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Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

'Mr. Doerr joins a growing list of ultrawealthy men donating huge sums of money to the fight against global warming. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in 2020 said he was committing $10 billion of his own money to a new initiative he called the Bezos Earth Fund, and last year detailed how some of the money would be spent.

Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, said in 2019 he would spend $500 million to help close coal-fired power plants. And Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has put billions of dollars to work on climate related issues through various efforts, including Breakthrough Energy and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Yet some question whether these philanthropic investments can make a difference when it comes to a 'planetary crisis'.

I can't help feeling v cynical and paranoid about motives here

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I too feel somewhat skeptical & cynical... but given the political situation in the US, and specifically the deadlock in the US Senate (filibuster), the philanthropy of billionaires seems like one of the most viable ways towards making progress at this point. It's not ideal, but we don't seem to have a lot of other viable options at this point.

@uncleOxidant (great screen name!) Don't disagree but a weak deadlocked 'democracy'. with uberrich globalists making key decisions and funding them is not a good way forward either. The German National Socialists were great 'green' investors in the 1930's, that didn't end well...

https://www.amazon.com/Green-Tyranny-Exposing-Totalitarian-I...

> given the political situation in the US, and specifically the deadlock in the US Senate (filibuster), the philanthropy of billionaires seems like one of the most viable ways towards making progress at this point

It's probably not coincidence that the party that serves the power of the wealthy does things in the Senate to shift power to the wealthy.

For anyone wondering, this is not an accident. Billionaires greatly prefer it when they are seen by the public as the only viable solution to progress.

The Xprize carbon removal is a $100m competition -- https://www.xprize.org/prizes/elonmusk

IMHO, all the competitors have something that can only make a difference at enormous scale. It's a huge risk to invest in anything that attempts to make a difference in the medium term.

[edit - I've also submitted this link to HN - https://www.xprize.org/prizes/elonmusk/articles/meet-the-com... ]

> Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, said in 2019 he would spend $500 million to help close coal-fired power plants.

Did he, or was he just prepping his image for a presidential run? The website (https://www.beyondcarbon.org/) and associated social media accounts have not been updated since he launched his campaign two and a half years ago, and I can't find any specific actions or plans or people. There's quite a bit of information about Mike Bloomberg though. Seems like it was just an issue-specific campaign website.

Breakthrough Energy is venture capital, not philanthropy. It is intended to make a profit. The Gates Foundation doesn't appear to do any climate change work.

Bezos Earth Fund does seem to be actively donating real money to real projects, which is nice. Bezos earns a "could be worse" badge on this particular topic.

Taking private money and making it public for the purpose of combating a global crisis is objectively a good thing. Cynical paranoia is not helping.

> Cynical paranoia is not helping.

I agree.

> Taking private money and making it public for the purpose of combating a global crisis is objectively a good thing.

It doesn't necessarily work out that way. It can distort the market and consume resources. For example (and IIRC from a journal article about 10 years ago), in western Africa philanthropic funding from a foundation went toward treatment for a disease (AIDS?); their money bought up all the healthcare resources, including medical personnel, diverting them from where they could have saved more lives.

More broadly, that much money is not just economic activity but also power, and it can be misused even with the best intentions.

Is there any negative externality in this particular version? Opening a new school to educate future generations such that they contribute new solutions seems totally positive to me.

positive and thoughtful paranoia, not 'cynical'...capitalism...

> Bezos Earth Fund

I assume this is to clean up all the trash Amazon sells?

Bill Gates also has a $500M short bet against Tesla.

Exactly how big are all those efforts he's allegedly making to do something about climate change?

I wonder if he cashed that out in recent days now that his short position is in the money? If so then maybe he doubled (or better) his $500M and he can plow those profits into more philanthropy?

Bill entered the short position some time in 2020 (or earlier), so still not in the money.

You can think Tesla stock is overvalued AND want to do something about climate change. It looks like he wrote a book and donate 2 billion with another 2 billion promised[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2021/heres-bill-gates-not-help-figh...

He was trash talking Tesla for a long time because his friend Warren Buffet invested in Chinese copy cats. He could have helped Tesla in 2008 a lot, but now his opinion and money doesn't count that much actually, as there's a healthy clean energy investor base at this point.

Tesla is overvalued, if it wasn't Musk wouldn't have sold 8 billion US in Tesla stock to buy Twitter.

Tesla isn't going to solve climate change.

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