Jeff Bezos donates three minutes’ income to help Australia fight wildfires

While celebrities line up to donate to high profile causes like the Notre Dame Cathedral fire or the fires continuing to rage in Australia, other disasters in developing countries, far away from TV cameras, are not receiving the same attention.

Flooding in Indonesia has killed more than twice as many people as in Australia, with little outcry and insufficient international help. Linsey McGoey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK, said: “Philanthropy can and is being used deliberately to divert attention away from different forms of economic exploitation that underpin global inequality today.”

The following is an article concerning this issue authored by 'Alan MacLeod', an academic and writer for 'Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting', under the heading: "Jeff Bezos donates three minutes’ income to help Australia fight wildfires." This article has appeared on the frontpage of the 'Mintpressnews.com.'

Jeff Bezos, the Founder of Amazon and the newly crowned richest person in the world, announced recently on his Instagram page that his company was donating one million Australian Dollars (around 690,000 U.S. Dollars) to help the country deal with the continent-wide fires ravaging the nation. He wrote: “Our hearts go out to all Australians as they cope with these devastating bushfires.”

Amazon also pledged to provide technical support to government agencies dealing with the emergency. The gesture gained him a purported great deal of priceless positive press across the world, with headlines linking him and Amazon to solidarity with people in need. The headline in one local Australian outlet read “World’s richest man’s generous bushfire act.”

To many people worldwide, one million dollars is an almost incomprehensibly large and life changing sum. But to Bezos, who became the world’s first centi-billionaire in 2018, the amount represents a very small contribution to an urgent catastrophe affecting an entire continent. Bezos earns a reported $230,000 every minute. Considering these figures, the 690,000 U.S. Dollar donation represents just three minutes’ income for the business and media magnate.

As a comparison, would somebody who earned $500 per week make an announcement on social media that they had just donated five cents to help tackle the blazes? Because that is what they would earn, on average, every three minutes.

In this context, Bezos’ donation appears to be far less a generous gift to the people of Australia but a cold, calculated public relations move, designed to ward off increasing organized resistance to his enormous wealth. 

US Democratic presidential frontrunner Bernie Sander has targeted Bezos specifically and declared that “billionaires shouldn’t exist.” 

As MintPress reported last month, despite the supposed generous philanthropy of billionaires like Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates, they continue to accumulate wealth at an almost exponential rate.

Just as reports about Amazon workers’ poor pay and shocking working conditions were surfacing, Bezos declared that the only way he could see to spend the financial resources he accrued was to explore the solar system and beyond. Sharing the profit with his beleaguered workforce appears to genuinely not have occurred to him. 

Linsey McGoey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK, told MintPress that, “philanthropy can and is being used deliberately to divert attention away from different forms of economic exploitation that underpin global inequality today.”

Bezos’ donation appears somewhat Scrooge-like in comparison to other public figures who have also donated.

Bezos is keenly aware of his public image and uses his media network to control public attitudes towards him and his business empire. Media watchdog group 'Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting' have consistently found that the Bezos owned Washington Post gives their owner and his companies extremely positive press.

While celebrities line up to donate to high profile causes like the Notre Dame Cathedral fire or the fires continuing to rage in Australia, other disasters in developing countries, far away from TV cameras, are not receiving the same attention. Flooding in Indonesia has killed more than twice as many people as in Australia, with little outcry and insufficient international help.

The Australian bushfires have resulted in 28 reported deaths – mostly in the State of New South Wales – as an area the size of Tennessee has been burned. Over one billion animals are estimated to have been killed as well.

Thousands of Australians took to the streets recently to protest against government inaction on climate change. The bushfires, which have also razed about 2,000 homes, are still raging across millions of acres of land.

The European Union (EU)’s Copernicus Program said the fires have emitted 400 megatons of poisonous carbon dioxide and produced harmful pollutants.

The United Nations (UN)’s World Meteorological Organization has said smoke from the bushfires has drifted across the Pacific, affecting cities in South America, and may have reached the Antarctic.

About 100 firefighters from the United States and Canada are helping Australia extinguish the fires. More firefighters are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.

But while temperature and fire records are set, both Australian and American media fail to make the connection between the catastrophe and human-induced climate change. Amazon itself is a serious contributor to climate change: the company has a massive carbon footprint, producing over 44 million metric tons of carbon per year.

Rain and cooler temperatures are scheduled for next week in New South Wales, but authorities say that it is unlikely to be a solution to the blazes. Neither is Bezos’ donation.

ME