By Jo Nova
Back in 2020 nothing was more important than climate change. Swept away by the crisis, Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos set up a $10,000 million dollar fund to ‘fight climate change and protect nature’. It was the largest piece of atmospheric philanthropy known to mankind. But it’s become a bit of a ghost account.
The money was supposed to be spent by 2030, but six years in, 72% of the funds still haven’t been allocated.
Bezos Earth Fund Is Off Pace to Meet $10 Billion Climate Giving Pledge
By Ben Elgin and Sophie Alexander, Bloomberg
Officials at the Bezos Earth Fund said they remain committed to disbursing $10 billion by 2030. With four years left on the timeline, however, only 28% of the promised funds have been allocated so far.
In interviews and statements, Earth Fund executives reaffirmed their plan to spend $10 billion by the end of the decade. “Many of our strategies remain the same,” a spokesperson said…
Now that Trump sucked the government subsidies away from pet climate projects, you’d think the Bezos funding would be more “needed” than ever.
It’s not just Bezos who is backing away slowly
Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Catalyst Halts New Investment, Lays Off Staff
Breakthrough Energy, the Bill Gates-backed group that bankrolls climate tech, has stopped making new investments from one of its key funds to scale up nascent green technologies, just as the market for these startups is being squeezed by President Donald Trump’s assaults on climate policy.
After supporting 10 startups and spending “high hundreds of millions of dollars,” a Breakthrough Energy spokesperson said, it has now suspended new investment from the fund.
They all have their excuses for the turnaround
Jeff Bezos says AI will solve climate change. Even though AI is consuming vast quantities of gigawatts, pushing old coal plants back into action, it will undo the crisis about climate change (especially if it accidentally looks at the scientific data, eh?)
The Bezos Earth Fund believes AI will be a solution to the climate crisis.
By Elike Roohi, Alliance
According to the Fund, it is ‘harnessing [AI’s] power to transform how the world addresses climate and nature’.
Dr Stephan Singer, a senior global energy policy adviser with Climate Action Network International, said in a report by the Guardian in 2024: ‘The projects of the Bezos fund do not address the key issues of the fundamental climate crisis we are facing – they are nice but unfortunately cosmetic.’
Dr Singer was discussing the Fund’s big bet on carbon offsetting schemes, widely understood to do little to mitigate global heating.
Bill Gates says technology has already saved us
Gates was thrilled at how well the decarbonization plan was going. If we pretend that giant unaccountable organizations like the IEA make useful predictions, rather than hyperbolic spam, then things are going much better than they might have been in the IEA doomer imaginary future.
Bill Gates Highlights Massive 40% Drop in Projected CO₂ Emissions
In a LinkedIn post published yesterday, Microsoft co-founder and climate investor Bill Gates shared an optimistic update on global energy-related CO₂ emissions that challenges much of the prevailing doom-and-gloom narrative.
The key graphic Gates posted tells the story clearly:
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- In 2014, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projected that, under then-current policies, the world would be emitting roughly 50 billion tons (50 Gt) of energy-related CO₂ per year by 2040.
- The IEA’s latest 2024 assessment, using the same “current policies” framework, now puts that 2040 figure at just 29 Gt — a stunning 42% reduction in the expected emissions trajectory in only one decade of forecasting updates.
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The 2020s was the ‘decisive decade’, said Bezos. Indeed.
They’ll never say the skeptics were right.
Allow me to recap.
We’re all gonna die unless we Net Zero by next week.
But we need massive energy for Data Centers for AI so it turns out we can’t by next week.
Don’t worry … not a problem.
We’ll use the AI to save us.
Because we know the magical promise of AI will be just like the magical promise of free renewable energy from the Sun and wind.
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Question.
“Is AI plagiarism?”
Mind you, I call it AB; Artificial Bull*hit.
Their ” information” still needs to be FACT-Checked.
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AI is copyright theft … the automated plagiarism of other people’ work passed of as “belonging” to the big US corpse.
It is effectively the end all copyright protection, because whatever any PERSON creates can be automatically rewritten (or redesigned) to circumvent the copyright laws.
I have decided to suspend publication of three books I was working on until copyright protection from AI theft is enshrined in law and effective against AI copyright theft.
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Old Borg saying, “plagiarism can not exist in the hive mind”.
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Don’t they just have to build more windmills and solar panels to provide “free” (sic) power for all the AI?
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It must be hard to unwind all those flaky promises to ‘save the world’, Bezos probably needs the money to keep blowing up his rockets.
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I asked Gulag AI:
It said:
So even fully woke Gulag admits the problem.
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I also asked Grok, which is less woke (Australia gets a special mention):
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Or, as our parents reiterated their parents’ advice:
Do NOT put all your eggs in one basket.
Mind you, who can afford eggs these days?!?
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Well the AI dept. at gulag can say it. Regular employees better not.
Doesn’t traditional industry, hospitals, schools, rock-n-roll bands, laundry mats, resturants, and so forth, also need cheap continuous base load power?
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Sir, that type of thinking is known as COMMON SENSE which is not only not allowed, it’s as rare as hen’s teeth. Now where did I put those eggs…
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A good friend of mine (we NEVER talk politics) is terrified of AI because of it’s power munching and thirst for water. He also said “well done” to me when I changed my diet away from 500 gm steaks to 200 gm steaks because it’s good for the planet. Please.
Read a History book lads ‘n’ ladies. Every Malthusian prediction so far’s had a use by date. The 20th (and early 21st) Century has seen a spike in Malthusian BS thanks to mass media. I told some idiot on FB the other day that Ehrlich was wrong and his retort was “No, you’re wrong.” I mean how (I mean why) do you argue with that? People are so stupid!
Some other idiot I told off was whining that we’re building a new stadium in Brisbane. She said “we should be building a new hospital!” I asked her how a hospital would grow the pie? No answer.
OK, so I’ve just introduced a three pronged argument that I’d have thought any sane reader could understand: shut up, think critically, and get to work. But no, I have been accused of having a low IQ or something. Mmmm, I wish I was stupid. Stupid people are happier I tell myself, but then the three morons above are stupid and deeply unhappy. What a race we are.
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Ah, I think I may have spotted some weaknesses in your three pronged argument.
1. People, especially those with a head of steam up, will respond by telling you not to tell them to shut up;
2. People, especially those who have been conned, will respond very badly to being told to think critically; and
3. People, especially those who see themselves as occupying the moral high ground, don’t do the W word.
And a further fly in the ointment is the reference to sane readers. The people you are trying to persuade are not sane.
I’d set out my solution but I don’t have one.
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And once more grok produces evidence that it will say anything you want it to say. But only after being misleading and deceptive.
After a brief discussion about whether the $10B by Bezos was philanthropic or commercial…
Q: so bezos would not personally or through one of the entities he controls gain any intellectual property or profit at all
A: No, it’s not accurate to say there is zero possibility of any benefit or IP access to Bezos or entities he controls.
…
Bottom line: This is structured as philanthropy, not a for-profit investment vehicle. Bezos does not get direct financial returns or exclusive IP ownership. However, certain grant programs include licenses that provide affiliates (potentially including business interests connected to Bezos) with broad usage rights — which some recipients and universities see as a non-trivial advantage. It’s not pure “no benefit whatsoever,” but far from a disguised profit scheme.
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Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Just be thankful they’ve climbed down from the petard they hoisted themselves upon and welcome them to Team Reality. Some of the most effective members of the team are converts who were once Climate Apocalypse true believers (Michael Shellenberger, Steve Koonin, Zion Lights, etc.).
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I like your optimism.
On the other hand I see it not so much as zealots reforming but robber barons spotting a richer target. I don’t believe for a moment that those creating and exploiting the Klimate Krisis were ever doing it for the world’s own good. Although they did exploit large numbers of useful idiots who could be conned into believing they were.
As per CS Lewis: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
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A few years ago there was an interesting response to that CS Lewis quote:
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Again here’s Eschenbach’s updated data for just about everything covering the climate /weather and the old- fashioned thermometer showing the tiny difference between 1880 to 2024 tells us the truth.
He lists nearly everything about the climate and only leaves out the HOT SPOT above the equator. His last update was made in February 2026.
IOW there’s no climate emergency at all and we now live in the safest period in Human history.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
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In Who You Gonna Call? – AI news:
The 2020 $20bn Earth Fund starter pack was followed in April 2024 by $100 million ‘AI for Climate and Nature Grand Challenge’. Which also seems to be underperforming:
https://www.bezosearthfund.org/initiatives/ai-for-climate-and-nature
“At the Earth Fund, we’re focused on where AI is headed — toward powerful, specialized tools that can drive real impact across food, energy, biodiversity, and nature.
One way we do this is by identifying experts who are already solving hard problems, and helping them scale with AI. We’re the bridge, connecting frontier AI companies and tools to people on the ground tackling climate and nature challenges every day. “
A quick glance at the website scorecard tells us that, over the past two years, Bezos the Bridge has scaled up these experts by handing out 24 x $50k grants totalling $1.2m (one point two million).
The project synopses tells us about the hard problems these people are solving with AI:
– Cow flatulence
– CO2 removal by increasing seawater alkalinity
– Extracting protein from garbage
– Virtual palates to test the texture and taste of artificial meat
– Decoding the language of animals to identify environmental stress
I hate to agree with Stephan Singer, but at the very best interpretation, these projects are nice, but cosmetic. Although luckily, particularly in the case of geo-engineering ocean pH, limited.
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Have they perfected lipstick for pigs?
Asking because nobody else has asked.
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Strangely, that was actually the subject of a viral joke by the Japanese.
As usual with the Left, a bizarre joke becomes reality.
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So how long before we have to suffer more BS and nonsense about some other so called threat to our way of life?
The climate BS and nonsense has lasted for about 38 years or since Dr Hansen’s BS speech in Washington DC in 1988.
There has to be severe prison sentences for some of the ringleaders and the liars and con artists and we should make sure this doesn’t happen again.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/06/05/the-climate-scam-is-acknowledged-americans-were-fed-lies-and-deserve-to-be-compensated/
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So, if $2.8 b of old Jeff’s fund has been allocated out of that $10b and he thinks AI will solve climate change, then that just means that $2800 million was spent on his AI data centres. Which means the fund is a huge green washing machine to probably avoid tax. Or is that too obvious?
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