Amazon founder launches $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund to fight climate change

Shawn Knight

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The big picture: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos this week announced the launch of a global initiative to help fight the devastating impact of climate change on Earth. The Bezos Earth Fund will empower scientists, activists and non-governmental organizations to both amplify know methods and explore new ways to combat what is described by some as the biggest threat to our planet.

Bezos in announcing the initiative on Instagram said he is contributing $10 billion to start with and will begin issuing grants this summer.

Climate change aside, the size of the gift and the fact that it is coming from Bezos is noteworthy in itself. According to Vox, the only other larger pledge of the 21st century came when Warren Buffett pledged to give the bulk of his net worth to the Gates Foundation back in 2006.

Critics for years have said Bezos hasn’t done enough charitable work with the wealth he has amassed. Donating what roughly amounts to 7.5 percent of his net worth to a charitable cause should certainly hush the critics.

Last year, Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie signed the Giving Pledge, vowing to donate at least half of her net worth to charity. As part of their divorce agreement, MacKenzie received roughly 19.7 million shares of Amazon stock that’s worth north of $42 billion today.

Masthead credit: Jeff Bezos sketch by Marina Linchevska. Climate change by Nicole Glass Photography.

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Increasing the number of people making deliveries for Amazon actually uses more energy and emits more CO2.

A better expenditure would be making biodegradable packaging using banana leaves and bamboo.

That would be worth more than its weight in Gold
 
Strings ..... what are the strings that are attached ..... you know darn well he isn't just writing them a check!
 
Strings ..... what are the strings that are attached ..... you know darn well he isn't just writing them a check!
Well, I hope there are strings. Otherwise, there will be at least one scammer per applicant genuinely working in the field.
 
Just stop having a lot of kids and stop buying $1,000 cell phones. Chinese factories are working at full capacity to try and meet demand
 
Just stop having a lot of kids and stop buying $1,000 cell phones. Chinese factories are working at full capacity to try and meet demand
That’s basically the solution

Still, people think overpopulation is not real even with some examples like *cough cough MEXICO CITY cough cough*
 
Perhaps he can allocate his fund to studying the sun? I don't think it's rocket science to realize it's the sun that heats planets and any slight variation has huge impacts. Our climate impact is less than what a cigarette lighter would be in a mansion. Mr Burns had it right with a sunblocker.
Sun_2_pxepz8.jpg
 
I don't think people can do anything as a collective anymore. I don't know how are we gonna fight climate change in this state.
 
How do you stop climate change? How arrogant of man to think he can affect such change by throwing money at it. Climate change is a natural occurrence and has been going on for millions of years- there are theories that claim that at one point, the north and south poles were around the middle east and somewhere in the Pacific, respectively! One average size volcano can emit more CO2 in one eruption than all the cars of the world can combine for in a year.
There are millions of people who are hungry and homeless, yet *****s with money to spare are wasting it on trivial causes, and their only purpose is to look good to the politically correct crowd.
 
Perhaps he can allocate his fund to studying the sun? I don't think it's rocket science to realize it's the sun that heats planets and any slight variation has huge impacts. Our climate impact is less than what a cigarette lighter would be in a mansion.

I trust the consensus of actual scientists studying the sun over the opinions of random people on the internet. If they say that the incoming solar radiation doesn't account for the warming, then I'm inclined to defer to their results.

And BTW, people burn down mansions with cigarette lighters.
 
Changing our orbit around the sun is the best way to effectively alter Climate Change. Somehow I don't see them doing that.
 
Increasing the number of people making deliveries for Amazon actually uses more energy and emits more CO2.

A better expenditure would be making biodegradable packaging using banana leaves and bamboo.

That would be worth more than its weight in Gold
"biodegradable" is just a buzz word. most of the stuff they use still require a lot of time and "special" conditions to actually degrade enough.
 
Perhaps he can allocate his fund to studying the sun? I don't think it's rocket science to realize it's the sun that heats planets and any slight variation has huge impacts. Our climate impact is less than what a cigarette lighter would be in a mansion. Mr Burns had it right with a sunblocker.
Sun_2_pxepz8.jpg

You're right, it's not rocket science. It's climate science. A field you obviously do not work in and have not studied.
 
Strings ..... what are the strings that are attached ..... you know darn well he isn't just writing them a check!

You don't know anything. There are plenty of wealthy people donating loads of money to causes with no "strings attached".
 
I don't think people can do anything as a collective anymore. I don't know how are we gonna fight climate change in this state.

I would be interested to hear in what previous era you think we managed to "do things as a collective". AFAIK this was never even remotely true or possible and we are way better at it now than at any other point in history.
Will it be enough to mitigate climate change? Who knows. Sadly we're not quite at Star Trek levels of worldwide human cooperation yet.
 
You do that first and we will follow your lead!

I did. I'm 35 with no kids while my friends are randomly getting married because they can't stand being alone. Life is better well for me being single, more time, freedom, low stress and you can do what you want. I would never have kids until I know I can financially support them and mentally know I can be a good father even during tough times.
 
Let me guess, these guys are going to focus on suburban white people in the West and completely ignore the main polluters on other continents. Calling it now.
Hey man, the Niger river isn't going to dump crudely refined gasoline into itself!

 
You're right, it's not rocket science. It's climate science. A field you obviously do not work in and have not studied.

That is an epic fail assumption about someone you know nothing about. Even kindergartners know the sun is what gives us heat. Care to personally attack me more?
 
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