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Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

126 points by gok 7y ago

rpiguy 7y ago
Billionaire invests $10B dollars to virtue signal and control the behavior of the poor, while not changing his lifestyle at all. 165M dollar environmentally excessive mansion, private jets, and a rocket program that dumps carbon into the air. I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves, rather than just write checks. Checks are important, but let’s be real about these people.
- throwaway6734 7y ago
  >I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves, rather than just write checks. Why? Jeff Bezos donating that much money to combat climate change will have a much larger positive good than the negative things you outlined that he does.
  - UnpossibleJim 7y ago
    He's also switching majority (I'm unsure as to the amount and the timeframe of his delivery trucks to electric). With pressure from someone like Bezos putting vehicle fleets on electric, that could put the US on the path to build a much needed electric vehicle infrastructure.
    - rhoyerboat 7y ago
      ;) Maybe given Bezos' character, the endowment and the fleet upgrade is actually, well aside from being more cost effective for a lot of reasons .. also .. his best vehicle for scoring some long term points against the Saudis, since they 'didn't hack his phone, or whatever.
      - UnpossibleJim 7y ago
        So then, at this point, there's nothing he can do to win you over that you can't come up with some conspiracy theory with an ulterior motive where he's bent on world domination? Let me ask a more clarifying question, then, I guess? What could he do where you wouldn't think he was up to no good?
- xxpor 7y ago
  I know this is completely not your point, but do rockets actually dump a lot of carbon? I thought most rocket exhaust was mostly water.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Use reclaimed methane from a landfill and you’re even having a net benefit!
  - _Microft 7y ago
    Yes, some do. Blue Origin's BE-4 engine will run on methane, SpaceX' Raptor engine does as well, Falcon 9s are using refined kerosine instead (i.e. 'gas'). The total amount emitted is negligible compared to aviation or shipping though.
  - whoisjuan 7y ago
    Rockets do emit CO2 but it is a very insignificant amount.
  - ericd 7y ago
    Depends on the fuel. With hydrogen powered rockets a la shuttle main engines, yes. Most of the recent pushes have been kerosene or methane fueled, though. But in the scheme of things, it's really not worth complaining about them vs. our enormous vehicle fleets.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Depending on their fuel, they dump some carbon. I would expect that all the rockets launched since Goddard do not add up to significant amounts of carbon. rpjguy seems to regard the rocket thing as Bezos's hobby, for his own entertainment, rather than as an actual attempt to get humanity into space in a meaningful way.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    A rocket burning all its fuel dumps a lot more carbon than a plane, however, since there are so many more plane flights than rocket flights, the total amount is insignificant in comparison.
- klausjensen 7y ago
  What do you think actually makes the most difference: a) Donating $10B b) Reducing his personal environmental impact to zero You are literally more interested in virtue signalling than making actual change.
  - rpiguy 7y ago
    I dislike gross displays of privilege. Being rich and advocating for everyone else to reduce consumption while maintaining your own lavish, polluting lifestyle simply because you have the money to “offset” it is obscene.
    - everdrive 7y ago
      Isn't it possible that Bezos is not a hero due to moral complications, but also that this effort of his will have a positive impact?
      - rpiguy 7y ago
        Yes, absolutely. No argument there.
        retsibsi 7y ago
        Better to encourage it then, surely. If rich people are doing good things in order to win praise, what's the point of denying it to them? If enough of us react that way, we won't diminish the power of the rich people, we'll just get to watch them spend their money more selfishly. This doesn't mean staying silent about the bad things they do. But if we only respond to the good things by bringing up the bad things, we end up perversely being more critical of the ones who do some good, and diverting our scrutiny away from those who don't even bother. (I haven't looked into this pledge, so I'm just speaking on the hypothetical case where it is likely to do good, as you've acknowledged is at least possible.) edit: I just noticed that you say in another comment you 'do not believe in climate change'. In which case I guess this line of reasoning won't have any force for you. But maybe you can understand why people who do see climate change as a serious problem are going to take a pragmatic view, and treat the investment of $10b as vastly more important than the lifestyle sacrifices of a single person.
- melling 7y ago
  Sacrificing isn't going to solve the problem. Saying that people need to do that seems to be it's own virtue signal. Climate change is billions of people over decades. Bezos can't sacrifice enough to make a difference.
  - rpiguy 7y ago
    I do not believe in climate change. I also do not believe in a ruling elite advocating reduced consumption by others while consuming and emitting all they want simply because they have the money to “offset” it. It is an obscene display of privilege.
    - dmd 7y ago
      I do not believe in gravity, and yet.
    - questionfor 7y ago
      If this commenter opened with “I do not believe in climate change” many people here would have saved time and not responded to this quasi-trolling
      - rpiguy 7y ago
        Because all dissenting opinions are trolls? I genuinely dislike being preached to about climate change by mega-consumers like celebrities.
        retsibsi 7y ago
        Discussing the proper response to a problem with someone who denies its existence is rarely productive, so people might have saved some time if they had known your position from the beginning.
- leesec 7y ago
  What does changing his lifestyle have to do with anything. He's just giving 10 billion dollars to a good cause and somehow you're using it to fuel an arbitrary vendetta with someone you've never met. Maybe that is not a significant change in his spending account, but how many of us are truly making lifestyle sacrifices to support these causes? I think it's a very small number, and most people haven't given 10 billion dollars to the cause (or done any of the other amazing things Bezos' has done for this society).
- kirstenbirgit 7y ago
  I think these kinds of opinions are really dangerous–we cannot just expect society to go back to the stone age. It's why the average human is blocking climate change out, the changes have to come in the form of e.g. CO2 taxes and broad regulation. Climate is not the responsibility of the individual citizen. It's bad enough as it is, we don't need to feel guilty every day about small things like using a plastic straw when the scale of the problem is so mind-bogglingly large
  - tdstein 7y ago
    Sharing shit information like this is why the average human is blocking climate change out. No one is suggesting going back to the Stone Age. Your plastic straw use isn’t warming the planet. But, you should consider the impact flying a jet has on the earth.
    - kirstenbirgit 7y ago
      Is that your argument? Noone is perfect. Greta eschewed the plane for a yacht, and guess what, people like you are still complaining. This is why people are blocking it out and are angry at her. How the can anyone win with this logic? We can't just shame ourselves into fixing the climate. Broad regulation is the only way this will get solved. It can't be up to each individual person to save the climate. If that's your solution, we're even more fucked than we currently are. Even if everybody stopped flying or eating ribeyes or whatever, there's still a huge amount of carbon that needs to be sucked out of the atmosphere, and plenty of extremely large sources of carbon and methane that are still there. The world is going to shit and you want me to eschew the tiny bit of enjoyment I have left in the hopes that everybody else does the same thing? Not gonna happen.
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      Or eating meat. Or drinking milk. Or eating cheese. or eating corn. Or the thousand and one little things that you can do to vote with your wallet. And remember the point of the exercise doesn't have to be to stop doing it completely, but to do less of it and to consider whether you really want or need that. It's a far cry between maybe ordering the 8 oz instead of the 12 oz steak versus burning your house down and knapping flints for the rest of your days.
- tpmx 7y ago
  (The numbers you're mentioning are miniscule.) However: Amazon.com revenue 2018: $233B USD. Market cap: $1T USD I agree this is virtue signalling. Edit: Downvoters: Yeah, you made your point. I'm sure someone will be happy. Please go back to actual work now.
  - Matticus_Rex 7y ago
    What does the gross revenue of a public company he owns some of have to do with it?
    - pjmorris 7y ago
      Having the CEO make decisions that change Amazon's climate impact is a much larger lever than donating money. I'm not opposed to donations, or lifestyles, but what the largest economic entities do on a day to day basis is where the real climate change action is... or isn't.
      - tpmx 7y ago
        That's exactly what I was I struggling to communicate clearly. Thanks.
    - tpmx 7y ago
      Just for your sake I included the market cap as well. Edit: Seriously: this topic seems really hot. So many people seem to care about it when it's spoken about in a negative way. Maybe calm down a bit? Am I experiencing outright bullying right now? That's not a great visual for anyone, just saying.
      - strbean 7y ago
        Market cap is equally irrelevant. $10B is ~8% of his net worth. His biggest gain in net worth was 2017-2018 where it grew ~$80B, which would make $10B = 12.5% of his 'pre-tax income'. Donating 1/8th of your pre-tax income to charity would typically qualify as reasonably generous, no?
      - 7y ago
- ericd 7y ago
  Carbon emissions are fungible. Rockets are fine as long as we find ways to extract an equivalent amount of carbon. And carbon capture programs need a source of revenue to be built out, so this is more helpful than him turning down his personal emissions to zero. It sounds more like you find it unfair that he gets to live the way he does.
  - rpiguy 7y ago
    No I find it unfair that many celebrity climate advocates preach limited consumption while consuming vast amounts of energy, carbon, etc. themselves.
    - ericd 7y ago
      I've never seen Bezos push for personal austerity, have you? He's trying to move their fleets to EVs and transition data centers to renewable energy, those aren't a limited consumption measure.
    - FillardMillmore 7y ago
      Unfair in what way? If you wanted, you could preach limited consumption to everyone who listens and behave in the complete opposite manner of what you preach (to the greatest degree that your personal finances allow). Is it simply a matter of degree to you? Or is it a 'principle' thing? If the latter, there's plenty of hypocrisy to be found in the world - why focus on the billionaire who just pledged $10B to a cause that will benefit us all? Aren't there also wealthy people who preach limited consumption and don't make large private donations? At least Bezos is putting his money where his mouth is.
    - francisofascii 7y ago
      A celebrity advocate who pays millions in offsets probably thinks it is unfair when comparing themselves to other celebrities who do not.
- conception 7y ago
  Just to cynically correct you, he hasn’t do t anything. He’s “committed “ to giving 10B. I don’t see a timeframe or a plan. This is all talk currently.
- yongjik 7y ago
  You do have a point, but on the other hand, when some girl decided she had enough of the hypocrisy and sailed a yacht to cross the Atlantic, people still made fun of her for using plastic dishes in a train. So, I think some people just don't like the message and will find any and every excuse to talk about the messengers instead. I'm not that impressed by Jeff Bezos either, but I'll take a billionaire pledging $10B living in a lavish mansion over a billionaire pledging nothing and still living in the same mansion. It's a step in the right direction.
- hurricanetc 7y ago
  Who cares? $10 billion could fully fund global fusion research for the next 5-10 years.
  - rpiguy 7y ago
    I would be thrilled if that were the case!
- dx87 7y ago
  > I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves Donating 10 billion dollars sounds like a pretty big sacrifice.
- standardUser 7y ago
  "I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves" Generally, when someone gives up a significant portion of the wealth to an important cause it falls under the category of "sacrifices". Or would you rather he just drive less or something?
- anonuser123456 7y ago
  It must be sad being a jealous faux woke person. Here, by your own admission, Bezos spent 165M on a mansion and 10B on climate funding, ~70x his personal outlay, and you chide him from not making sacrifices. He did make sacrifices. You just refuse to acknowledge them because 'evil rich people'.
mistrial9 7y ago
What are the tax implications of this wealth-transfer? Who are the winners?
- metalliqaz 7y ago
  Unless he is able to lobby for laws that make carbon emitters responsible for their externalities, I'm sure the winners will be big-ass companies like Amazon.
- ericd 7y ago
  Are you asking about who is going to get a monetary benefit from this fund that's aiming to keep the biosphere from falling apart?
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    That seems like an important question, yes. If the fund aims to keep the biosphere from falling apart by sending some people lots of money, our evaluations should depend pretty heavily on who the people will be.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  We don't know the structure of "The Earth Fund" so here are some possibilities: if its an actual fund then it can make more investments, no immediate tax consequences, but any long term capital losses, because nobody has a sustainability solution that makes any money, will serve to offset any taxes that he would have to pay on the long term capital gains of his Amazon stock sales. if its another charitable foundation, then the whole $10B will offset up to 50% of his whole tax bill any year, rolling forward till there is no more to deduct. not just limited to any particular type of capital tax. he can also just donate his amazon shares without selling them first, gaining a charitable deduction on the entire value and no capital gains tax event, but depending on the type of charitable foundation the donation could be limited to his cost basis, instead of the current fair market value, another consequence being that a lower % max deduction is possible. Actually this could be genius because his cost basis might have become pegged to the fair market value in the divorce. The IRS allows divorcing couples to keep their original cost basis on split property but could be optional, given the nature of their settlement where it seems there were modifications onto what the stock contract actually is - with some shares transferred but voting rights retained. So for example, there is almost no scenario where Jeff Bezos has to pay any taxes on the $4Billion in Amazon shares he sold earlier this year. Whether he converts another $10B shares to cash or not. So even though he 'spends' on a cause and theoretically doesn't get to use that money for himself, even though its not paying the government either, he doesn't actually lose any money he ever actually had. It's nice that a transaction towards this cause is occurring.
BinaryIdiot 7y ago
Do we know how much emissions can be attributed to Amazon / AWS? I'm curious if this $10 billion fund could offset that or if it's too small to cover their own use. Though, to be fair to Amazon, this is at least a good goal: > Amazon expects 80% of its energy use to come from renewable energy sources by 2024, up from a current rate of 40%, before transition to zero emissions by 2030.
- natalyarostova 7y ago
  Attributing emissions to Amazon/AWS is not a trivial problem. What you'd really want to estimate is AmazonEmissions-CounterfactualEmissions, which is the emissions caused by companies that would jointly provide the services demanded by consumers from Amazon, in the counterfactual world where Amazon didn't exist.
  - jordigh 7y ago
    It's not a trivial problem, but the GHG reporting protocol is widely understood and used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emissions_reporting#Greenhouse_Gas_Protocol_(GHGP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emissions_reporting#Gre... If Amazon reported their emissions, we can corroborate their Scope 1 emissions with other companies' Scope 3 emissions and get an indication of just how much Amazon is directly responsible for. Amazon, however, discloses nothing. This is the kind of thing that regulations are for. In other countries, disclosure is mandatory, and I would say for our survival as a species, absolutely essential. We need data before we can know what direction to take. When we do our GHG assessment at the company where I work, we estimate our Scope 3 emissions based on what has been leaked about the location of Amazon's data centres and what we know about the electricity grid in those locations. We look at our CPU usage on the AWS console and estimate the energy required with some assumptions of the hardware. It introduces a lot of uncertainty and we could do better if Amazon disclosed their emissions.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  Project Vesta claims it would need $250B / year to sequester all the carbon we emit... https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/
inerte 7y ago
After reading Winners Take All my level of cynicism is through the roof with headlines like this. $10b of his own personal fortune? That won't results in tax breaks / deduction because can be considered a donation? Or does that include money Amazon-the-company is spending on "climate change" efforts, such as buying electric delivery trucks instead of gas ones? Investments in "green datacenters"? Is any of this new investment that's needed anyway for Amazon-the-company to operate, but now it's green so it gets added up to the $10b? Is Bezos, worth $130b today be worth $120b tomorrow because of this? Or do we have to add up a hundred different things with some creative accounting and lots of goodwill?
- Will_Do 7y ago
  He will definitely save a bit of money on taxes. I suspect his marginal tax rate is ~24% (20% Cap Gains + 4% Medicare). So this donation will lower his net worth by ~7.6B. In any case, this is a giant amount of money by philanthropic standards. I doubt more than 4-5 people have ever given as much for all of the things they support.
  - ocschwar 7y ago
    Normally I'd resent the $2.4 billion tax dodge, but given who receives the money right now, I'm okay with.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Znafon 7y ago
      I'm not sure it's a "tax dodge", he just won't pay income tax on the money he donated.
      - tomp 7y ago
        Finally someone that gets it. Feel free to complain about "tax loss" as in the government getting less money than they would otherwise, but it's definitely not a "tax dodge" - tax dodging only makes sense if you actually end up with more money than you would otherwise - i.e. you "earn" $100m but then you "dodge tax" to pay only $10m tax instead of $20m, and end up with $90m after-tax income rather than $80m. Multiple ways of doing that - the obvious one is moving your tax residence to a 0% tax haven, the less obvious one is to artificially inflate the value of an asset (e.g. a work of art) and then "donate it" and write off that from tax (e.g. buy it for $10k, donate it when it's "worth" $10m, write that off as a "loss" and pay only $10m tax instead of $20m).
theklub 7y ago
Couldn't he just buy out the major coal energy companies and force them to become 100% wind+solar+etc within x years.
- keenmaster 7y ago
  That works as long as: 1. Startup costs for a coal company are high (I assume they are, but it depends on the region) 2. The company has exclusive right to their coal, and it's hard to find other sources of coal that aren't claimed by other companies (not sure on this one, but it also depends on the region) (these first 2 conditions are in place to make sure that no one starts another coal company after the buyout) 3. The marginal cost of buying a coal company for that purpose is lower than the marginal cost of starting a company which has the same net amount of positive climate change externalities.
- legitster 7y ago
  A lot of the worst polluters are state owned coal plants. There are some private energy producers, but from what I understand, most energy companies just act as interstate brokers between local agencies.
  - phillc73 7y ago
    Then, buy the biggest coal mining companies and shut them down (or convert to renewables). In 2016, Australia was the world's biggest net coal exporter[1] with 32% of global exports and the fourth highest producer. As far as I know, all coal mining in Australia is undertaken by private companies who hold a mining lease. The $10billion could be used to buy controlling interests in some of the 10 biggest listed coal mining companies in Australia[2] and stop mining. What I don't know is if the Australian Government can withdraw a coal mining lease if it's not being used (then just reduce production to miniscule levels) or what the impact would be when the lease expires. Still, I'd suggest such a move would have a crippling near term impact on the coal mining industry, which might be enough to kick renewables along further to fill the gap. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia#Production,_exports_and_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia#Production,_... [2] https://top10companiesinaustralia.com/top-10-listed-coal-companies-in-australia/ https://top10companiesinaustralia.com/top-10-listed-coal-com...
gpu_explorer 7y ago
These comments do surprise me yes. The amount of conflict in the remarks is because both parties are right. It's very wonderful for Jeff Bezos to donate $10B dollars. But also it's right about private jets, which generate much carbon pollution. It's fair to say that everyone has to do their part against climate problems. I for one make personal sacrifices yes. Less meat, less consuming, trying for local purchases as often as possible so the cheese I eat is not from France, driving a lot less, and also I fly much less. This year only one trip home instead of two. For us to lift out of poverty many more people, it's worrying about the carbon costs of this. But now we have to behave smarter and people for whom sacrifices are easiest should make them first.
- tonmoy 7y ago
  Local purchases may not be as green as you think. Only a small percent of carbon footprint from produce is due to transport. A centralized production could be more efficient and less carbon (and land) consuming overall.
- tunesmith 7y ago
  I recently did some calculations on car vs plane travel. For commuter flights, it surprised me to find out that for gasoline cars, car travel isn't better than a flight until you get to a carpool of four passengers. For electric cars, a solo driver is about the same as air travel (in an average airport flight) - a second passenger makes it better than air travel. (This was for a flight halfway across the country.) So yeah, limiting long distance travel is the way to go. I just found it surprising because I think a lot of people might choose to drive instead of fly, thinking it's better for the environment - usually not unless you're carpooling.
  - gpu_explorer 7y ago
    Yes I limited all my travel, which means not replacing flights with travel by car. For flights home there is not option for driving anyway.
  - viklove 7y ago
    Care to reproduce your calculations here? I'm certain you're off by a factor of 10 (at least). Flying is probably the worst thing you will do in your entire life as far as the environment is concerned.
abraae 7y ago
On one level this is to be applauded. On another, shipping cheap plastic junk from China all over the world, to finish up in landfill a few years later, is the very definition of environmental vandalism and is Amazon's core business model.
- legitster 7y ago
  Climate change is an order of magnitude bigger deal than plastics and garbage.
  - dizzy3gg 7y ago
    the churn of those plastic products and the net cost adds up
  - Freestyler_3 7y ago
    Climate change is an unstoppable force.
- davidw 7y ago
  > On another, shipping cheap plastic junk from China all over the world, to finish up in landfill a few years later, is the very definition of environmental vandalism and is Amazon's core business model. The systemic fix for this is to tax the externalities (carbon, cheap plastic, whatever) so that prices better reflect the costs to the environment.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I look forward to Jeff Bezos financially supporting pro climate change candidates for Congressional office who can implement the necessary legislation we can’t fix climate change without (carbon tax, depreciation of financial incentives for fossil fuel production and consumption, tax credits for renewables, nuclear, and EV charging infra, etc). We need a World War 2 industrial movement (“you will no longer be building cars, you will only build tanks and aircraft for the war effort”) to fix climate change, and only nation states have the ability to mandate the effort required from industry. Market forces alone will not be sufficient.
legitster 7y ago
$10b is an insane initial endowment. That's about a quarter of what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have after 20 years. It would be nice to have more details about the goals or objectives.
- legitster 7y ago
  I also would push back on the idea that this is a "goodwill move". He dumped $2b in homelessness issues and it did nothing to move the needle on his likability. If anything it seemed to give him a lot of bad press and coverage. It seems more likely that he is either a) thinking about his long term legacy (a la Bill Gates), or b) he may (gasp) actually care about this issue.
  - loeg 7y ago
    Amazon seems to be pursuing the green agendas they set out last year, so I think it's plausible he really cares about this issue.
- adventured 7y ago
  It's a huge initial endowment for sure. It would be a little more fair to include the other $50 billion the Gates Foundation has already given (ie they're up around $100 billion so far, with perhaps another $250 billion yet to come). The Gates Foundation has ~$45-$50 billion in assets currently and has given away more than $50 billion thus far (~$23 billion of that giving is from Warren Buffett's contributions; Buffett's donations have to be used rapidly after they're given to the foundation (within the year or such if I recall), that money isn't allowed to pile up). The foundation as it's known today - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - got started with $16 billion in 1999/2000. Gates + Buffett = $210 billion currently. Due to the Buffett money pouring in, they basically can't give it all away as fast as Bill & Melinda had originally planned, so they're likely going to miss their timeline for giving the Gates fortune away (in their lifetimes was the first goal; that shifted to now being within 20 years after their passing).
  - legitster 7y ago
K0SM0S 7y ago
Well, F yeah!! Thank you, Mr Bezos. Mad props to you. (To cynicism and idealism, I say: know when to take a win.)
viburnum 7y ago
Be smarter to just back a political movement, but that would actually work, and diminish Bezos's own power.
- legitster 7y ago
  I don't understand this. Backing a political movement is probably the worst thing he could do. He's completely distrusted politically, and polls terribly with the general public. He would only taint any movement he backed.
  - loceng 7y ago
    If he had backed (now suspended) Presidential candidate Andrew Yang early enough he could have aligned himself with Yang's message: highlighting too that Amazon paid $0 in taxes + is closing 30% of malls, etc. - which would be him acknowledging and responding to the issues at hand that Yang; allowing him to acknowledge the current system's structure - that all companies including Jeff's - must compete within, but that it's ultimately a problem for society (even if it's good for the economy/GDP).
  - viburnum 7y ago
    Nobody trusts or likes oil companies or drug companies or media monopolies either but they are extremely successful at achieving their political goals.
- deleted 7y ago
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kaonashi 7y ago
Is this just another Gates-foundation style tax swindle?
- bpodgursky 7y ago
  Step 1: Cure polio Step 2: Donate 99% of your remaining money before death Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit, when the world is a less shitty place It's really the most devious tax swindle of all time.
  - kaonashi 7y ago
    It's more like Step 1: Place fortune in a large tax-free foundation Step 2: Invest that wealth as normal, but without the need to pay taxes Step 3: Spend charitable funds in such a manner as to increase the value of investments from step 2
    - bpodgursky 7y ago
      Can you walk me through how it ends in anything other than Gates having given his money away through the Gates foundation? Also, for what it's worth (and I don't think this is even essential to the point), the Gates Foundation has an explicit mandate to spend down all reserves within 20 years of their death: > Also announced was the decision to spend all of the foundation's resources within 50 years after Bill's and Melinda's deaths.[177][178][179][180] This was later lowered to within 20 years of their death.[181][182] This would close the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and effectively end the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Lifespan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...)
      - kaonashi 7y ago
        He doesn't 'give money away' no-string-attached. He uses the donations to control the way the economy deals with the externalities of capitalism. It's fundamentally anti-democratic for that share of the world's economy to be driven by the whims of one man.
rdiddly 7y ago
Well, better to take part of the money you made storing carbon in the atmosphere, and use it to mitigate carbon in the atmosphere, than to use it for something else..... riiiiight?
vkaku 7y ago
Let's see, Jeff.... Cautious optimism here. I'll hand it to you when you're putting this money in to fix the world - not your taxes.
ajharrison 7y ago
A nice way to keep 10 billion out of reach from the tax man.
cswiercz 7y ago
Related: “Against Against Billionaire Philanthropy” (https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billionaire-philanthropy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio...)
- DennisP 7y ago
  Based on that article, Bezos just pledged more money to fight climate change than the U.S. government has spent on it in the past 25 years.
  - Symmetry 7y ago
    It's a lot closer to the amount the US has spent subsidizing coal over the last 10 years.
  - adventured 7y ago
    How do you get to that figure? As one example the US Government spends billions of dollars per year subsidizing renewable energy, ie fighting climate change. $6.7 billion in 2016 alone. I'm not arguing that's an appropriate sum, however your 25 year premise is drastically wrong. Since 2010, I'd bet the US Government has spent in the neighborhood of $60-$100 billion on renewable energy subsidies. The EIA reports that for 2010 and 2013 the figures were a combined $30 billion. Then throw in nuclear energy subsidies over the last 25 years, which is comparable to the Bezos figure by itself.
    - DennisP 7y ago
      > $154 billion on climate-change-related activities since 1993 [but] 94 percent of the money was going to programs that weren’t primarily focused on climate change — things like nuclear energy. The money marked as climate spending wasn’t going to new initiatives. Instead, “it’s a bunch of related things we were already doing,” So 6% of the money being actual new money focused on fixing climate, times $154 billion, is $9.24 billion. I think that's an appropriate comparison since the Bezos money is new money specifically for fixing climate.
- deleted 7y ago
bensonn 7y ago
This says he "commits" 10B to a new initiative named after himself. What do terms like "commits" and "pledges" mean? From the article it looks like all he did was post on Instagram. Is there more to this than an IG post? Is there anything legally binding, anything that actually moves the money outside of his control? Did his networth just drop 10B?
deleted 7y ago
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iceman7733 7y ago
I think this money could be used much more effectively by attacking other more pressing issues (like child nutrition). Climate Change is not such a cut-and-dry situation, it's difficult to parse out the facts from the political commentary/posturing. Bjorn Lomborg articulates all this better than I ever could.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
I am a little worried that this initiative will only do things that don’t cost Bezos too much money. I feel the same when Silicon Valley guys push UBI. It often seems a way for them to keep their money while pretending to do something. Maybe I am too cynical but these guys got to where they are by always looking out for themselves first.
neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/eb3kq https://archive.md/eb3kq
harry8 7y ago
Worlds richest man continues to pay zero tax while making fatuous annoucnements. That should be the preface on every single Bezos article. Every time his name is mentioned, it should explained as follows "Jeff Bezos, who is the world's richest man and neither he nor is company have ever paid any tax at all." Then people can effectively make their own mind up about whatever his PR team is pushing this week. It's impossible to be cynical enough, in my opinion. YMMV. Disagree? Write down what you think this announcement means. Review it in a year and see if you were misled.
chriscatoya 7y ago
The money is great, of course, but a piece of me wonders every time I see this sort of thing if spending time managing these endeavors directly would be more impactful towards the goal.

126 points by gok 7y ago

Billionaire invests $10B dollars to virtue signal and control the behavior of the poor, while not changing his lifestyle at all. 165M dollar environmentally excessive mansion, private jets, and a rocket program that dumps carbon into the air. I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves, rather than just write checks. Checks are important, but let’s be real about these people.

throwaway6734 7y ago
>I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves, rather than just write checks. Why? Jeff Bezos donating that much money to combat climate change will have a much larger positive good than the negative things you outlined that he does.
- UnpossibleJim 7y ago
  He's also switching majority (I'm unsure as to the amount and the timeframe of his delivery trucks to electric). With pressure from someone like Bezos putting vehicle fleets on electric, that could put the US on the path to build a much needed electric vehicle infrastructure.
  - rhoyerboat 7y ago
    ;) Maybe given Bezos' character, the endowment and the fleet upgrade is actually, well aside from being more cost effective for a lot of reasons .. also .. his best vehicle for scoring some long term points against the Saudis, since they 'didn't hack his phone, or whatever.
    - UnpossibleJim 7y ago
      So then, at this point, there's nothing he can do to win you over that you can't come up with some conspiracy theory with an ulterior motive where he's bent on world domination? Let me ask a more clarifying question, then, I guess? What could he do where you wouldn't think he was up to no good?
xxpor 7y ago
I know this is completely not your point, but do rockets actually dump a lot of carbon? I thought most rocket exhaust was mostly water.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Use reclaimed methane from a landfill and you’re even having a net benefit!
- _Microft 7y ago
  Yes, some do. Blue Origin's BE-4 engine will run on methane, SpaceX' Raptor engine does as well, Falcon 9s are using refined kerosine instead (i.e. 'gas'). The total amount emitted is negligible compared to aviation or shipping though.
- whoisjuan 7y ago
  Rockets do emit CO2 but it is a very insignificant amount.
- ericd 7y ago
  Depends on the fuel. With hydrogen powered rockets a la shuttle main engines, yes. Most of the recent pushes have been kerosene or methane fueled, though. But in the scheme of things, it's really not worth complaining about them vs. our enormous vehicle fleets.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Depending on their fuel, they dump some carbon. I would expect that all the rockets launched since Goddard do not add up to significant amounts of carbon. rpjguy seems to regard the rocket thing as Bezos's hobby, for his own entertainment, rather than as an actual attempt to get humanity into space in a meaningful way.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  A rocket burning all its fuel dumps a lot more carbon than a plane, however, since there are so many more plane flights than rocket flights, the total amount is insignificant in comparison.
klausjensen 7y ago
What do you think actually makes the most difference: a) Donating $10B b) Reducing his personal environmental impact to zero You are literally more interested in virtue signalling than making actual change.
- rpiguy 7y ago
  I dislike gross displays of privilege. Being rich and advocating for everyone else to reduce consumption while maintaining your own lavish, polluting lifestyle simply because you have the money to “offset” it is obscene.
  - everdrive 7y ago
    Isn't it possible that Bezos is not a hero due to moral complications, but also that this effort of his will have a positive impact?
    - rpiguy 7y ago
      Yes, absolutely. No argument there.
      - retsibsi 7y ago
        Better to encourage it then, surely. If rich people are doing good things in order to win praise, what's the point of denying it to them? If enough of us react that way, we won't diminish the power of the rich people, we'll just get to watch them spend their money more selfishly. This doesn't mean staying silent about the bad things they do. But if we only respond to the good things by bringing up the bad things, we end up perversely being more critical of the ones who do some good, and diverting our scrutiny away from those who don't even bother. (I haven't looked into this pledge, so I'm just speaking on the hypothetical case where it is likely to do good, as you've acknowledged is at least possible.) edit: I just noticed that you say in another comment you 'do not believe in climate change'. In which case I guess this line of reasoning won't have any force for you. But maybe you can understand why people who do see climate change as a serious problem are going to take a pragmatic view, and treat the investment of $10b as vastly more important than the lifestyle sacrifices of a single person.
melling 7y ago
Sacrificing isn't going to solve the problem. Saying that people need to do that seems to be it's own virtue signal. Climate change is billions of people over decades. Bezos can't sacrifice enough to make a difference.
- rpiguy 7y ago
  I do not believe in climate change. I also do not believe in a ruling elite advocating reduced consumption by others while consuming and emitting all they want simply because they have the money to “offset” it. It is an obscene display of privilege.
  - dmd 7y ago
    I do not believe in gravity, and yet.
  - questionfor 7y ago
    If this commenter opened with “I do not believe in climate change” many people here would have saved time and not responded to this quasi-trolling
    - rpiguy 7y ago
      Because all dissenting opinions are trolls? I genuinely dislike being preached to about climate change by mega-consumers like celebrities.
      - retsibsi 7y ago
        Discussing the proper response to a problem with someone who denies its existence is rarely productive, so people might have saved some time if they had known your position from the beginning.
leesec 7y ago
What does changing his lifestyle have to do with anything. He's just giving 10 billion dollars to a good cause and somehow you're using it to fuel an arbitrary vendetta with someone you've never met. Maybe that is not a significant change in his spending account, but how many of us are truly making lifestyle sacrifices to support these causes? I think it's a very small number, and most people haven't given 10 billion dollars to the cause (or done any of the other amazing things Bezos' has done for this society).
kirstenbirgit 7y ago
I think these kinds of opinions are really dangerous–we cannot just expect society to go back to the stone age. It's why the average human is blocking climate change out, the changes have to come in the form of e.g. CO2 taxes and broad regulation. Climate is not the responsibility of the individual citizen. It's bad enough as it is, we don't need to feel guilty every day about small things like using a plastic straw when the scale of the problem is so mind-bogglingly large
- tdstein 7y ago
  Sharing shit information like this is why the average human is blocking climate change out. No one is suggesting going back to the Stone Age. Your plastic straw use isn’t warming the planet. But, you should consider the impact flying a jet has on the earth.
  - kirstenbirgit 7y ago
    Is that your argument? Noone is perfect. Greta eschewed the plane for a yacht, and guess what, people like you are still complaining. This is why people are blocking it out and are angry at her. How the can anyone win with this logic? We can't just shame ourselves into fixing the climate. Broad regulation is the only way this will get solved. It can't be up to each individual person to save the climate. If that's your solution, we're even more fucked than we currently are. Even if everybody stopped flying or eating ribeyes or whatever, there's still a huge amount of carbon that needs to be sucked out of the atmosphere, and plenty of extremely large sources of carbon and methane that are still there. The world is going to shit and you want me to eschew the tiny bit of enjoyment I have left in the hopes that everybody else does the same thing? Not gonna happen.
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    Or eating meat. Or drinking milk. Or eating cheese. or eating corn. Or the thousand and one little things that you can do to vote with your wallet. And remember the point of the exercise doesn't have to be to stop doing it completely, but to do less of it and to consider whether you really want or need that. It's a far cry between maybe ordering the 8 oz instead of the 12 oz steak versus burning your house down and knapping flints for the rest of your days.
tpmx 7y ago
(The numbers you're mentioning are miniscule.) However: Amazon.com revenue 2018: $233B USD. Market cap: $1T USD I agree this is virtue signalling. Edit: Downvoters: Yeah, you made your point. I'm sure someone will be happy. Please go back to actual work now.
- Matticus_Rex 7y ago
  What does the gross revenue of a public company he owns some of have to do with it?
  - pjmorris 7y ago
    Having the CEO make decisions that change Amazon's climate impact is a much larger lever than donating money. I'm not opposed to donations, or lifestyles, but what the largest economic entities do on a day to day basis is where the real climate change action is... or isn't.
    - tpmx 7y ago
      That's exactly what I was I struggling to communicate clearly. Thanks.
  - tpmx 7y ago
    Just for your sake I included the market cap as well. Edit: Seriously: this topic seems really hot. So many people seem to care about it when it's spoken about in a negative way. Maybe calm down a bit? Am I experiencing outright bullying right now? That's not a great visual for anyone, just saying.
    - strbean 7y ago
      Market cap is equally irrelevant. $10B is ~8% of his net worth. His biggest gain in net worth was 2017-2018 where it grew ~$80B, which would make $10B = 12.5% of his 'pre-tax income'. Donating 1/8th of your pre-tax income to charity would typically qualify as reasonably generous, no?
    - 7y ago
ericd 7y ago
Carbon emissions are fungible. Rockets are fine as long as we find ways to extract an equivalent amount of carbon. And carbon capture programs need a source of revenue to be built out, so this is more helpful than him turning down his personal emissions to zero. It sounds more like you find it unfair that he gets to live the way he does.
- rpiguy 7y ago
  No I find it unfair that many celebrity climate advocates preach limited consumption while consuming vast amounts of energy, carbon, etc. themselves.
  - ericd 7y ago
    I've never seen Bezos push for personal austerity, have you? He's trying to move their fleets to EVs and transition data centers to renewable energy, those aren't a limited consumption measure.
  - FillardMillmore 7y ago
    Unfair in what way? If you wanted, you could preach limited consumption to everyone who listens and behave in the complete opposite manner of what you preach (to the greatest degree that your personal finances allow). Is it simply a matter of degree to you? Or is it a 'principle' thing? If the latter, there's plenty of hypocrisy to be found in the world - why focus on the billionaire who just pledged $10B to a cause that will benefit us all? Aren't there also wealthy people who preach limited consumption and don't make large private donations? At least Bezos is putting his money where his mouth is.
  - francisofascii 7y ago
    A celebrity advocate who pays millions in offsets probably thinks it is unfair when comparing themselves to other celebrities who do not.
conception 7y ago
Just to cynically correct you, he hasn’t do t anything. He’s “committed “ to giving 10B. I don’t see a timeframe or a plan. This is all talk currently.
yongjik 7y ago
You do have a point, but on the other hand, when some girl decided she had enough of the hypocrisy and sailed a yacht to cross the Atlantic, people still made fun of her for using plastic dishes in a train. So, I think some people just don't like the message and will find any and every excuse to talk about the messengers instead. I'm not that impressed by Jeff Bezos either, but I'll take a billionaire pledging $10B living in a lavish mansion over a billionaire pledging nothing and still living in the same mansion. It's a step in the right direction.
hurricanetc 7y ago
Who cares? $10 billion could fully fund global fusion research for the next 5-10 years.
- rpiguy 7y ago
  I would be thrilled if that were the case!
dx87 7y ago
> I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves Donating 10 billion dollars sounds like a pretty big sacrifice.
standardUser 7y ago
"I’ll be impressed when billionaires actually make sacrifices themselves" Generally, when someone gives up a significant portion of the wealth to an important cause it falls under the category of "sacrifices". Or would you rather he just drive less or something?
anonuser123456 7y ago
It must be sad being a jealous faux woke person. Here, by your own admission, Bezos spent 165M on a mansion and 10B on climate funding, ~70x his personal outlay, and you chide him from not making sacrifices. He did make sacrifices. You just refuse to acknowledge them because 'evil rich people'.

mistrial9 7y ago

What are the tax implications of this wealth-transfer? Who are the winners?

metalliqaz 7y ago
Unless he is able to lobby for laws that make carbon emitters responsible for their externalities, I'm sure the winners will be big-ass companies like Amazon.
ericd 7y ago
Are you asking about who is going to get a monetary benefit from this fund that's aiming to keep the biosphere from falling apart?
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  That seems like an important question, yes. If the fund aims to keep the biosphere from falling apart by sending some people lots of money, our evaluations should depend pretty heavily on who the people will be.
rolltiide 7y ago
We don't know the structure of "The Earth Fund" so here are some possibilities: if its an actual fund then it can make more investments, no immediate tax consequences, but any long term capital losses, because nobody has a sustainability solution that makes any money, will serve to offset any taxes that he would have to pay on the long term capital gains of his Amazon stock sales. if its another charitable foundation, then the whole $10B will offset up to 50% of his whole tax bill any year, rolling forward till there is no more to deduct. not just limited to any particular type of capital tax. he can also just donate his amazon shares without selling them first, gaining a charitable deduction on the entire value and no capital gains tax event, but depending on the type of charitable foundation the donation could be limited to his cost basis, instead of the current fair market value, another consequence being that a lower % max deduction is possible. Actually this could be genius because his cost basis might have become pegged to the fair market value in the divorce. The IRS allows divorcing couples to keep their original cost basis on split property but could be optional, given the nature of their settlement where it seems there were modifications onto what the stock contract actually is - with some shares transferred but voting rights retained. So for example, there is almost no scenario where Jeff Bezos has to pay any taxes on the $4Billion in Amazon shares he sold earlier this year. Whether he converts another $10B shares to cash or not. So even though he 'spends' on a cause and theoretically doesn't get to use that money for himself, even though its not paying the government either, he doesn't actually lose any money he ever actually had. It's nice that a transaction towards this cause is occurring.

BinaryIdiot 7y ago

Do we know how much emissions can be attributed to Amazon / AWS? I'm curious if this $10 billion fund could offset that or if it's too small to cover their own use. Though, to be fair to Amazon, this is at least a good goal: > Amazon expects 80% of its energy use to come from renewable energy sources by 2024, up from a current rate of 40%, before transition to zero emissions by 2030.

natalyarostova 7y ago
Attributing emissions to Amazon/AWS is not a trivial problem. What you'd really want to estimate is AmazonEmissions-CounterfactualEmissions, which is the emissions caused by companies that would jointly provide the services demanded by consumers from Amazon, in the counterfactual world where Amazon didn't exist.
- jordigh 7y ago
  It's not a trivial problem, but the GHG reporting protocol is widely understood and used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emissions_reporting#Greenhouse_Gas_Protocol_(GHGP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emissions_reporting#Gre... If Amazon reported their emissions, we can corroborate their Scope 1 emissions with other companies' Scope 3 emissions and get an indication of just how much Amazon is directly responsible for. Amazon, however, discloses nothing. This is the kind of thing that regulations are for. In other countries, disclosure is mandatory, and I would say for our survival as a species, absolutely essential. We need data before we can know what direction to take. When we do our GHG assessment at the company where I work, we estimate our Scope 3 emissions based on what has been leaked about the location of Amazon's data centres and what we know about the electricity grid in those locations. We look at our CPU usage on the AWS console and estimate the energy required with some assumptions of the hardware. It introduces a lot of uncertainty and we could do better if Amazon disclosed their emissions.
throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
Project Vesta claims it would need $250B / year to sequester all the carbon we emit... https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/

inerte 7y ago

After reading Winners Take All my level of cynicism is through the roof with headlines like this. $10b of his own personal fortune? That won't results in tax breaks / deduction because can be considered a donation? Or does that include money Amazon-the-company is spending on "climate change" efforts, such as buying electric delivery trucks instead of gas ones? Investments in "green datacenters"? Is any of this new investment that's needed anyway for Amazon-the-company to operate, but now it's green so it gets added up to the $10b? Is Bezos, worth $130b today be worth $120b tomorrow because of this? Or do we have to add up a hundred different things with some creative accounting and lots of goodwill?

Will_Do 7y ago
He will definitely save a bit of money on taxes. I suspect his marginal tax rate is ~24% (20% Cap Gains + 4% Medicare). So this donation will lower his net worth by ~7.6B. In any case, this is a giant amount of money by philanthropic standards. I doubt more than 4-5 people have ever given as much for all of the things they support.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  Normally I'd resent the $2.4 billion tax dodge, but given who receives the money right now, I'm okay with.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Znafon 7y ago
    I'm not sure it's a "tax dodge", he just won't pay income tax on the money he donated.
    - tomp 7y ago
      Finally someone that gets it. Feel free to complain about "tax loss" as in the government getting less money than they would otherwise, but it's definitely not a "tax dodge" - tax dodging only makes sense if you actually end up with more money than you would otherwise - i.e. you "earn" $100m but then you "dodge tax" to pay only $10m tax instead of $20m, and end up with $90m after-tax income rather than $80m. Multiple ways of doing that - the obvious one is moving your tax residence to a 0% tax haven, the less obvious one is to artificially inflate the value of an asset (e.g. a work of art) and then "donate it" and write off that from tax (e.g. buy it for $10k, donate it when it's "worth" $10m, write that off as a "loss" and pay only $10m tax instead of $20m).

theklub 7y ago

Couldn't he just buy out the major coal energy companies and force them to become 100% wind+solar+etc within x years.

keenmaster 7y ago
That works as long as: 1. Startup costs for a coal company are high (I assume they are, but it depends on the region) 2. The company has exclusive right to their coal, and it's hard to find other sources of coal that aren't claimed by other companies (not sure on this one, but it also depends on the region) (these first 2 conditions are in place to make sure that no one starts another coal company after the buyout) 3. The marginal cost of buying a coal company for that purpose is lower than the marginal cost of starting a company which has the same net amount of positive climate change externalities.
legitster 7y ago
A lot of the worst polluters are state owned coal plants. There are some private energy producers, but from what I understand, most energy companies just act as interstate brokers between local agencies.
- phillc73 7y ago
  Then, buy the biggest coal mining companies and shut them down (or convert to renewables). In 2016, Australia was the world's biggest net coal exporter[1] with 32% of global exports and the fourth highest producer. As far as I know, all coal mining in Australia is undertaken by private companies who hold a mining lease. The $10billion could be used to buy controlling interests in some of the 10 biggest listed coal mining companies in Australia[2] and stop mining. What I don't know is if the Australian Government can withdraw a coal mining lease if it's not being used (then just reduce production to miniscule levels) or what the impact would be when the lease expires. Still, I'd suggest such a move would have a crippling near term impact on the coal mining industry, which might be enough to kick renewables along further to fill the gap. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia#Production,_exports_and_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia#Production,_... [2] https://top10companiesinaustralia.com/top-10-listed-coal-companies-in-australia/ https://top10companiesinaustralia.com/top-10-listed-coal-com...

gpu_explorer 7y ago

These comments do surprise me yes. The amount of conflict in the remarks is because both parties are right. It's very wonderful for Jeff Bezos to donate $10B dollars. But also it's right about private jets, which generate much carbon pollution. It's fair to say that everyone has to do their part against climate problems. I for one make personal sacrifices yes. Less meat, less consuming, trying for local purchases as often as possible so the cheese I eat is not from France, driving a lot less, and also I fly much less. This year only one trip home instead of two. For us to lift out of poverty many more people, it's worrying about the carbon costs of this. But now we have to behave smarter and people for whom sacrifices are easiest should make them first.

tonmoy 7y ago
Local purchases may not be as green as you think. Only a small percent of carbon footprint from produce is due to transport. A centralized production could be more efficient and less carbon (and land) consuming overall.
tunesmith 7y ago
I recently did some calculations on car vs plane travel. For commuter flights, it surprised me to find out that for gasoline cars, car travel isn't better than a flight until you get to a carpool of four passengers. For electric cars, a solo driver is about the same as air travel (in an average airport flight) - a second passenger makes it better than air travel. (This was for a flight halfway across the country.) So yeah, limiting long distance travel is the way to go. I just found it surprising because I think a lot of people might choose to drive instead of fly, thinking it's better for the environment - usually not unless you're carpooling.
- gpu_explorer 7y ago
  Yes I limited all my travel, which means not replacing flights with travel by car. For flights home there is not option for driving anyway.
- viklove 7y ago
  Care to reproduce your calculations here? I'm certain you're off by a factor of 10 (at least). Flying is probably the worst thing you will do in your entire life as far as the environment is concerned.

abraae 7y ago

On one level this is to be applauded. On another, shipping cheap plastic junk from China all over the world, to finish up in landfill a few years later, is the very definition of environmental vandalism and is Amazon's core business model.

legitster 7y ago
Climate change is an order of magnitude bigger deal than plastics and garbage.
- dizzy3gg 7y ago
  the churn of those plastic products and the net cost adds up
- Freestyler_3 7y ago
  Climate change is an unstoppable force.
davidw 7y ago
> On another, shipping cheap plastic junk from China all over the world, to finish up in landfill a few years later, is the very definition of environmental vandalism and is Amazon's core business model. The systemic fix for this is to tax the externalities (carbon, cheap plastic, whatever) so that prices better reflect the costs to the environment.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  I look forward to Jeff Bezos financially supporting pro climate change candidates for Congressional office who can implement the necessary legislation we can’t fix climate change without (carbon tax, depreciation of financial incentives for fossil fuel production and consumption, tax credits for renewables, nuclear, and EV charging infra, etc). We need a World War 2 industrial movement (“you will no longer be building cars, you will only build tanks and aircraft for the war effort”) to fix climate change, and only nation states have the ability to mandate the effort required from industry. Market forces alone will not be sufficient.

legitster 7y ago

$10b is an insane initial endowment. That's about a quarter of what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have after 20 years. It would be nice to have more details about the goals or objectives.

legitster 7y ago
I also would push back on the idea that this is a "goodwill move". He dumped $2b in homelessness issues and it did nothing to move the needle on his likability. If anything it seemed to give him a lot of bad press and coverage. It seems more likely that he is either a) thinking about his long term legacy (a la Bill Gates), or b) he may (gasp) actually care about this issue.
- loeg 7y ago
  Amazon seems to be pursuing the green agendas they set out last year, so I think it's plausible he really cares about this issue.
adventured 7y ago
It's a huge initial endowment for sure. It would be a little more fair to include the other $50 billion the Gates Foundation has already given (ie they're up around $100 billion so far, with perhaps another $250 billion yet to come). The Gates Foundation has ~$45-$50 billion in assets currently and has given away more than $50 billion thus far (~$23 billion of that giving is from Warren Buffett's contributions; Buffett's donations have to be used rapidly after they're given to the foundation (within the year or such if I recall), that money isn't allowed to pile up). The foundation as it's known today - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - got started with $16 billion in 1999/2000. Gates + Buffett = $210 billion currently. Due to the Buffett money pouring in, they basically can't give it all away as fast as Bill & Melinda had originally planned, so they're likely going to miss their timeline for giving the Gates fortune away (in their lifetimes was the first goal; that shifted to now being within 20 years after their passing).
- legitster 7y ago

K0SM0S 7y ago

Well, F yeah!! Thank you, Mr Bezos. Mad props to you. (To cynicism and idealism, I say: know when to take a win.)

viburnum 7y ago

Be smarter to just back a political movement, but that would actually work, and diminish Bezos's own power.

legitster 7y ago
I don't understand this. Backing a political movement is probably the worst thing he could do. He's completely distrusted politically, and polls terribly with the general public. He would only taint any movement he backed.
- loceng 7y ago
  If he had backed (now suspended) Presidential candidate Andrew Yang early enough he could have aligned himself with Yang's message: highlighting too that Amazon paid $0 in taxes + is closing 30% of malls, etc. - which would be him acknowledging and responding to the issues at hand that Yang; allowing him to acknowledge the current system's structure - that all companies including Jeff's - must compete within, but that it's ultimately a problem for society (even if it's good for the economy/GDP).
- viburnum 7y ago
  Nobody trusts or likes oil companies or drug companies or media monopolies either but they are extremely successful at achieving their political goals.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

kaonashi 7y ago

Is this just another Gates-foundation style tax swindle?

bpodgursky 7y ago
Step 1: Cure polio Step 2: Donate 99% of your remaining money before death Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit, when the world is a less shitty place It's really the most devious tax swindle of all time.
- kaonashi 7y ago
  It's more like Step 1: Place fortune in a large tax-free foundation Step 2: Invest that wealth as normal, but without the need to pay taxes Step 3: Spend charitable funds in such a manner as to increase the value of investments from step 2
  - bpodgursky 7y ago
    Can you walk me through how it ends in anything other than Gates having given his money away through the Gates foundation? Also, for what it's worth (and I don't think this is even essential to the point), the Gates Foundation has an explicit mandate to spend down all reserves within 20 years of their death: > Also announced was the decision to spend all of the foundation's resources within 50 years after Bill's and Melinda's deaths.[177][178][179][180] This was later lowered to within 20 years of their death.[181][182] This would close the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and effectively end the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Lifespan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...)
    - kaonashi 7y ago
      He doesn't 'give money away' no-string-attached. He uses the donations to control the way the economy deals with the externalities of capitalism. It's fundamentally anti-democratic for that share of the world's economy to be driven by the whims of one man.

rdiddly 7y ago

Well, better to take part of the money you made storing carbon in the atmosphere, and use it to mitigate carbon in the atmosphere, than to use it for something else..... riiiiight?

vkaku 7y ago

Let's see, Jeff.... Cautious optimism here. I'll hand it to you when you're putting this money in to fix the world - not your taxes.

ajharrison 7y ago

A nice way to keep 10 billion out of reach from the tax man.

cswiercz 7y ago

Related: “Against Against Billionaire Philanthropy” (https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billionaire-philanthropy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio...)

DennisP 7y ago
Based on that article, Bezos just pledged more money to fight climate change than the U.S. government has spent on it in the past 25 years.
- Symmetry 7y ago
  It's a lot closer to the amount the US has spent subsidizing coal over the last 10 years.
- adventured 7y ago
  How do you get to that figure? As one example the US Government spends billions of dollars per year subsidizing renewable energy, ie fighting climate change. $6.7 billion in 2016 alone. I'm not arguing that's an appropriate sum, however your 25 year premise is drastically wrong. Since 2010, I'd bet the US Government has spent in the neighborhood of $60-$100 billion on renewable energy subsidies. The EIA reports that for 2010 and 2013 the figures were a combined $30 billion. Then throw in nuclear energy subsidies over the last 25 years, which is comparable to the Bezos figure by itself.
  - DennisP 7y ago
    > $154 billion on climate-change-related activities since 1993 [but] 94 percent of the money was going to programs that weren’t primarily focused on climate change — things like nuclear energy. The money marked as climate spending wasn’t going to new initiatives. Instead, “it’s a bunch of related things we were already doing,” So 6% of the money being actual new money focused on fixing climate, times $154 billion, is $9.24 billion. I think that's an appropriate comparison since the Bezos money is new money specifically for fixing climate.
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bensonn 7y ago

This says he "commits" 10B to a new initiative named after himself. What do terms like "commits" and "pledges" mean? From the article it looks like all he did was post on Instagram. Is there more to this than an IG post? Is there anything legally binding, anything that actually moves the money outside of his control? Did his networth just drop 10B?

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iceman7733 7y ago

I think this money could be used much more effectively by attacking other more pressing issues (like child nutrition). Climate Change is not such a cut-and-dry situation, it's difficult to parse out the facts from the political commentary/posturing. Bjorn Lomborg articulates all this better than I ever could.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

I am a little worried that this initiative will only do things that don’t cost Bezos too much money. I feel the same when Silicon Valley guys push UBI. It often seems a way for them to keep their money while pretending to do something. Maybe I am too cynical but these guys got to where they are by always looking out for themselves first.

neonate 7y ago

https://archive.md/eb3kq https://archive.md/eb3kq

harry8 7y ago

Worlds richest man continues to pay zero tax while making fatuous annoucnements. That should be the preface on every single Bezos article. Every time his name is mentioned, it should explained as follows "Jeff Bezos, who is the world's richest man and neither he nor is company have ever paid any tax at all." Then people can effectively make their own mind up about whatever his PR team is pushing this week. It's impossible to be cynical enough, in my opinion. YMMV. Disagree? Write down what you think this announcement means. Review it in a year and see if you were misled.

chriscatoya 7y ago

The money is great, of course, but a piece of me wonders every time I see this sort of thing if spending time managing these endeavors directly would be more impactful towards the goal.