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

• 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
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