Amazon creates a $2 billion climate fund, as it struggles to cut its own emissions:
Investment areas: In a press release, Amazon said the new fund would focus on startups that could help it and other businesses achieve "net zero" emissions by 2040. It will invest across a wide array of industries, including transportation, energy generation, energy storage, manufacturing, materials, and agriculture.
What's behind the move? The Seattle retail giant has come under growing pressure from the public and its own employees to shrink its environmental footprint as the dangers of global warming grow. [...]
Earlier Amazon efforts: Several days later, Amazon committed to achieve "net zero" emissions by 2040, which means it would need to offset any remaining emissions from its operations through investments in carbon removal projects, such as forest restoration or carbon capture machines. In February, chief executive Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, announced he would donate $10 billion of his personal fortune to scientists, activists, and NGOs working to address climate change.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:49PM (9 children)
Outsource and externalize.
Keep Amazon as a shell that takes 45% and let sales and delivery be done by "independent" contractors. Have them collect and submit their data plus fees to ensure timely issuing of a license. Require them to cut emissions 10% year on year. Problem solved.
Then re-imagine the CEO role as more of a President for Life, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas. Zuckerberg can issue Presidential Orders instead of shitty memos and order Congress to answer his questions rather than the other way round.
Where's my $2B?
(Score: 4, Touché) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:58PM (5 children)
Bezos, not Zuckerberg.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:15PM (4 children)
No. Zuckerberg. This brilliant proposal did say Externalize
Everyone knows that alien abductions (and probing) happen only at night, because that is when the aliens are hungry.
(Score: 5, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:35PM (3 children)
The alien parasite that controls them both is a hive-mind.
Once they have transformed the hellishly cold Earth to something suitable for their species, they can emerge and live in the open.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:38PM (1 child)
So it wants you to think. In reality is a single puppeteer manipulating both.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:37PM
A dubious distinction.
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:33PM
Resistance is futile.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stretch611 on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:33PM (1 child)
Well, yes...
Amazon could cut its carbon footprint by letting companies like the USPS, Fedex, and UPS deliver everything again.
However, its greed took control and it decided to do everything on its own so that it could maximize its own profit. This created a new fleet of emission spewing vehicles delivering everything from half empty trucks, or from its own contractor and employee vehicles.
Corporate greed > environmentally friendly policies. We know for a fact that Amazon specifically made this choice. It just wants people to blame other things so that it looks good.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:40PM
If the half empty trucks are costing Amazon significantly less than FedEx/UPS would, odds are they're more efficient and spewing less net CO2. One might argue that FedEx/UPS was funneling profits to their corporate overlords, but those profits translate to things like Megayachts and mansions which also spew CO2 in their construction, operation, maintenance and disposal.
At least with more direct control of their fleet, Amazon has the control to do things like invest in electrification of their vehicles - and if that works on the greed balance sheet (without tax incentives) then it's also most likely a net improvement in overall CO2 emissions. Not that tax incentives for green power were/are a bad thing, they're a necessary kick to get get the industry going, but they do skew the overall efficiency picture.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Kitsune008 on Friday June 26 2020, @01:10AM
It's been sunk into the hopeless cause of educating you. Wasted. Thrown away. Gone.
Now, repeat after me ten times:
"Jeff Bezos is not Mark Zuckerberg...Mark Zuckerberg is not Jeff Bezos."
"Jeff Bezos is not Mark Zuckerberg...Mark Zuckerberg is not Jeff Bezos."
"Jeff Bezos is not Mark Zuckerberg...Mark Zuckerberg is not Jeff Bezos."
"Jeff Bezos is not Mark Zuckerberg...Mark Zuckerberg is not Jeff Bezos."
"Jeff Bezos is not Mark Zuckerberg...Mark Zuckerberg is not Jeff Bezos."
"Jeff Bezos is not Mark Zuckerberg...Mark Zuckerberg is not Jeff Bezos."
...ad nauseum...
And, you are expected to repay the $2,000,000,000.00 USD that was wasted on your pathetic excuse for an education.
Be grateful that more amends are not requested! Beware!
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:53PM (1 child)
I guess the public pressure and now near constant accusations of corporate greed need to be pushed back a bit, and hidden, with some well timed PR funding on progressive projects -- it's not like 2 billion dollars is all that much to Amazon, or for that matter 10 billion dollars of Bezos own money if he ever gets around to it. This seem to be quite in line with what corporations and robber-barons do when the critical voices become a bit to loud -- build a museum, start some funds or foundations, bread and circuses for the masses!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:46PM
No, they're buying stock in what they think will be the "next big thing":
Those are investments, not grants. So that means that they'll make big bucks off of somebody else's hard work if any of those businesses succeed.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:16PM (1 child)
I have a sense that there are "Amazon households" that order large amounts, on a regular basis. Wouldn't it make sense for delivery of new boxes to be accompanied by pickup of used boxes and bubble-wrap...which are then re-used directly?
Might take a few changes, for example, tape and labels would have to come off cleanly and not damage the box. Since Amazon is now doing their own delivery (in some cases), they should be able to use different packaging that might require slightly different/special handling.
While Musk is saving resources & cash by re-using rocket boosters, Bezos could save much, much more by re-using cardboard and other packaging.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:27PM
>Musk is saving resources & cash by re-using rocket boosters, Bezos could save...
Bezos is also trying to save resources by having reusable rockets.
(Score: 1) by oumuamua on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:01PM (6 children)
Great effort but can it work without a carbon market? In order to be profitable a lot of these ideas depend on a carbon market,
memified: https://www.genolve.com/design/socialmedia/memes/Hey-Capitalism-we-want-to-save-the-Earth. [genolve.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:42PM (3 children)
Sometimes leading into new areas without legislated mandates and tax incentives can reap even greater rewards than sitting around and waiting for committees to decide how to count the obvious beans. See: Tesla, the Quixotic electric vehicle maker.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday June 26 2020, @02:57AM
Also in part because you could get ahead of competition, establish a good name in the market, refine your processes; but don't nap like Intel.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday June 26 2020, @03:41PM (1 child)
Tesla? You mean the EV company that got started later than many of the other carmakers and is both way more expensive and in many ways a lower-quality product than its competitors? The company that is in no way essential to the development of EVs?
Really: Their EV technology is behind that of Toyota, Honda, Chevrolet (!), and quite a few other players by a lot of measurements. Really the only thing they've mastered is marketing to limousine-liberal types who want to feel good about themselves, can't do the math, and don't need to worry about the costs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 26 2020, @04:28PM
I may not know much about the value of electric vehicle production programs, but I can read the market capitalization number on a stock summary...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:43PM
If the price on carbon is a cost of doing business, it will be added to the price of the sold goods.
Then you'll have exactly two big online retailers: Amazon and Alibaba. Tough choice, which one will you buy your trinkets from?
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Thursday June 25 2020, @07:04PM
If we need a carbon market, we can sell it on Amazon.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:05PM
As a self-identified Black businesswoman, I wonder why Amazon did not earmark 20% of the funds for outright grants to Black-owned businesses? Does Amazon believe that the environment is more important than Black livelihoods?
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:14PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence [wikipedia.org]
'nuff said
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:46PM
Must be for funding US-ian LEAs.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:21PM
Amazon should use the $2 billion to create the Bezos Prize, giving large awards every year for the most important people in environmental awareness. The first $100 million should go to Al Gore for demonstrating how global warming works, and the second $100 million to Greta Thunburger to shut her up.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:34PM (4 children)
A huge priority should be a fund to reduce copy'right' lengths to something more reasonable. If these big corporations really cared about the public interest at all this is a very obvious fund that needs to exist.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:42PM (3 children)
I just noticed that the whitehouse.gov removed the petition to reduce copyright terms? What, did it get way too many signatures?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/reduce-term-copyrights-maximum-56-years/MnXrd3xG [whitehouse.gov]
Even if you search for a petition to reduce copyright terms it doesn't exist. It seems like the whitehouse.gov now picks and chooses what petitions persist?
Wow, the whole structure of the petition system changed on that website. It's no longer organic ... I guess they don't want us choosing what we can petition. Someone else needs to start a more organic petition site. Or we should make the government make the petition system organic.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:48PM
Even change.org makes it hard to find such petitions. Interesting. It's like petitions to reduce copyright term limits are now prohibited. They used to exist but I guess no one wants to even give us that option. I imagine if I start such a petition it would somehow get removed.
We need an alternative petition system free of official bias. Perhaps Techdirt or Soylentnews can create one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @09:58PM (1 child)
People still use those petition sites? They were useless with the previous administration and even more useless now. Why would anyone waste their time?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday June 25 2020, @10:18PM
I guess they do. It makes people think that their clicks matters. They are doing something and it's so easy to just click on something instead of actually have to do something. The feelz matters.
(Score: 2) by leon_the_cat on Thursday June 25 2020, @07:42PM
that should do the job.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @01:07AM (3 children)
Air travel is particularly damaging to the environment. Passenger flights have decreased during the pandemic but cargo flights are at record highs. That's the result of online orders from companies like Amazon, who move freight via air for one day deliveries. It might be convenient but it's quite harmful to the environment.
We might be better off improving our rail system, both for passenger and freight traffic. Expand the rail network and power it with clean energy from sources like renewables or nuclear power. In the process, we could make the rail network considerably more efficient than it is now. Move freight by rail when possible instead of by air. If we improve the efficiency of the network and the speed of the trains, it could be faster to move freight around the country. And it could be considerably cleaner than doing so by air. In places not directly served by rail, trucks could be used to move the freight from train to its final destination.
If Amazon really wants to cut emissions, it might be worth using that money and collaborating with big railroad companies in the US and Canada (BNSF, UP, CSX, KCS, NS, CN, CP, VIA, and FXE) to upgrade the infrastructure. Amazon might be able to get priority and perhaps even get trackage rights to run their own trains. Perhaps two day deliveries might become the norm again for goods that have to be transported across the country.
Railroads are already experimenting with battery-electric locomotives [bnsf.com] to replace the existing diesel-electric locomotives. It's a really interesting idea because it could avoid the need to upgrade the infrastructure while providing many of the same benefits.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 26 2020, @01:35PM
i think that's right. rail is the way to go. i wonder if lighter-than-air freight transport can be part of the mix also, since it can do point-to-point. there's an outfit that's been trying to do that for a decade (Airlifter, I think they're called).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday June 26 2020, @03:45PM (1 child)
Air travel isn't all that bad for the environment. It's definitely way less bad than driving per passenger-mile.
Trains are better, yes, and I'd be all for improving the USA's rail infrastructure, which is downright embarrassing by the standards of modern countries. But let's not make BS arguments for them.
And of course the least-bad option for situations where people need to deal with someone a long-distance away is to use telecommunications rather than actually traveling in person.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:56AM
That's simply not true. Modern airplanes get about can get about 80-100 MPG per person if they fill all the seats. This is, of course better than any ICE vehicle, but the thing that people who make this comparison like to conveniently leave out is that cars can also transport more than one person too. If you can fill most or all of the seats in a most any modern car, you'll get better mileage numbers per person than an airplane. For something like a Prius with 4-5 people, you're easily twice as efficient as the best airplanes. Even a large 3-row gas hog of an SUV like a Suburban can approach airplane numbers if you've got all seats filled.
The other problem with airplanes is that they dump their pollution in the upper atmosphere where it can do more harm.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 26 2020, @01:42PM
We need big investment in the sector if we're really serious about remediating human effects on the environment. It needs to be soup-to-nuts, though, not greenwashing. Embodied carbon of the whole lifecycle of a product must be considered. We've been learning how to tuck the waste streams of some processes into the input streams of other processes, like recycled plastic, glass, etc., but if we do that across the board we can effectively reduce our impact on the environment to pace human population growth as an initial goal, and then tail off from there as we make sufficient advances in material sciences (graphene, carbon nanotubes, more efficient & energy dense batteries and the like are the sort of thing I'm talking about).
In many respects we are on the edge of the Diamond Age if we can pry the evil, withered claws of the 19th century industrialists off our world.
Washington DC delenda est.