Amazon Unveils $2 Billion Fund To Invest in Startups Building Sustainable Technology (geekwire.com) 17
Amazon on Tuesday launched The Climate Pledge Fund, a new venture capital investment program that will funnel an initial $2 billion into startups building sustainable technologies across various industries such as transportation, food, manufacturing, and more. From a report: The fund is part of Amazon's Climate Pledge announced by the tech giant last year as the company promised to become net carbon neutral by 2040. "The Climate Pledge Fund will look to invest in the visionary entrepreneurs and innovators who are building products and services to help companies reduce their carbon impact and operate more sustainably," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. "Companies from around the world of all sizes and stages will be considered, from pre-product startups to well-established enterprises. Each prospective investment will be judged on its potential to accelerate the path to zero carbon and help protect the planet for future generations." The Climate Pledge aims to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change 10 years ahead of schedule.
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It triggers the left wingers too.
See, a powerful man presents his boot and the little sycophantic lefties all run to it to demand the destruction of the existing systems based on fake data that the man refuses to share.
At least the right wingers have some consistency to their view that green revolution must actually work and be practical within the kind of economic constraints that apply to everything.
See, I know lefties who think that putting solar panels all over the place will mean we can get rid of foss
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"I don't see the immediate obvious evil from the program as described, "
Inventing super cheap robots that carry the merchandise around and putting it in packaging could result in 500.000 Amazon workers not driving their gas-guzzlers to work and back, which per definition would be 'green'.
I have THE BEST idea! (Score:1)
Build a network of separate local shops specialised selling products produced by a network of separate, small local companies mostly using local resources. This would immensely reduce the amount of CO2 created through world-wide transportation of resources, products and waste. And it would create local jobs and â" by doing so â"Âwould help to develop localized, autonomous economic circle-like systems.
I think a genius like Jeff Bezos must see the immense innovation and prospects for a sustaina
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Though a cute idea, it is probably wrong. A giant monolith is likely more energy efficient than many small operations. I would avoid using incorrect statements (your other reasons for splitting them up still hold as valid arguments).
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Though a cute idea, it is probably wrong. A giant monolith is likely more energy efficient than many small operations. I would avoid using incorrect statements (your other reasons for splitting them up still hold as valid arguments).
When you refer to "efficiency", are you also including those awesome side effects of monoliths consuming all other smaller entities?
You know, things like massive unemployment, homelessness ravaging entire cities, and the disease and death that is all but guaranteed in a country with no nationalized healthcare?
I mean after all, there's GOT to be some upsides to collapsing Capitalism into a dozen Too-Big-To-Fails, right? Oh wait, that's right! Amazon is also a market leader in warehouse automation! Why wor
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No I am explicitly *not* saying those, all of which are good arguments for breaking up Amazon. However I think (even as a joke) suggesting that breaking it up will produce less CO2 is probably not a good idea, as it is quite likely incorrect.
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Though a cute idea, it is probably wrong.
Mercantilism, protectionism, and "self-sufficiency" are not new ideas at all. They are not "cute" but economically naive and harmful. Countries that adopt these policies fall far behind those that take the opposite course of open trade and a focus on comparative advantage.
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I was talking about the idea that it would reduce CO2 output. Unfortunately probably wrong, and should not be used by advocates against Amazon.
Not fundamentally different than any other tech. (Score:4, Interesting)
Most ventures will be failures, but not necessarily because the idea is bad; often the timing is bad.
The main economic (as opposed to ethical) case for sustainable technology is all about timing . It has to be. Eventually you're forced to stop using *non*-sustainable technology because it's not, well, *sustainable*. You hit some kind of constraint, possibly resource exhaustion (specifically *economic* resource exhaustion; we never run out of anything, it just gets too expensive to use). You want to be just far enough ahead of that to have a running start without tying down your capital for years waiting for a return.
One resource to keep an eye on is landfill capacity. It's a problem largely invisible to the consumer, who simply throws things away, but estimates for remaining capacity in the US are on the order of fifteen years. We'll never actually fill up our landfills, but costs will inevitably rise and municipalities will find ways of passing that on to consumers. Depending on how that is done, we could see consumer preferences around things like packaging change in the next decade.
This is an area crying out for technological innovation. The current recycling system is a mess, and soon we may have no choice but to fix it.
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Depending on how that is done, we could see consumer preferences around things like packaging change in the next decade.
One thing I've noticed is that people are too selfish and stupid to actually pay more for something that is better for the environment (unless it's en vogue). Hell, they won't even spend more up front to save more in the long term.
Consumers will never make any significant change unless they are scared it may harm them and after years of use, that's unlikely. Only regulation or a technological breakthrough that makes better packing cheaper will change the current situation.
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Most theories of human nature are right some of the time and wrong most of the time. That's because humans are behaviorally diverse; that's the real evolutionary advantage of the huge brain. I'll bet some people ran at the first puff of smoke from Vesuvius and others watched up to the point where the pyroclastic flow caught them, certain that it was all going to blow over and minute now.
There's people who put in rooftop solar years ago when there was no chance of breaking even. They leased GM EV-1s. Today
I assume the definition of sustainable doesn't... (Score:2)
...exclude the eventual environmental cost of packaging and delivery for each and every small shopping item. Yeah that will be sustainable.