Earth Fund

Last February, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that he was launching the Bezos Earth Fund that would grant money to scientists, activists, NGOs and others making an effort to help preserve and protect the natural world. The fund would start out with $10 billion and would begin issuing grants later in the year.

In November, the first Earth Fund award recipients were announced. In total, 16 organizations will be receiving nearly $800 million in funding.

The largest awards include the following: the Environmental Defense Fund received $100 million to build and launch MethaneSAT, a satellite that will locate and measure sources of methane pollution around the world and provide public access to data that assures accountability.

The Natural Resources Defense Council was awarded $100 million to advance climate solutions and legislation at the state level, promote policies and programs focused on reducing oil and gas production, protect and restore ecosystems that store carbon, and accelerate sustainable and regenerative agriculture practices.

The Nature Conservancy also received $100 million and plans to use the money to help protect the Emerald Edge forest. (That is the largest intact coastal rainforest on Earth, spanning 100 million acres through Washington, British Columbia and Alaska).

The World Resources Institute will receive $100 million, doled out over five years, to be used to develop a satellite-based monitoring system to advance natural climate solutions around the world.

An additional $100 million award went to the World Wildlife Fund to help protect and restore mangroves, develop new markets for seaweed as an alternative to fossil fuel-based products, and to protect forests and other ecosystems around the world.

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The organizations that will benefit from Bezos’ $791M and what will they do with the money

Photo, posted March 4, 2015, courtesy of Kevin Gill via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

There is growing concern about the climate effects of methane leaking from oil and gas wells. The 20-year global warming potential of methane is 84, meaning that over a 20-year period, it traps 84 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide. Global methane concentrations have increased by nearly a factor of 3 since the industrial revolution.

More than a century of oil and gas drilling has left behind millions of abandoned wells, many of which are leaching pollutants into the air and water. In the U.S. alone, more than 3.2 million abandoned oil and gas wells emitted 280,000 tons of methane just in 2018. And the data is incomplete.

Part of the problem is finding out which wells are leaking. Ground-based sensors or airplanes and drones are effective ways to find leaks but considering how many wells there are to check, the costs are considerable, and the process is time consuming and complicated.

New technology is coming along that uses satellites to detect methane leaks. A Canadian company called GHGSat recently used satellites to detect what it has called the smallest methane leak ever seen from space and has begun selling data to emitters interested in pinpointing leaks.

Another company, New York-based Bluefield Technologies, plans a group of satellites for launch in 2023 that promises even finer resolution. The Environmental Defense Fund, with support from Jeff Bezos’ Earth Fund, plans to launch MethaneSAT in the next couple of years, which is designed to find small sources of methane.

Research at Stanford University determined that just 5% of methane leaks produce around half the total leakage.

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New Technology Claims to Pinpoint Even Small Methane Leaks From Space

Photo, posted June 8, 2011, courtesy of Jeremy Buckingham via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The First Earth Fund Awards | Earth Wise

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Finding Methane Leaks from Space | Earth Wise

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