Jeff Bezos commits $10 billion to fight climate change

[denem]

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said Monday that he plans to spend $10 billion of his own fortune to help fight climate change.

Bezos, the world’s richest man, said in an Instagram post that he’ll start giving grants this summer to scientists, activists and nonprofits working to protect Earth.

“I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change,” Bezos said in the post.

Amazon, the company Bezos runs, has an enormous carbon foodprint. Last year, Amazon officials said the company would work to have 100% of its energy use come from solar panels and other renewable energy by 2030.

Read more: https://apnews.com/e70e69f121b2f45f76c31b96cd909cb5

[cstanleytech]

1. He should commit 1 billion against each of the Republicans running for the Senate

because their climate change denial is going to make things worse.

[ArizonaLib]

2. The other 9 should go to Democrats

Whatever split it takes to replace republicans with Democrats.

[Roy Rolling]

3. Good Points

I’m not endorsing it, but spending money to “buy elections” and then get the United States Congress to fund a vigorous and expensive climate change battle would be an ironic twist.

Where should $10 billion be spent to get the most for his money?

[cstanleytech]

4. I meant 1 billion against "each" of the Republicans.

[ArizonaLib]

5. It's a good idea.

nm

[bonniebgood]

20. that's exactly why I clicked on this post to say the same thing. thanks cstanleytech

[hibbing]

6. While he just established his own gas powered delivery fleet...n/t

[denem]

9. Electric delivery fleet

Amazon will purchase 100,000 electric delivery vans from startup Rivian as part of its newly announced plan to go carbon-neutral by 2040.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/22/amazon-carbon-neutrality-vans-1507280

[PSPS]

7. Good start but what good will the remaining 93% of his wealth be when all the ice is gone?

Privatizing public policy like this, where the future of humanity hangs on the whims of oligarchs, is not exactly the proper way to be handling this. Ideally, you need:

1. Public policy that commits governmental action and programs to address the problem
2. People pay taxes to fund the programs.

#1 can't happen with the GOP in the way
#2 can't happen with oligarchs dictating their own taxes (if any)

It is obscene that Bezos, the biggest oligarch in the US, has amassed a fortune of $160 billion. Nobody will ever need even 1% of that to fund their family's well being, including all future generations, in perpetuity. Anything over $1 billion in wealth should be taxed at 99%. Similarly, annual income over $1 million a year should be taxed at 99%. Nobody, and I mean nobody, needs more than $1 million of income a year.

[denem]

10. "Nobody, and I mean nobody, needs more than $1 million of income a year"

and that's what you mean by Democratic Socialism?

[PSPS]

12. I don't know where that came from but look at the pre-Reagan tax tables.

Or, better yet, the pre-Kennedy tax tables.

[denem]

14. 1959 tax tables (inflation adjusted)

Married (filing jointly)

Marginal Tax Rate
$1m - 80%
$2.3m - 90%
$3.1 - 91%

Not quite $1m - 100%

https://taxfoundation.org/us-federal-individual-income-tax-rates-history-1913-2013-nominal-and-inflation-adjusted-brackets/

[PSPS]

21. Looks a lot better than the giveaway to the parasite class we have now.

[Jim__]

8. Amazing that one person has that much cash lying around! - n/t

[ananda]

11. That pretty much solves nothing.

I think we know the science. Check.

We know what to do. Check.

We just need to do it. --- Still nothing.

More research and talk solves nothing.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. So shit on people actually doing something? Brilliant -- not.

Read the article again. It's not just talk.

Further, people are doing things, but the action is moving away from merely going carbon neutral but into areas of mitigation and reversal. There we DON'T have all the answers. There is a lot of science to do in those areas.

Plus there is a lot of organizing and activism to do and to put pressure on people to do the right thing. Society itself needs re-organizing and people need retraining for green jobs and carbon neutral business practices. Thus there are lots of issues of education and public administration to sort out.

If you think you have ANY answers, apply for a grant.

For example, if you think that all the issues for architecture and urban planning are known and figured out, then go get a grant to get them APPLIED.

[still_one]

17. You noticed that too. Someone does something good, and they spit in their eye

Really sad that some won't even acknowledge when someone does something good

[not fooled]

13. Well, better than squandering it on flaky space travel schemes

but he will continue to evade paying taxes on Amazon's massive profits.

And, I'm not a fan of policy-by-oligarch-whim. See: Anand Giridharadas, e.g.

[link:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/wealth-philanthropy-fake-change.html|

At first, you think: Rich people making a difference — so generous! Until you consider that America might not be in the fix it’s in had we not fallen for the kind of change these winners have been selling: fake change.

Fake change isn’t evil; it’s milquetoast. It is change the powerful can tolerate. It’s the shoes or socks or tote bag you bought which promised to change the world. It’s that one awesome charter school — not equally funded public schools for all. It is Lean In Circles to empower women — not universal preschool. It is impact investing — not the closing of the carried-interest loophole.

Of course, world-changing initiatives funded by the winners of market capitalism do heal the sick, enrich the poor and save lives. But even as they give back, American elites generally seek to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm.

What their “change” leaves undisturbed is our winners-take-all economy, which siphons the gains from progress upward. The average pretax income of America’s top 1 percent has more than tripled since 1980, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold, even as the average income of the bottom half of Americans stagnated around $16,000, adjusted for inflation, according to a paper by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

[pansypoo53219]

15. i do like you could add you do NOT want next day shipping.

[SharonAnn]

18. I'd prefer that he start by paying his employees better.

[ffr]

19. That is awesome! Get thee to the greatest page

It deserves the recognition!

[Alex4Martinez]

22. "100% of its energy use" had better include transportation and shipping, not just it's utility bill.

Amazon's carbon footprint is mostly from the manufacture and transportation related to the goods it sells.

The only way to zero out its carbon is to go out of business.

This pledge is better than nothing, it's a very good start.

[RealityChik]

23. Kind of a misnomer...

I'm confident he would spend billions to fight [ against ] climate change. He's just search for good press. If he REALLY wanted to do his share for climate change, he would stop driving his employees to grabbing the nearest box even if it's 3 feet long just to pack and ship a 2 inch item out of fear of losing their job for not meeting their hourly quota!

Packed in miles of bubble wrap with enough packing tape to secure Fort Knox!

As an aside: now that he is divorced, I'm surprised he's not dating a robot!