maybe he doubled (or better) his $500M and he can plow those profits into more philanthropy?

Bill entered the short position some time in 2020 (or earlier), so still not in the money.

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

#114

Post by jjulius »

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…

>First off, most of this funding will go to a building.

Gross.

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

#115

Post by sjg007 »

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…

All new construction in California has to have solar panels. So the long term end game is set.

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

#116

Post by dqpb »

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…

> Bezos Earth Fund

I assume this is to clean up all the trash Amazon sells?

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

#117

Post by suyash »

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.

Yes, even 10M for 100 Univ's and make Stanford one of them and then give more to which ever Univ makes most progress to the cause. One would think he would know how to hedge his money across since he is a VC.

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

#118

Post by valarauko »

codekilla wrote: post #112
supersync wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I worked in the Broad building at Caltech (Eli Broad), and I watched for 2 years as they demoed the parking lot outside my office to build the 200 million dollar Chen neuroscience building. It is a complete and total waste of money, and I say that cognizant of arguments like 'attracting talent'...etc. At one point we calculated the number of neuroscience postdocs we could hire for that money and easily came to the co…

wait, is the 200 million just for the building, or for the entire facility (new equipment, etc)? Building a new facility in itself seems a worthwhile enterprise - though as a postdoc myself I'd rather have pay bumps for the postdocs :)

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

#119

Post by renewiltord »

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.

Well, there are 300 million of us. With $3 each, we could do what this guy did. So, fine, I'll have a friend give $5 on my behalf to a 2nd tier school. Your turn.

https://imgur.com/a/H6vEUsY

Post here when each of you who are concerned have shown your concern through your own action.

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

#120

Post by photochemsyn »

bazzert wrote: post #45
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…

> The United States is more of a petro-state than most people realize or energy independent, depending on how you want to look at it.

This is one people get a bit confused about:

1) In 2021, the United States imported about 8.47 million barrels per day (b/d) of petroleum from 73 countries. (EIA)

2) In 2021, the United States exported about 8.63 million b/d of petroleum to 176 countries and 4 U.S. territories.

The reasons you can't just say, halt exports and halt imports and be 'energy independent' are varied: there's regional demand (oil produced in the Dakotas can't easily get to Los Angeles, etc.) and there's the fact that refineries are built to distill specific grades of crude, you can't just mix-and-match.

Nevertheless, the fact that Obama & Biden, with Republican support, lifted the 1970s era ban on crude oil exports from the USA in 2015 is certainly a major factor in the gas price inflation, a fact neither party nor industry likes to see discussed in the corporate media.

Real 'energy independence' would come from using sunlight and wind, which cannot be embargoed or manipulated by OPEC etc, as the primary energy source.

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