Announcement from my friend and permie activist colleague Chris Searles, whose organization BioIntegrity is working diligently to raise awareness of the importance of rainforests, and support indigenous peoples, the people who are doing the most to protect the planet and mitigate climate change.
“Last week Jeff Bezos said, ‘Nature is our life-support system. I was reminded of this when I went into space. I’d heard that seeing the earth from space changes one’s point of view, but I was not prepared for just how much that would be true.’
“He was announcing that the next $1B from his climate fund will go to protecting ecosystems in the tropics and sub-tropics, where Nature is most diverse and productive.
“Together, this community has been promoting this kind of action for years. Thank you!
“Check this article for some details.
When I posted Bezos’s announcement in one of my permie groups, it drew a lot of snide responses. People are skeptical and I suppose understandably so.
Myself, I’m always excited when someone experiences an epiphany about the importance of the environment. In my own personal experience, coming to eco consciousness (and social consciousness for that matter) is layers and layers of awakenings, with regret and repentance for my past ignorance and selfishness. Not all of us were born with a social conscience. Personally, I have had to do a lot of deliberate evolving in order to become the type of caring and responsible human being I aspired to be.
That said, I do hope lots of other people experience this kind of awakening without having to go up into space. Video footage and images online, and documentary films etc., can be quite wondrous and are free or cheap to look at not to mention the far-lower carbon footprint.
Someone commented, “He could start by paying taxes!”
A valid point – but in a way, this direct billion given directly to ptotecting ecosystems could be better than taxes, because if he were paying it in taxes a large percentage of the money would be going to pay for wars and prisons, as a big chunk of our taxes do in the USA.