Why doesn't Jeff Bezos pay more tax instead of launching a $10bn green fund? | Stefan Stern

If the Amazon owner wants to give something back, he could look at staff welfare - and paying dues where he makes moneyAlexa, how can we save the planet? Artificial intelligence is not yet so far advanced that a robot on its own is going to halt and reverse climate change. More capital, of both the human and the financial kind, needs to be invested in finding answers. That is largely the point of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's announcement that he will be donating $10bn (?7.7bn) to launch the Bezos Earth Fund. "This global initiative will fund scientists, activists, NGOs - any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world," Bezos declared in an Instagram post. "We can save Earth."When you're the richest man in the world - which, with a net worth estimated at about $115bn (?88.3bn), Bezos assuredly is - such philanthropic donations are entirely affordable. Indeed, you might say they are compulsory. "The man who dies rich dies disgraced," said Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate. Foundations in the name of the Ford, Rockefeller, Tata and more recently the Rausing (Tetrapak) families all point to that same instinct: the obligation to give. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, both multibillionaires, are also among today's biggest donors. Continue reading...