Amazon, despite climate pledge, fought to kill emissions bill in Oregon | Hacker News Reader

Amazon, despite climate pledge, fought to kill emissions bill in Oregon

washingtonpost.com

85 pointshackermatic32 comments

Climate pledges and green promises are _all_ marketing BS. Consumers fall for it. There's a name for it: Green Washing.

The emissions regulations are also marketing BS. Like Oregon can affect global CO2 levels.

No individual institution can affect global CO2 levels, that’s the whole reason why this issue is so difficult to solve, we need alignment across the entirety of global society in order to achieve the impact needed in the necessary time frame.

Climate change deniers have discovered a new tactic. Climate change doom. “Nothing we can do can make a difference”. The things we do absolutely can make a difference. State level even more so! I’m not accusing you of astroturfing for climate change deniers. But this language is based on their efforts.

Individual governments and corporations one hundred percent will set the stage for climate change remediation over the next decades.

We absolutely have to hold Amazon responsible here. You said you want to make a difference? Well then step up and match it with your actions.

Every little bit counts.

I think his point is: taking a teaspoon of water out of the ocean and bolding marching back into town proclaiming you fought ocean level rise is a little disingenuous.

> taking a teaspoon of water out of the ocean

A teaspoon is the wrong terminology in the context of Oregon given they produce 0.7% of the US's CO2 emissions. Because they are already producing so little CO2 a teaspoon elsewhere is a large improvement there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

> and bolding marching back into town proclaiming you fought ocean level rise is a little disingenuous

given this is Oregon we are talking about, their idea of enacting meaningful change is different from other states idea of meaningful changes just due to the fact that Oregon has so much green energy already. So these little changes get them further to 100% reduction much easier and thus are meaningful in this context. Reading the article Amazon wanted to increase natural gas capacity because the biofuels are not yet ready in Oregon. It makes less sense to do this in a state like Oregon. Why are they even there in the first place? I assume it due to the cheap electricity (thanks in part to the natural renewable energy sources they already have)

You’re seriously saying .0084 * (the total carbon emissions) is doing anything useful?

This analogy seems out of proportion itself. There is only so much arable land on earth, and a large state is probably single digit percentage. Its energy needs are likely significant, even in the big picture.

Who are you criticizing? Oregon for attempting to limit emissions? Amazon for lying about caring about climate change? (And then blocking efforts to improve emissions)

Keep in mind that Amazon through AWS runs the servers for a large majority of the sites we think of as the internet.

So when the company claims to care about climate change, then gives lie to that with their actions it really does make a difference. A huge negative, dangerous, unwise difference.

Not when China is building coal fired power plants. It's like taking water out of the Titanic with an eyedropper saying "every little bit counts." Sometimes, it doesn't.

This is misleading, China is actually slooowly phasing out coal from its energy mix, see https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/china (pretty far down). Yes, they're adding coal but they're adding renewables at a higher rate.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...

The US is hampering its own businesses so that Chinese businesses can belch even more CO2 into the air. Simple as that.

Without a whole lot of government regulations/incentives renewables have been going gangbusters in the US. Heck, there were even renewable disincentives put in the form of tariffs.

The reason is pretty simple, renewables have had a pretty rapid decrease in cost/kwh.

https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/Renewable-Power-...

It's now some of the cheapest power on the market.

A lot of the talking points about renewables being expensive is based on dated information. Tech and time has changed the nature of power generation.

Far from hurting businesses, the switch to renewables is a competitive advantage. It reduces the cost of power generation. Renewables are a key reason the PNW has some of the cheapest electricity in the US. Further, it stabilizes prices. Renewables have a very steady cost structure because there's not secondary (fuel) market impacting price.

Relatively speaking, China still appears to be reducing the the energy coming from coal compared to renewables.

Coal rose 2.3% in 2022 over 2021 due to an energy crisis (i.e. natural gas got really expensive). But overall this is correct.

Having lived in Beijing when the air was routinely "crazy bad", the Chinese are very motivated to clean things up for their own good.

US industrialized sooner and belched far more in the past. China isn't perfect, yet does seem to be making big changes in the right direction.

US industrialized sooner and belched far more in the past.

Most of that was:

* before the public accepted global warming

* before strong alternatives were available

Regardless it doesn't mean the US should continue to make poor choices just because China is given more grace.

https://www.popsci.com/environment/renewable-energy-generati...

The US is on a steady march, and has an incredible amount of green funding.

https://apnews.com/article/technology-science-congress-clima...

But I guess that doesn't fit the narrative of "US bad".

Not everyone criticizing the US is trying to fit a narrative. It's unhelpful to bucket them into only good/bad.

Cool motive, still pollution.

They are also heavily subsidizing solar panels that end up being installed in the US and Europe. (To the point that people complain about price dumping.)

Oregon does affet global CO2 levels on the margins.

US citizens have nearly the highest per capita CO2 emissions in the world (more then double the per capita emissions of China). Under any feasible global system of limiting climate change, Oregon, like every other state in the union, will need to reduce emissions.

The United States has the greatest cumulative FO2 emissions of any country. Oregon is part of the US so yes it can affect global CO2 levels significantly.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to see articles about Amazon trafficking human children to use them as labelers for AI models. Very evil company.

Not exactly human trafficking, however there's the "Amazon-owned Whole Foods got caught using child labor" scandal that was recently exposed[1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-...

So in short, companies can't expand or build new due to lack of green infrastructure. The proposed solution is to make it illegal to use other than approved types of electricity. Amazon says it makes no sense unless the infrastructure is expanded as well.

Seems difficult to disagree considering my country is burning oil to get through the winter. Shutting down production that takes 20 years to rebuild was apparently a bad idea.

What production takes 20y to rebuild? Forests for wood burning?

Forests do take their time but I think he is speaking about European countries killing fission plants after Fukushima.

Amazon also pledged to be the world's best employer to then fire thousands by email.

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