[jawzz]

Is it clear that Amazon delivery is worse for emissions? Isn't it better to have one truck deliver everyone's goods, versus each person individually driving to the store (which also has a much larger geographical footprint than a warehouse, per item)?

I'm willing to concede that Amazon may well have driven overall consumption up. Also, anything being shipped by air is causing way more emissions by weight than any amount of people driving to the stars. But I still wonder how this balances out against the efficiency of a delivery van; I don't think the answer is that obvious.

[andrepd]

The point is there are no incenctives for them to optimise for this. They optimise for profit, so if doubling their emissions nets them +0.05% profit on each delivery, they'll jump right on it. That's a failure of the system, more than of any individual company itself.