7.75% committed!

I think we can take him.

Look, I don't want to tell Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos how to spend his billions but I'm not sure he's as committed to his new climate initiative as he-wait, no, I tell a lie. I actually do want to tell him how to spend his billions. In fact, I don't think we, as the other billions of humans on the planet who are not Jeff Bezos should let him get away with having so much of the world's finite supply of money to begin with. What I'm saying is that there's one of him and 7,765,156,278 of us.

But let's talk about his climate change plan. On Monday, the CEO of the death of American retail, announced on Instagram that he is committing ten billion dollars to fighting climate change. Well, that's not true, he announced that he is thrilled to announce that he is launching the Bezos Earth Fund. which...did he just rename the Earth after himself?

Pictured: A screenshot of Bezos's Instagram announcement
which includes a shot of Bezos Earth (formerly just the Earth).

Yup, we can all relax about climate change now, Jeff Bezos is on the case. Anyway, According to his instant gram:

Pictured: Bezos' new $165,000,000 house.
You know, just in case you thought we might
 have something else in common with him

"Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet...It's going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations and individuals. I'm committing $10 billion to start and will begin issuing grants this summer. Earth is the one thing we all have in common-let's protect it, together.

-Jeff Bezos, on the one thing

we have in common with him

So couple of things. First of all, climate change is absolutely the biggest threat to our planet. The second biggest threat however is actually Jeff Bezos. Well, ok, that's not entirely fair. Not Bezos personally, but billionaires maybe. And he'll start issuing grants this summer? How will he choose who gets funding?

"I've constructed an exact replica of Thunderdome where
scientists will battle to the death for funding...and my amusement."

-The Amazon guy

Pictured: someone without a background
in science rolling back environmental
protections...holy shit we're screwed.

And bigger question: how come he gets to decide? Because it's his money? Well, sure, but is it though? Isn't his company like famous for not paying its fair share of taxes? I guess what I'm getting at is Bezos is really good at making absurd amounts of money, but does that qualify him to decide how to fight climate change? Don't we have a government for that? Ok, fine, I wouldn't trust the current administration with the money either, but my point is that Bezos isn't a scientist, he's a business person. Shouldn't someone with a background in science or something be making these kinds of decisions?

Witness retaliation is
totally in right now.

Or at least someone whose company isn't itself the focus of not only criticism for its environmental impact and climate change policies, but also for threatening to fire employees who call them out on it? And look, I think it's super that a rich finally noticed that something should be done about climate change. I also think it's great that he's going to try and help, even if it's mostly about making us forget Amazon's environmental record, threats and refusal to pay taxes. Action is action, right?

But if you do the math here, Jeff Bezos' net worth is something like a hundred and twenty nine billion-with a b-dollars. Ten billion is a lot of money, sure, but it's like 7.75% of $129 billion. He's 7.75 percent committed. Which seems a little lowball when it comes to the biggest threat to our planet, so I guess I'm wondering what he's planning to do with the other one hundred and nineteen billion dollars of tax-free wealth he's sitting on.

It's almost as if he has a plan B.