Giving Away Free Money

The end of the year is nearly here and, if you’re like me, that means it’s time to hunt down receipts and mail them off to your tax accountant. Because taxes are complicated, I’m lazy, and the service economy is a fact of life. (Hire a pro or get a shit result is a truism to which anyone who’s employed a friend of a friend who owns a nice camera to shoot photos can attest.)

This year is the first chance we’ll get to marvel in the prosperity generated by the GOP’s Tax Cut and Jobs act of 2017.  Corporations and the shockingly wealthy are due to see massive reductions in the amount they pay back into the society that supports them, while the rest of us boners get to feast on the proverbial scraps.  

Sure, the coming shortfall in tax revenue will likely be used as a justification to push for slashing the social entitlements that ensure the less fortunate among us don’t starve or succumb to treatable illness, but you might save enough to buy a new surfboard! So fucking rad!

It’s the kind of thing most surfers will love. Because, as a rule, we’re a bunch of solipsistic assholes who lean conservative and won’t never need no help from no one.

Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe you’ll donate your pittance of a rebate to charity. Maybe we’ll all band together and make the world a better place. Probably not, though.

But at least some people, in the sense that corporate entities are considered people, will.

Today Patagonia announced that they will be donating their entire tax windfall to environmental causes as a part of its 1% for the Planet initiative.

1% for the Planet  is a program, founded in 2002 by Yvon Chouinard and Craig Matthews, in which companies pledge to donate one percent of their gross annual sales to environmental causes.  

Sure, there are some underlying problems with philanthrocapitalism, but sometimes you need to take what you can get.

Here’s Patagonia on their donation:

This holiday season, Patagonia is giving away the $10 million in unplanned cash we saw as a result of last year’s irresponsible tax cut. A tax cut that was not only a windfall for the oil and gas industry but will also open up 19 million acres of Alaska’s wildlife refuge. The timing of this tax cut couldn’t have been worse.

Our planet is in peril because of human-caused climate disruption. Patagonia believes the scientists—including the authors of Friday’s National Climate Assessment report—and it is urgent that we all do something about it.

Since 1985, Patagonia has funded grassroots activism as part of our commitment to 1% for the Planet. This additional $10 million will go a long way for the groups defending our air, water and land. It will also include support for the regenerative organic agriculture movement, which we think will not only slow the climate crisis but could begin to reverse it.

Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, says catastrophe is here, and we need all the help we can get to address the climate crisis. He said, “Our government continues to ignore the seriousness and causes of the climate crisis. It is pure evil. We need to double down on renewable energy solutions. We need an agriculture system that supports small family farms and ranches, not one that rewards chemical companies intent on destroying our planet and poisoning our food. And we need to protect our public lands and waters because they are all we have left.”