[mirimir]

> In an emailed statement, Amazon outlined its sustainability initiatives and said, "Amazon’s sustainability team is using a science-based approach to develop data and strategies to ensure a rigorous approach to our sustainability work." The company also said, "We have a long term commitment to powering our global infrastructure using 100% renewable energy."

In my experience, "using a science-based approach" translates to "maximizing shareholder value" with plausible deniability.

[AnthonyMouse]

Is that supposed to be a problem?

Large data centers are strong candidates for renewable energy conversions because they need backup power regardless. If the "backup power" is supplied by renewables then that becomes the primary generation source and the power grid becomes the backup. Doing it that way is sustainable and profitable.

[thrower123]

I would be very leery of a datacenter that didn't have their own on-site generation plants that can be guaranteed to supply power in the event of a grid failure. If a substation goes down on a cloudy day, I would hope that they have a big diesel generator or gas plant on standby regardless.

[AnthonyMouse]

The solution to that is to have enough solar to generate the power you need even on cloudy days, then sell the excess to the power company on normal days.

[mirimir]

I'm not sure what you mean.

It's arguably a problem when short-term profit seeking causes long-term damage.

[madaxe_again]

Yes, but it doesn’t take long for people to start arguing that coal is clean and that diesel is green.

[AnthonyMouse]

Corporations don't really care about clean and green outside of PR and legal requirements. If solar that generates real power all day without fuel is more profitable than an expensive diesel generator that sits there depreciating unused just waiting for the grid connection to crap out, they pick solar.

And if it isn't but you want them to use it anyway, that's easy too -- put a carbon tax on that coal fired grid power so that the solar is cheaper and they're back to doing what you want them to.

But don't expect them to choose to lose money while their competitors burn coal, undercut them and put them out of business because you decided that them doing that should be perfectly legal.

[mirimir]

OK, I get it.

> But don't expect them to choose to lose money while their competitors burn coal, undercut them and put them out of business because you decided that them doing that should be perfectly legal.

The problem is that entrenched corporations more or less own governments, so they get the laws that work for them.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The problem is that entrenched corporations more or less own governments, so they get the laws that work for them.

So what are you proposing to do about it?

Notice also that the corporations in this case are the fossil fuel companies, not the data center companies. To Amazon a marginal increase (if that) in energy costs to use solar is just something they get to mark up and pass on to the customer, as long as their competitors have to do the same thing. To oil and coal companies an effective carbon tax is ultimately the end of their business and they'll use every dirty trick in the book to try to prevent that.

So how do you get a much-needed carbon tax when it would cost oil and coal companies literally trillions of dollars and they'll fight that hard to prevent it? What's your proposal?

[schiffern]

First thing's first: stop pretending that "we the people" made the laws. If you can't recognize the problem, you certainly can't fix it.

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

I don't think mirimir was putting forth a fully-formed plan to upend global corporate takeover, and I don't think they're required to. All they were pointing out was the falseness of your implication that mirimir themselves (meaning, the people collectively) are somehow responsible for these broken laws. That blame was cast in exactly the wrong direction.

These broken laws are in fact operating as designed. As Warren Buffett observed, "there's class warfare all right, but it's my class — the rich class — that's making war, and we're winning."

[mirimir]

> What's your proposal?

I don't have one. As you say, they'll do whatever it takes to prevent that. Maybe they'll eventually give up, once climate change has destroyed civilization, but then it'll be moot.

Bottom line, it's hopeless.

Upon reflection, maybe strong AI will emerge before human civilization collapses. Then it'll carry on after humans more or less become extinct. As Spielberg "predicts" in "A.I. Artificial Intelligence".