11 ms·

Microsoft’s quest to go ‘carbon negative’ inspires $1B fund

223 points by frankdenbow 7y ago

p0nce 7y ago
In countries where VAT tax exist, the whole chain of value pay a fraction of the added value they produce. It works with a differential between the VAT you bought vs the VAR you charged. Why wouldn't we don't adopt a similar system for carbon? The fiscal framework would be very similar. This way a company wouldn't have to know how much carbon have been produced by its suppliers; it only need to count its own.
- vnorilo 7y ago
  Carbon tax is a great idea, and I would support a proposal such as yours. However, I am afraid it is not a question of implementation, but of dealing with vested interests.
  - eru 7y ago
    Yes. Unfortunately it's much easier to get supported for green boondoggles that cost the government a lot of money for little gain; than for a money-spinning carbon tax.
  - mlrtime 7y ago
    Cabon and other "sin" taxes are a great way to influence change. However we should be lowering income and property taxes at the same time to help with these vested interests.
    - cyborgx7 7y ago
      > However we should be lowering income and property taxes at the same time to help with these vested interests. What makes you think they need to allow a carbon tax for that? They seem to be doing fairly well at lowering those how they want to without any concessions?
    - frandroid 7y ago
      That's what BC did. Its ideologically conservative government at the time introduced a carbon tax going into general revenues, and lowered general taxes, so that the carbon tax is revenue-neutral.
    - ttul 7y ago
      An alarm bell goes off any time someone suggests lowering PROPERTY taxes... ugh. Property taxes should be way higher in most parts of the world to disincentivized speculation.
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Yeah my local town removed property tax for new development. In fact, they instituted a TIF (tax incentive fund?) which means the developer gets the property taxes free and clear for new buildings. The city is going broke, but the council is dominated by developer-sponsored shills so its hard to fix.
      - papreclip 7y ago
        lower the taxes for primary residence only, then
    - labawi 7y ago
      As has been said. Evenly distribute tax to the people, basic income style. They will be better off, problem solved.
  - Gsnds 7y ago
    Yes, More Taxes, truly the magical elixir of the modern era
    - scotty79 7y ago
      Do you have a better idea how to convey the information about true cost of action to the market? You can't let it assume the cost is 0 like it did for last 200 years.
      - misun78 7y ago
        As others have suggested, a corresponding decrease in income and corporate tax such that you get a revenue neutral framework with no additional wasteful government spending would be supported by many, including those on the right. This may also have an additional effect on neutralizing any downwards economic impact from the carbon taxation.
- dgellow 7y ago
  A Carbon Added Tax? Is that different from the carbon tax that is already applied in lot of places? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax The wikipedia article says this: > A carbon tax is also an indirect tax—a tax on a transaction—as opposed to a direct tax, which taxes income. A carbon tax is called a price instrument, since it sets a price for carbon dioxide emissions.[22] In economic theory, pollution is considered a negative externality, a negative effect on a third party not directly involved in a transaction, and is a type of market failure. That sounds close to what you describe.
- wczekalski 7y ago
  Such proposals are suggested over and over at the climate related summits. Most recently on COP25. Here’s a bit more about it: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/12/01/at-cop25-policymakers-will-try-to-lay-plans-for-a-global-carbon-market https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/12/01/at-cop25...
- usrusr 7y ago
  A far more streamlined implementation would be to simply apply a fee at resource extraction time on everything combustible taken out of the ground. It would do a little collateral taxation on carbon that ends up as unburnt plastics, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (if you want maximum accuracy, pay some back for non-degradable carbon upon reaching a landfill, the only form of sequestering that is used at scale) Unfortunately I can't imagine how diplomacy could achieve something like that, given the extremely uneven distribution of resource extraction industries. Despite that it wouldn't even hurt the big oil nations, considering that they would not have a lot of difficulties passing on the cost to their buyers (assuming full global enforcement). The biggest logical opponents would not be oil/gas states like Saudi Arabia or Russia but those whose only domestic geological energy sources is carbon-inefficient coal. (Edit: cleared up some illegible grammar and editing clutter)
  - radicalbyte 7y ago
    ..and forest fires, deforestation, land use, methane from rubbish dumps, methane from permafrost and a thousand other things. Still adding a large carbon tax directly at the source gives us pretty much the best bang-for-the-buck. It would have to be combined with deforestation taxes too otherwise you'll see countries like Brazil go into overdrive to export "green fuel".
    - usrusr 7y ago
      Methane is a powerful short term GHG, but long term only the CO2 left by decayed methane is relevant. Forest fires etc are completely temporary, contemporary trees are not geologically sequestered.
  - scotty79 7y ago
    > Unfortunately I can't imagine how diplomacy could achieve something like that, given the extremely uneven distribution of resource extraction industries. You can still tax resource extraction industries in your country and importers of energy resources (if country of origin has lower carbon tax than your country). This is already done for income tax. You are taxed on your foreign income but you can deduce the tax you already paid to foreign country. This could impact your exports but with the money from carbon tax you could lessen the tax burden on manufacturers of your exports or even finance them directly.
- antonioni 7y ago
  What is the collected tax spent on, and who spends it? The "lets everyone pay" solution usually ends up with misappropriation, corruption, theft. Carbon tax will not solve climate change, it'll only be another money grab.
  - radicalbyte 7y ago
    The general idea is that the tax income will be shared between all adult citizens of the country in the form of a cheque from the government. It's a very progressive tax and will be extremely effective. Which is why the neo-Republicans have fought against it (despite it originally being an old-Republicans idea).
    - Gsnds 7y ago
      >It's a very progressive tax and will be extremely effective. anything the government gets their greasy hands on instantly becomes the most inefficient and cost overrun thing on the face of the earth. Hasn't their track record proven it by far and large?
      - scotty79 7y ago
        Just the government? Private sector is way better at overrunning services that everybody needs with unnecessary cost and deforming them to extract even more money. Like US healthcare, US prison system, US bail bonds ... basically any US public service that is not run by the government (but financed with some sort of involuntary payment from people). We need combustibles to become more expensive (because markets don't act well if the true cost is hidden) and government is actually the only entity that can do that, that has a chance of not bleeding us dry and creating bloodsucking monstrosity in the process.
      - shawnz 7y ago
        And yet we are mostly living extremely comfortable lives taking advantage of some of the most effective infrastructure anywhere in the world.
      - 7y ago
- 0xfaded 7y ago
  VAT is a total administrative PITA, I would hate to see any additional systems modeled on it. I founded a start-up in Europe, and most of my accounting costs are recovering VAT on business expenses. There's an argument that VAT is an efficient tax because businesses basically have to self administer it, but my take is that the cost is hidden because the burden is pushed onto business.
  - amatix 7y ago
    Depends on the VAT system. In New Zealand you can almost count the VAT (GST) exceptions on one hand (most land/property, bank charges, and goods/services that are exported), everything else supplied domestically has one flat rate of 15%. Compare this to the UK, where there's massive sets of exclusions and several different rates in force. Takeaway vs dine-in food, digital vs physical books, ... a total mess.
  - ttul 7y ago
    Canadian VAT is super simple. A flat 5% on most things.
llampx 7y ago
Does anyone know the name or ticker of the fund?
- Havoc 7y ago
  It's highly likely to be a private equity fund. i.e. You can't invest
Gsnds 7y ago
Carbon is an essential building block to life and everyone seems to be against it which seems quite alarming. Without carbon the earth would look at lot like mars, and judging by most of the polices the elite seem to be pushing, that's really what they're aiming for. >Higher carbon-dioxide levels will be beneficial. CO2 is an essential nutrient for land-based plants. The Earth’s biosphere has also experienced a relative CO2 famine for many millennia—the recent increase in CO2 levels has thus had a measurable, positive effect on plant life. Future CO2 increases will boost agricultural productivity and improve drought resistance, thereby bolstering food security and contributing to a greener, lusher plane http://www.co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Carbon-Dioxide-Benefits-the-World-2.pdf http://www.co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Carbo... I used to do this bit back when i did standup comedy a few years ago, it was about how marijuana was a gateway drug and i went on to say the real gateway drug is oxygen, because think about it, without oxygen none of us would even be here, or to even get a light. So i went on about how if we really wanted to have a war on drugs we would have to nip it in the bud, and eliminate all of the oxygen on the earth. But it seems to me that they had already jumped the gun and thought a further step ahead of me on this one, think about it, what produces oxygen? Plants, and what do plants absorb to produce oxygen? Carbon. you eliminate the carbon, there's no oxygen. quite genius when you think about it, and you get a bunch of people who want to seem like they're a bunch of do gooders and jump on a bandwagon everyone seems like is for a just cause at first glance without spending as so much as five minutes thinking about it. and really that is a dangerous thing to do, blindly follow narratives. and the fact that this is being pushed by a company founded by a known eugenicist who wants to reduce the population of the world, "for the greater good" and it still isn't raising eyebrows, speaks of in itself.
- ben_w 7y ago
  Just as humans require a differently level of manure and water to plants, we are also at our best with a different level of CO2. The optimal CO2 level isn’t even constant between plants, but at the upper end “good for plants” is the same as “makes humans 25% worse in memory speed/accuracy tests”.
  - Gsnds 7y ago
khawkins 7y ago
It's disappointing to see colossal amounts of money like this isn't used to address demonstrable human suffering happening all over the world right now. Microsoft could take this money, set up shop in Haiti, and develop over the course of a generation a tech sector in a country whose main export is t-shirts. They might even eventually make enough return to reinvest in other areas and bring the rest of the world up to first world standards. Instead, this money is going to pool in upper class first world green economies as they use it to buy expensive electric cars, install expensive solar panels, and fund expensive climate change activists. That their efforts might slightly reduce the number of hurricanes in a hundred years is little consolation to the thousands of lives lost every decade in that country to natural disasters and disease, otherwise be preventable if the population wasn't living in shanty towns.
- guscost 7y ago
  The same can be said of all the public money going into this stuff year after year. It’s outrageous.
- mc32 7y ago
  If you want to see economic progress, first you need a stable and relatively corruption light government. Economic growth will then follow if there is a semi skilled population. After the earthquake in Haiti billions poured in but much of it disappeared into corrupt hands. But, who knows, maybe corporations could run a country better than corrupt politicians —at least as it transforms.
  - Zedronar 7y ago
    > much of it disappeared into corrupt hands Source?
    - mc32 7y ago
      You can search for this information. Here’s a sample which talks about Chelsea Clinton’s take: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/hillary-clinton-email-213110 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/hillary-clin...
saschag 7y ago
if only all those gamestations and servers running their products were more carbon friendly... pushing licenses for SaaS could be fairly carbon friendly, sure, but i wonder whether planting trees nulls running huge datacenters or if there is more damage than just some number representing carbon in/out.
tito 7y ago
Awesome! What have people seen from the performance of these types of corporate venture capital funds? I'm guessing a lot of it will go towards carbon neutral, but I'm most excited about the carbon removal pieces like Direct air capture, carbon to value, and underground carbon storage. If you had $1B for carbon negative tech, where would you invest it?
- ttul 7y ago
  https://www.carbonengineering.com/ https://www.carbonengineering.com/
  - tito 7y ago
    Heck yeah! We worked with Carbon Engineering on our first carbon negative product (a planter pot). And we're working with Climeworks on our carbon negative bracelet: http://gonegative.co http://gonegative.co
    - pottertheotter 7y ago
      Tito- very cool! Just looked through your website and your Indiegogo. I'm at the tail end of a PhD so don't have much disposable income at the moment, but will support it when I do. Are you going to make planters again? I hope so! Even if you aren't, I'm curious what the price was for them.
      - tito 7y ago
        Wow appreciate hearing your story! Yes, please email me, tito@impossiblelabs.io I was just showing off the planter at a party in SF yesterday, it's such an icon. I write a weekly newsletter on carbon removal, check it out here: http://bit.ly/tito-carbon http://bit.ly/tito-carbon
- burundi_coffee 7y ago
  Trees
mkane848 7y ago
And yet, still makes political donations to those that deny climate change and work against Green interests https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1217882650515517440 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1217882650515517440
- mr-ron 7y ago
  Microsoft the company makes donations? Or the employees of Microsoft?
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    The company
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    Company. See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/reports-hub#primaryR5 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/rep...
  - 98codes 7y ago
    Neither, the PAC. The PAC members consist of employees and stockholders.
    - freeone3000 7y ago
      The company also exists of employees and shareholders. The PAC is administered by the corporation, has meetings on corporate grounds, is contributed to by the corporation, and has its contribution list published by the corporation. In anything other than a legal sense, the corporation runs the PAC.
- blahblah12 7y ago
  Those are references to Microsoft PAC which is funded by small donations from thousands of employees. Folks sometimes donate small amounts because they can go to events where interesting speakers are invited like Michael Lewis, Phil Knight, Will Smith, Chelsea Clinton, Arianna Huffington etc. As an employee, you do not have a say in capital allocation. In fact the PAC donates to both sides. The only agenda historically is what is in Microsoft’s corporate interests from taxation policies to h1bs etc. Representatives didn’t always fall cleanly into either camp. For example, while McConnell might be a climate denier he might have supported a favorable taxation policy, rural broadband policy or h1b policy. Perhaps Schumer supported favorable h1b policies but not corporate tax policies so he would be allocated capital proportionally. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2020&strID=C00227546 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2020&strI... 47% Dem 53% Rep split. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00227546&cycle=2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00227546&c... It was a very bizarre and independent function. After employee frustration, they suspended the PAC https://www.geekwire.com/2019/internal-email-microsoft-suspends-pac-donations-temporarily-following-employee-uproar/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/internal-email-microsoft-suspe...
zacharyaustin11 7y ago
Love to see adoption of living building challenge even if it is their least rigorous certification.
cwxm 7y ago
Is there an easy way for companies or individuals to offset (or more than offset) their carbon footprint?
- ajross 7y ago
  There are multiple non-profits selling carbon offsets, usually at very reasonable prices. But it's not a regulated industry and the science behind this kind of analysis is complicated. None of them are selling simple products like "yes, we absolutely sequestered this much CO2 on an energy budget of this many MWh", so whether or not their projects "work" depends on proving how long their forests will stand, etc... There's serious worry that these organizations do more harm than good by significantly overstating their net offsets. Really the only verifiable solution to carbon output is going to be reductions in net production.
- ticmasta 7y ago
  You can significantly change your lifestyle and decision making process that will lead to behaviours that reduce your footprint. ... or were you looking for an answer like "buy some carbon offsets"? I really don't want to pick on the parent comment, but the question seems like "Is there an easy way to effect meaningful, systematic change?" I hear a lot of people talking about this and related issues but the things they propose are just not going to get it done. No one wants to stop traveling, drive less, eat local produce all winter, give up a globalized supply chain and their current lifestyle; meanwhile the frog is being slowly boiled alive...
  - the_gastropod 7y ago
    Hear hear! I feel like carbon offsets are basically the contemporary version of Catholic indulgences. Don't change your behavior one iota, but still feel guilt-free because you've paid for your forgiveness. It's incredible how hard it is to motivate people to change their behaviors even just a little. Even just tiny things like convincing people to grab a real glass from the cabinet to get water instead of a single-use plastic cup on top of the water cooler at work seem impossible.
  - hirsin 7y ago
mikelyons 7y ago
One of the most important aspects IMO is the attitude they take: > "While we at Microsoft have worked hard to be 'carbon neutral' since 2012, our recent work has led us to conclude that this is an area where we’re far better served by humility than pride," wrote Smith in the blog. "And we believe this is true not only for ourselves, but for every business and organization on the planet."

223 points by frankdenbow 7y ago

In countries where VAT tax exist, the whole chain of value pay a fraction of the added value they produce. It works with a differential between the VAT you bought vs the VAR you charged. Why wouldn't we don't adopt a similar system for carbon? The fiscal framework would be very similar. This way a company wouldn't have to know how much carbon have been produced by its suppliers; it only need to count its own.

vnorilo 7y ago
Carbon tax is a great idea, and I would support a proposal such as yours. However, I am afraid it is not a question of implementation, but of dealing with vested interests.
- eru 7y ago
  Yes. Unfortunately it's much easier to get supported for green boondoggles that cost the government a lot of money for little gain; than for a money-spinning carbon tax.
- mlrtime 7y ago
  Cabon and other "sin" taxes are a great way to influence change. However we should be lowering income and property taxes at the same time to help with these vested interests.
  - cyborgx7 7y ago
    > However we should be lowering income and property taxes at the same time to help with these vested interests. What makes you think they need to allow a carbon tax for that? They seem to be doing fairly well at lowering those how they want to without any concessions?
  - frandroid 7y ago
    That's what BC did. Its ideologically conservative government at the time introduced a carbon tax going into general revenues, and lowered general taxes, so that the carbon tax is revenue-neutral.
  - ttul 7y ago
    An alarm bell goes off any time someone suggests lowering PROPERTY taxes... ugh. Property taxes should be way higher in most parts of the world to disincentivized speculation.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      Yeah my local town removed property tax for new development. In fact, they instituted a TIF (tax incentive fund?) which means the developer gets the property taxes free and clear for new buildings. The city is going broke, but the council is dominated by developer-sponsored shills so its hard to fix.
    - papreclip 7y ago
      lower the taxes for primary residence only, then
  - labawi 7y ago
    As has been said. Evenly distribute tax to the people, basic income style. They will be better off, problem solved.
- Gsnds 7y ago
  Yes, More Taxes, truly the magical elixir of the modern era
  - scotty79 7y ago
    Do you have a better idea how to convey the information about true cost of action to the market? You can't let it assume the cost is 0 like it did for last 200 years.
    - misun78 7y ago
      As others have suggested, a corresponding decrease in income and corporate tax such that you get a revenue neutral framework with no additional wasteful government spending would be supported by many, including those on the right. This may also have an additional effect on neutralizing any downwards economic impact from the carbon taxation.
dgellow 7y ago
A Carbon Added Tax? Is that different from the carbon tax that is already applied in lot of places? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax The wikipedia article says this: > A carbon tax is also an indirect tax—a tax on a transaction—as opposed to a direct tax, which taxes income. A carbon tax is called a price instrument, since it sets a price for carbon dioxide emissions.[22] In economic theory, pollution is considered a negative externality, a negative effect on a third party not directly involved in a transaction, and is a type of market failure. That sounds close to what you describe.
wczekalski 7y ago
Such proposals are suggested over and over at the climate related summits. Most recently on COP25. Here’s a bit more about it: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/12/01/at-cop25-policymakers-will-try-to-lay-plans-for-a-global-carbon-market https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/12/01/at-cop25...
usrusr 7y ago
A far more streamlined implementation would be to simply apply a fee at resource extraction time on everything combustible taken out of the ground. It would do a little collateral taxation on carbon that ends up as unburnt plastics, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (if you want maximum accuracy, pay some back for non-degradable carbon upon reaching a landfill, the only form of sequestering that is used at scale) Unfortunately I can't imagine how diplomacy could achieve something like that, given the extremely uneven distribution of resource extraction industries. Despite that it wouldn't even hurt the big oil nations, considering that they would not have a lot of difficulties passing on the cost to their buyers (assuming full global enforcement). The biggest logical opponents would not be oil/gas states like Saudi Arabia or Russia but those whose only domestic geological energy sources is carbon-inefficient coal. (Edit: cleared up some illegible grammar and editing clutter)
- radicalbyte 7y ago
  ..and forest fires, deforestation, land use, methane from rubbish dumps, methane from permafrost and a thousand other things. Still adding a large carbon tax directly at the source gives us pretty much the best bang-for-the-buck. It would have to be combined with deforestation taxes too otherwise you'll see countries like Brazil go into overdrive to export "green fuel".
  - usrusr 7y ago
    Methane is a powerful short term GHG, but long term only the CO2 left by decayed methane is relevant. Forest fires etc are completely temporary, contemporary trees are not geologically sequestered.
- scotty79 7y ago
  > Unfortunately I can't imagine how diplomacy could achieve something like that, given the extremely uneven distribution of resource extraction industries. You can still tax resource extraction industries in your country and importers of energy resources (if country of origin has lower carbon tax than your country). This is already done for income tax. You are taxed on your foreign income but you can deduce the tax you already paid to foreign country. This could impact your exports but with the money from carbon tax you could lessen the tax burden on manufacturers of your exports or even finance them directly.
antonioni 7y ago
What is the collected tax spent on, and who spends it? The "lets everyone pay" solution usually ends up with misappropriation, corruption, theft. Carbon tax will not solve climate change, it'll only be another money grab.
- radicalbyte 7y ago
  The general idea is that the tax income will be shared between all adult citizens of the country in the form of a cheque from the government. It's a very progressive tax and will be extremely effective. Which is why the neo-Republicans have fought against it (despite it originally being an old-Republicans idea).
  - Gsnds 7y ago
    >It's a very progressive tax and will be extremely effective. anything the government gets their greasy hands on instantly becomes the most inefficient and cost overrun thing on the face of the earth. Hasn't their track record proven it by far and large?
    - scotty79 7y ago
      Just the government? Private sector is way better at overrunning services that everybody needs with unnecessary cost and deforming them to extract even more money. Like US healthcare, US prison system, US bail bonds ... basically any US public service that is not run by the government (but financed with some sort of involuntary payment from people). We need combustibles to become more expensive (because markets don't act well if the true cost is hidden) and government is actually the only entity that can do that, that has a chance of not bleeding us dry and creating bloodsucking monstrosity in the process.
    - shawnz 7y ago
      And yet we are mostly living extremely comfortable lives taking advantage of some of the most effective infrastructure anywhere in the world.
    - 7y ago
0xfaded 7y ago
VAT is a total administrative PITA, I would hate to see any additional systems modeled on it. I founded a start-up in Europe, and most of my accounting costs are recovering VAT on business expenses. There's an argument that VAT is an efficient tax because businesses basically have to self administer it, but my take is that the cost is hidden because the burden is pushed onto business.
- amatix 7y ago
  Depends on the VAT system. In New Zealand you can almost count the VAT (GST) exceptions on one hand (most land/property, bank charges, and goods/services that are exported), everything else supplied domestically has one flat rate of 15%. Compare this to the UK, where there's massive sets of exclusions and several different rates in force. Takeaway vs dine-in food, digital vs physical books, ... a total mess.
- ttul 7y ago
  Canadian VAT is super simple. A flat 5% on most things.

llampx 7y ago

Does anyone know the name or ticker of the fund?

Havoc 7y ago
It's highly likely to be a private equity fund. i.e. You can't invest

Gsnds 7y ago

Carbon is an essential building block to life and everyone seems to be against it which seems quite alarming. Without carbon the earth would look at lot like mars, and judging by most of the polices the elite seem to be pushing, that's really what they're aiming for. >Higher carbon-dioxide levels will be beneficial. CO2 is an essential nutrient for land-based plants. The Earth’s biosphere has also experienced a relative CO2 famine for many millennia—the recent increase in CO2 levels has thus had a measurable, positive effect on plant life. Future CO2 increases will boost agricultural productivity and improve drought resistance, thereby bolstering food security and contributing to a greener, lusher plane http://www.co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Carbon-Dioxide-Benefits-the-World-2.pdf http://www.co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Carbo... I used to do this bit back when i did standup comedy a few years ago, it was about how marijuana was a gateway drug and i went on to say the real gateway drug is oxygen, because think about it, without oxygen none of us would even be here, or to even get a light. So i went on about how if we really wanted to have a war on drugs we would have to nip it in the bud, and eliminate all of the oxygen on the earth. But it seems to me that they had already jumped the gun and thought a further step ahead of me on this one, think about it, what produces oxygen? Plants, and what do plants absorb to produce oxygen? Carbon. you eliminate the carbon, there's no oxygen. quite genius when you think about it, and you get a bunch of people who want to seem like they're a bunch of do gooders and jump on a bandwagon everyone seems like is for a just cause at first glance without spending as so much as five minutes thinking about it. and really that is a dangerous thing to do, blindly follow narratives. and the fact that this is being pushed by a company founded by a known eugenicist who wants to reduce the population of the world, "for the greater good" and it still isn't raising eyebrows, speaks of in itself.

ben_w 7y ago
Just as humans require a differently level of manure and water to plants, we are also at our best with a different level of CO2. The optimal CO2 level isn’t even constant between plants, but at the upper end “good for plants” is the same as “makes humans 25% worse in memory speed/accuracy tests”.
- Gsnds 7y ago

khawkins 7y ago

It's disappointing to see colossal amounts of money like this isn't used to address demonstrable human suffering happening all over the world right now. Microsoft could take this money, set up shop in Haiti, and develop over the course of a generation a tech sector in a country whose main export is t-shirts. They might even eventually make enough return to reinvest in other areas and bring the rest of the world up to first world standards. Instead, this money is going to pool in upper class first world green economies as they use it to buy expensive electric cars, install expensive solar panels, and fund expensive climate change activists. That their efforts might slightly reduce the number of hurricanes in a hundred years is little consolation to the thousands of lives lost every decade in that country to natural disasters and disease, otherwise be preventable if the population wasn't living in shanty towns.

guscost 7y ago
The same can be said of all the public money going into this stuff year after year. It’s outrageous.
mc32 7y ago
If you want to see economic progress, first you need a stable and relatively corruption light government. Economic growth will then follow if there is a semi skilled population. After the earthquake in Haiti billions poured in but much of it disappeared into corrupt hands. But, who knows, maybe corporations could run a country better than corrupt politicians —at least as it transforms.
- Zedronar 7y ago
  > much of it disappeared into corrupt hands Source?
  - mc32 7y ago
    You can search for this information. Here’s a sample which talks about Chelsea Clinton’s take: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/hillary-clinton-email-213110 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/hillary-clin...

saschag 7y ago

if only all those gamestations and servers running their products were more carbon friendly... pushing licenses for SaaS could be fairly carbon friendly, sure, but i wonder whether planting trees nulls running huge datacenters or if there is more damage than just some number representing carbon in/out.

tito 7y ago

Awesome! What have people seen from the performance of these types of corporate venture capital funds? I'm guessing a lot of it will go towards carbon neutral, but I'm most excited about the carbon removal pieces like Direct air capture, carbon to value, and underground carbon storage. If you had $1B for carbon negative tech, where would you invest it?

ttul 7y ago
https://www.carbonengineering.com/ https://www.carbonengineering.com/
- tito 7y ago
  Heck yeah! We worked with Carbon Engineering on our first carbon negative product (a planter pot). And we're working with Climeworks on our carbon negative bracelet: http://gonegative.co http://gonegative.co
  - pottertheotter 7y ago
    Tito- very cool! Just looked through your website and your Indiegogo. I'm at the tail end of a PhD so don't have much disposable income at the moment, but will support it when I do. Are you going to make planters again? I hope so! Even if you aren't, I'm curious what the price was for them.
    - tito 7y ago
      Wow appreciate hearing your story! Yes, please email me, tito@impossiblelabs.io I was just showing off the planter at a party in SF yesterday, it's such an icon. I write a weekly newsletter on carbon removal, check it out here: http://bit.ly/tito-carbon http://bit.ly/tito-carbon
burundi_coffee 7y ago
Trees

mkane848 7y ago

And yet, still makes political donations to those that deny climate change and work against Green interests https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1217882650515517440 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1217882650515517440

mr-ron 7y ago
Microsoft the company makes donations? Or the employees of Microsoft?
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  The company
- freeone3000 7y ago
  Company. See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/reports-hub#primaryR5 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/rep...
- 98codes 7y ago
  Neither, the PAC. The PAC members consist of employees and stockholders.
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    The company also exists of employees and shareholders. The PAC is administered by the corporation, has meetings on corporate grounds, is contributed to by the corporation, and has its contribution list published by the corporation. In anything other than a legal sense, the corporation runs the PAC.
blahblah12 7y ago
Those are references to Microsoft PAC which is funded by small donations from thousands of employees. Folks sometimes donate small amounts because they can go to events where interesting speakers are invited like Michael Lewis, Phil Knight, Will Smith, Chelsea Clinton, Arianna Huffington etc. As an employee, you do not have a say in capital allocation. In fact the PAC donates to both sides. The only agenda historically is what is in Microsoft’s corporate interests from taxation policies to h1bs etc. Representatives didn’t always fall cleanly into either camp. For example, while McConnell might be a climate denier he might have supported a favorable taxation policy, rural broadband policy or h1b policy. Perhaps Schumer supported favorable h1b policies but not corporate tax policies so he would be allocated capital proportionally. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2020&strID=C00227546 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2020&strI... 47% Dem 53% Rep split. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00227546&cycle=2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00227546&c... It was a very bizarre and independent function. After employee frustration, they suspended the PAC https://www.geekwire.com/2019/internal-email-microsoft-suspends-pac-donations-temporarily-following-employee-uproar/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/internal-email-microsoft-suspe...

zacharyaustin11 7y ago

Love to see adoption of living building challenge even if it is their least rigorous certification.

cwxm 7y ago

Is there an easy way for companies or individuals to offset (or more than offset) their carbon footprint?

ajross 7y ago
There are multiple non-profits selling carbon offsets, usually at very reasonable prices. But it's not a regulated industry and the science behind this kind of analysis is complicated. None of them are selling simple products like "yes, we absolutely sequestered this much CO2 on an energy budget of this many MWh", so whether or not their projects "work" depends on proving how long their forests will stand, etc... There's serious worry that these organizations do more harm than good by significantly overstating their net offsets. Really the only verifiable solution to carbon output is going to be reductions in net production.
ticmasta 7y ago
You can significantly change your lifestyle and decision making process that will lead to behaviours that reduce your footprint. ... or were you looking for an answer like "buy some carbon offsets"? I really don't want to pick on the parent comment, but the question seems like "Is there an easy way to effect meaningful, systematic change?" I hear a lot of people talking about this and related issues but the things they propose are just not going to get it done. No one wants to stop traveling, drive less, eat local produce all winter, give up a globalized supply chain and their current lifestyle; meanwhile the frog is being slowly boiled alive...
- the_gastropod 7y ago
  Hear hear! I feel like carbon offsets are basically the contemporary version of Catholic indulgences. Don't change your behavior one iota, but still feel guilt-free because you've paid for your forgiveness. It's incredible how hard it is to motivate people to change their behaviors even just a little. Even just tiny things like convincing people to grab a real glass from the cabinet to get water instead of a single-use plastic cup on top of the water cooler at work seem impossible.
- hirsin 7y ago

mikelyons 7y ago

One of the most important aspects IMO is the attitude they take: > "While we at Microsoft have worked hard to be 'carbon neutral' since 2012, our recent work has led us to conclude that this is an area where we’re far better served by humility than pride," wrote Smith in the blog. "And we believe this is true not only for ourselves, but for every business and organization on the planet."