
Billionaires who made their fortunes by trying to stop climate change - montalbano
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-green-billionaires/
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fenwick67
It's amazing to me that Trevor Milton (of Nikola) is a billionaire when his
company hasn't even built a factory yet. What a time to be alive.

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0x00000000
I’ll buy 0.0000001% of your company for $1 and you can be a “billionaire” too.

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djohnston
deal!

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devpts11
Sold to the man in the floppy pink bunny rabbit hat.

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marta_morena
Its quite a blow to the credibility of this article, if Elon Musk is listed
second as "climate change billionaire". Since when is building electric
vehicles preventing climate change? Where do people think where this energy
comes from? If we even have enough resources to furnish every living soul with
an electric car, the electricity for that is certainly not coming from solar
panels or windmills.

~~~
dwaltrip
Electric vehicles can run off carbon neutral sources. They can take advantage
of any future improvements in electrical power generation and storage. It is
literally impossible for ICE vehicles to be carbon neutral.

Solar and wind are already becoming more profitable than running existing coal
plants in some areas. Market forces in tandem with continued technological
development will accelerate these shifts. It would also be prudent for
government to nudge this process along.

~~~
poiuyt098
> It is literally impossible for ICE vehicles to be carbon neutral.

Biodiesel and [m]ethanol fuels are a real thing.

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AstralStorm
These are not carbon neutral, a vehicle emits CO2 when burning them and that
is not captured even in half by the growing plants.+

And you have to fertilize them for this efficiency, and those either require
non-neutral manufacturing process, or composting which releases methane (in
itself a biofuel that could be used but isn't). Plants also release some
methane on their own when growing.

That's not even counting loss of biodiversity or replacing carbon-negative
fields, farming grasslands and forests.

You could make a biofuel carbon neutral but we're not even close. Bioethanol
for example has a CO2 producing fermentation step. Going biohydrogen and
burying the plants could work. (Even methane is not clean enough to offset
planting, unfortunately.)

And we do not want to go neutral but to reduce emissions.

\-- +) The number is 37% according to in-depth study:
[http://theconversation.com/biofuels-turn-out-to-be-a-
climate...](http://theconversation.com/biofuels-turn-out-to-be-a-climate-
mistake-heres-why-64463)

~~~
poiuyt098
I'm not here to pettifog about various definitions, studies and calculation
methodologies. "Literally impossible" was claimed but now requires, uh,
_interpretations_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-
neutral_fuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-neutral_fuel)

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lowii
Building millions of electric cars and shipping them around the world is
extremely energy intensive. Many countries where those cars are shipped to use
fossil fuels as their main source of electricity too. Nothing about it is
green or will "stop climate change", but it gives them good marketing.

~~~
sowbug
You seem to be concerned about climate change. Do you have a better idea than
electric cars to address the problem?

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gaze
Build infrastructure for public transportation and bicycles and such things.
Try to eliminate cars.

~~~
zamalek
You can't move food and goods with bicycles and public transportation.

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Arnt
All of my food and goods are moved with bicycles and public transportation.

There's a big hospital not far from where I sit, too. All of the food and
goods for 1100 patients there are moved with bicycles and public
transportation.

You might argue that you didn't mean _all_ kinds of public tranportation, you
meant only the kind of vehicles whose interior is designed to carry people and
a bit of luggage. Not the kind that's meant to carry goods for the general
public. But why shouldn't the companies that transport for the general public
be free to choose vehicles, routing, perhaps even timing to suit the loads and
other needs?

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rorykoehler
Since when is manufacturing palm oil stopping climate change? Palm oil is
responsible for massive biodiversity and carbon sink loss.

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celim307
this is news to me, everything I read pointed to palm oil causing
deforestation

~~~
rorykoehler
Precisely. This is a bigger threat than CO2 because once the biodiversity is
gone it's gone. We can always cleanup the carbon once we have the tech to
deploy at scale.

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imtringued
Biodiversity appears automatically if you stop human intervention. The problem
isn't that it's irreversible. It's that we destroy it at a faster rate than it
recovers.

~~~
rorykoehler
Depth dissappears with extinction

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robertofmoria
Does anyone have actual data that suggests any of these people have had a
positive impact on "climate change?" Does anyone have any data that "Climate
Change" is even bad? Also, if everyone is SOOO concerned with CO2 emissions or
waste in general why is Nuclear power not being discussed? It is only the most
clean energy source on the planet considering waste to energy production lb
for lb. Also, does anyone know the pollutants created making solar panels or
super light weight material for wind mills? If not, why not? That is something
to be concerned about is it not?

Point is most if not all of you haven't a clue about "Climate Change" just
like the political scene. For the last 60+ years "global cooling," "global
warming," and lastly "climate change" have been used to make unethical people
a lot of money playing off people's ignorance and fear.

~~~
ketzu
'Does anyone have any data that "Climate Change" is even bad?'

Depends on what you consider "bad". But there seems to be a lot of material
that climate changes is mostly negative economical and health wise for humans.
(e.g., [http://www.oecd.org/env/the-economic-consequences-of-
climate...](http://www.oecd.org/env/the-economic-consequences-of-climate-
change-9789264235410-en.htm) )

'Also, if everyone is SOOO concerned with CO2 emissions or waste in general
why is Nuclear power not being discussed?'

It's impossible to escape the nuclear discussion on this topics. Many threads
about anything climate or CO2 related are full of discussion of nuclear.

'It is only the most clean energy source on the planet considering waste to
energy production lb for lb.'

I couldn't find any numbers on this, but I am willing to believe it. Could you
provide a citation? I'd like to know more about it.

'Also, does anyone know the pollutants created making solar panels or super
light weight material for wind mills?'

It has been in mainstream news and outlets a few times, so I assume most
people are aware that toxic materials are used to produce solar panels. As far
as I can tell from the reports I saw, these can be disposed of reliably, and
fairly easily while still being safe. (unlike nuclear waste as far as I can
tell.)

'If not, why not?'

Most people have limited capacities and do not concern themselves with
everything.

'Point is most if not all of you haven't a clue'

This is true for most people on most topics and has never stopped anyone from
forming an option, discussing it on hackernews, or call people that might
actually have a clue out on not having a clue.

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vermilingua
A considerable number of these "green billionaires" are riding on the backs of
Lithium battery development and production. Lithium mining, refining, and the
battery-making process hardly seem green to me. Is there any research (not
funded by these billionaires) to show definitively that battery production is
a substantial net gain?

~~~
legitster
#3: Wind-power manufacturing #4: Paper recycling #5: Solar cell manufacturing
#6: Renewable power #7: Solar manufacturing

About half of them have nothing to do with lithium.

~~~
vermilingua
50% is pretty much how I would define "considerable". Additionally, solar is
also made of some pretty awful stuff. Better than burning dead tree, but by
how much?

~~~
montalbano
In addition to my other comment on amortising manufacturing pollution of
electric cars, see the below scientific articles on the time required for
energy payback of solar panels. Many people are investigating this.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012385...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123859341000374)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00380...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0038092X01000330)

~~~
vermilingua
Thank you for these. The solar articles talk about the energy payback of the
PV systems, but is this necessarily equal to the environmental cost to produce
them? I would think that energy usage != CO2 cost, as energy may not factor in
mining, refining, etc.

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harry8
Pratt does packaging and inherited the business and vast wealth. Made it? No.
Grew it? Maybe - haven't looked at the detail. Recycling of this kind has a
stink of "tax optimisation and subsidy claim" about it but I don't know this
as a fact in this case. It's a massive stretch to say he made his fortune
trying to stop climate change when he grew it by growing his inherited
packaging business. Claiming he made it trying to stop climate change
completely degrades the whole idea of this story, really. Number 4 on the
list. Net Green Worth 6.8 billion. The same has his entire net worth. It's
comic. If you haven't thought about it much, landfill use is very, very low on
the list of things to address in stopping climate change. As its own issue it
lacks the climate change urgency yet always get itself shoehorned into the
climate debate somehow with subsidy to follow.

No doubt we'll have yet another hollywood style celebrity who knows nothing,
is famous for being attractive to look at and if they have any skill at all it
is lying convincingly go on to tell us to tackle climate change we should
refill our water bottles in stead of placing them in the bin in the follow up
article. "Well it's a start" No it isn't, it's nothing at best, it's a
distraction from adults talking intelligently and undermines grass roots
movements, which is the whole point of the publicising of celebrity advocacy
in general. "Let's ignore this person who knows and makes a solid case,
because Angelina Jolie has thoughts her publicist would like to share as long
as you agree to these terms so she massage her image while you farm your
clicks."

Bloomberg. Yeah. Bloomberg claims to be better than this. Now let's play "What
has this article got to do with Mike Bloomberg trying to undermine the reform
of the massive corruption in the Democrat party?" Unless you think he's
actually seriously trying to be elected, which is something worth discussing
if you do. What isn't worth discussing is weather Bloomberg News are, possibly
among other things, his personal propaganda, because they've actually
announced that themselves.

Genunine idealogically Republicans and Democrats alike are all desperate for
reform. From just about anywhere, which is a concern because there are places
we don't want it from, like the extremes. Under-qualified Obama got in on that
ticket. Democrats voted for Donald because "Just maybe a maverick outsider,
and anyway unlikely to be actually worse" Plenty of republican support for
Bernie because "Just maybe a maverick outsider and anyway unlikely to be
actually worse"

It saddens me that Bernie as the most credible Democrat reformer would have
smashed Donald as the most credible Republican reformer at the last election.
It saddens me because Donald was the most credible Republican reformer and
that there still doesn't seem to be anyone better among Republicans standing
against him.

Anway back to businesses making money saving the planet. We need more. This
list is very, very thin and contains ring ins.

~~~
dmode
This rant almost sounds like it was written by a AI gone crazy

~~~
devpts11
We're probably simulations, so indeed it was. It happens to me with not enough
sleep and forgetting actual ADD meds.

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monkeycantype
I must be an instance of the same AI class, reads perfectly coherent to me.
Anger doesn't mean crazy.

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_bxg1
The omitted word "These" at the front seems important

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gus_massa
It was probably removed by the automatic filter of titles in HN. If you send
an email to the mods hn@ycombinator.com they will probably fix it.

~~~
montalbano
As the OP, I can confirm it was automatically removed. I stuck to the HN
guidelines and did not editorialise the title.

~~~
dang
Thanks! Sorry the software got it wrong in this case. It's ok to click 'edit'
and fix it when that happens.

