This week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced he was donating $10 billion to help fight climate change. Wired science editor Matt Reynold’s suggests he might want to look closer to home if he’s serious about making a difference.
While Bezos has – belatedly – stepped-up to the plate with big gestures of climate support, this shouldn’t distract from the more mundane ways that Amazon continues to avoid its climate responsibility. A 2019 investigation from Greenpeace found that in Virginia – where Amazon houses the core of its cloud infrastructure – the firm’s data centres were powered by only 12 per cent renewable energy.
Check It Out: If Jeff Bezos Really Wants to Help Fight Climate Change, He Should Look at His Own Company
Hey Bezos, how about reducing the waste from Amazon. Multiple reports have found that returns just get trashed, not restocked and sold again. You try two shirts before you get one that fits, it’s guaranteed that the first two got shredded and landfilled. Same with electronic devices, and on and on. Do something about that and I might believe this is more than just a PR stunt.
Anyone who claims to want to fight climate change should look in their yard and city. The simplest way to reduce human impact on the climate is to use dark sky compliant outdoor lighting, including security lights, streetlights, porch lights, store lighting, warehouse lighting, etc. Not only will this protect the night sky it will reduce energy usage (hence the climate change impact reduction), reduce the wasted energy costs (which amount to $3 billion annually in the US alone), and along the way help to reduce night time lighting effects on human health (saving untold billions of dollars in healthcare costs) and reduce the harmful impacts on wildlife and insects. Politicians and business leaders who ignore the harmful effects and wasted costs of light pollution are continuing to imperil life on this planet. However, not to fear. Mother Nature will set things right, eventually. She is patient, even if it takes millions of years to recover from the damage done by current humans.
Good point. Ive been advocating for full cutoff dark sky lighting for years, with almost no success from my municipalities, neighbours, or friends. Too often they just don’t get it.