
Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies - sethbannon
https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-announces-2-billion-climate-pledge-fund-invest-companies
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an_opabinia
Suppose the investments turn out to be wildly successful. They turn $2b into
$200b. They could still fail at the goal of slowing global warming.

The accounting value of an equity, especially a growth stage company, is never
the same as its economic value. When in history has accounting (like a price)
measured something real / believable about the environment?

One way to look at this is what is the environmental impact of Tesla? Amazon
would have love to have invested in Tesla. That would have made this fund.
Anyone would. But just because their accounting values goes up so and so,
doesn't mean that's a measurement of their environmental impact.

My point is, equities are ill suited incentives for even economic profits, let
alone environmental "profits."

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PragmaticPulp
> My point is, equities are ill suited incentives for even economic profits,
> let alone environmental "profits."

What is your alternative proposal?

It's not like Amazon's $2B investment in climate tech is mutually exclusive
with government initiatives or other climate research. It's another angle to
approach the problem, using the tools they have at their disposal. I don't
understand the desire to assume the most cynical takes on this initiative.

~~~
santoshalper
They could pay taxes and we could, as a nation, decide how best to coordinate
efforts to fight climate change.

~~~
PragmaticPulp
> They could pay taxes

It's false to claim that Amazon doesn't pay their taxes. Amazon pays taxes on
profits according to the tax law, just like every other company. Amazon
employees pay taxes on their paychecks, just like every other company's
employees. Amazon's customers pay taxes on their purchases, just like
customers of every other company's customers. Amazon generates a lot of tax
revenue.

> and we could, as a nation, decide how best to coordinate efforts to fight
> climate change

Like I said: Amazon's climate change actions are not mutually exclusive with
government initiatives to combat climate change.

It's a false dichotomy, not to mention specious argument, to suggest that
Amazon's $2B investment in climate change is somehow preventing the government
from also investing in climate change intitiatives.

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1-6
How about them delivery trucks and waste cardboard boxes? Those data centers
can also generate a lot of emissions. Amazon is throwing spare change at a
massing problem they're involved in.

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pen2l
But you’ve gotta admit they’re like 10 times better than the alternative.

I mean, their whole operation is optimized up the wazoo. Imagine the time
saved, the carbon emissions saved when folks don’t have to drive to and back
to get their stuff.

I’m kind of hooked on this grocery delivery stuff too now, so much time and
headache and gas saved.

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skrebbel
> But you’ve gotta admit they’re like 10 times better than the alternative.

Not if the alternative is bikeable and walkable cities with decent public
transport, though.

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Kalium
OK. Let's say a magic wand is waved, and all of us Americans have bikeable and
walkable cities with excellent public transportation. Let's say this happens
literally overnight.

How do you expect this would change Amazon's logistics and how favorable they
are for consumers? For my part, at the very least, I'm still likely to get a
lot of things delivered. Local stores are very rarely cheaper for anything
non-immediate and delivery takes much less of my time than going to a store
and back.

At a guess, Amazon's still better than this alternative for many scenarios.
Maybe not ten times better, but still better.

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bttrfl
Perhaps, we should wave this magic wand to make you order less stuff? No tech
can save us unless we start to consume less. Also, we should care less about
optimising our time which we are likely to waste anyway on netflix and co.

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Kalium
I'm a very strange person in many ways. I personally prefer to be able to make
my own choices about how I waste away my free time - Netflix, books, biking,
walks, prayer, meditation, yoga, etc. Trading that in for spending more time
to get my groceries (or toiletries, or dry goods, or similar) does not sound
like an attractive choice to me.

I understand that this is an unusual personality trait. Still, I'm reluctant
to give it up.

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bttrfl
I don't think this is about "attractive choices". Either our lifestyles (and
those who will live after us) are sustainable or not. If they are not, we
should consider changing our behaviour.

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pphysch
> Amazon announced it’s on a path to run on 100% renewable energy by 2025,
> five years ahead of schedule.

A possible silver lining of market domination is the ability to tackle issues
like climate change without falling behind competitors who aren't making those
harder choices. Unless this is all PR and Amazon is actively burning down
their namesake or something?

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depr
In some cases, Amazon uses e.g. subsidied wind energy for new data centers.
However, this means the renewable energy is not going to neighboring homes,
which are instead still using non-renewables.

~~~
TotempaaltJ
I think Google is not just being renewable energy, but also building new
solar/wind farms to "offset" their use so this is not the case.

Maybe Amazon is doing something similar?

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gregdunn
>Maybe Amazon is doing something similar?

Yep!

[https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/sustainab...](https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/sustainable-
operations/renewable-energy)

Disclaimer: Amazon employee, not speaking on behalf of the company, just
posting a link to something I am aware of.

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ericvanular
Great to see checks getting written for climate projects again! For anyone who
may be interested, there's a supportive climate focused community and
interesting climate projects over at
[https://collective.energy](https://collective.energy) (founder here)

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reizorc
"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization
developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,... CO2 will need to be
reduced ...to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that - Hansen et
al.(2008)" [1]

Neutral is not enough. So I hope they will be plowing large amounts of the
fund into negative-emissions technologies. Either that or make large swathes
of the planet into a disco ball.

[1] Young People's Burden: Requirement of Negative CO2 Emissions.
[https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1609/1609.05878.pdf](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1609/1609.05878.pdf)

~~~
oh_sigh
Proactively attempting to change the planet to fit our presumed desires seems
even more irresponsible than trying to simply negate our effect on the planet.
And realistically, the planet was more like an iceball than it is today for a
vast majority of the timeline of homo sapiens.

~~~
chillacy
We've already started geo-engineering, just not intentionally.

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oh_sigh
Yes, and I said that intentional geoengineering may be worse than intentional.
Especially when it is geoengineering beyond the scope of "make it seem like we
don't exist"

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delecti
Even if you view it cynically this is a smart plan. It's good PR, and they've
got a better foot in the door for when those climate tech companies start
getting a bunch more customers. And one way or another they're likely to start
getting more customers, whether it's proactive or reactive.

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tito
We need to go carbon negative. Microsoft announced a $1B commitment to go
carbon negative by 2030. This sets the course for the rise of air mining
technologies.

Interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeQxTI-s48A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeQxTI-s48A)

Carbon Removal Weekly Update on the Microsoft announcement:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J429u4RxkI0&t=21s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J429u4RxkI0&t=21s)

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toomanymike
Anyone have pointers to interesting companies in the climate tech space? Or
tips for finding them?

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bloudermilk
A group of us built the open source website
[https://climatescape.org](https://climatescape.org) for exactly this purpose.
You can browse by sector and technology.

~~~
toomanymike
Super helpful, thanks!

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thoughtstheseus
This whole industry needs a rebrand. Excess carbon pollute my neighborhood
parks and community. The majority of the world’s ecosystems are getting less
diverse as a result of excess carbon. We’re literally watching a great
extinction event in real time.

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heratyian
Yes, it's possible to be a capitalist and an environmentalist.

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dckeyjqmon
This won't work. We need real regulation that penalizes polluters so much that
it's no longer profitable to destroy the planet. We need social and cultural
changes so that it's no longer hip and cool to fly around on jet planes and
cars. This is mostly a political issue, not an issue of private industries in
search of profits.

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wpasc
I could not disagree more. The second that renewable energy is a more economic
and reliable way to consume energy it will easily become the default because
there will be no reason not to. Private companies that could
develop/build/scale such technologies and deploy them who seek profit are a
viable method because the profit motive can deploy capital to that effect.

Government research and regulations could help speed the development of these
technologies and hasten their tipping point through adjusting the cost. This
is certainly not just a political issue and culture most often follows the
past of least resistance. Telling people to stop consuming energy is a more
quixotic endeavor than developing more economic renewables

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GreeniFi
“ The second that renewable energy is a more economic and reliable way to
consume energy it will easily become the default because there will be no
reason not to.”

You ignore the realpolitik of climate change. FYI certain fossil fuel
producing states invest heavily to disrupt the transition to renewables.

Ask yourself why the Green Climate Fund, probably the most important fund of
its type, is based is based in the arse-end or nowhere.

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bradstewart
Certain ones do, sure. But not all, or even most. The vast majority of
countries do not produce fossil fuels, so they all have an interest in
reducing dependence on oil.

I know nothing about the GCF or the geography of Korea, but ~2 hours from
Seoul doesn't really seem like the "arse-end of nowhere"?

