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Microsoft co-founder, philanthropist and innovator Bill Gates has just published his long-awaited book, How to avoid a climate catastrophe: the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need. He describes it simply as “a plan to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions”. And as usual, the internet is responding with polarized excitement and conspiracy theories.
Gates Climate Book
Gates has drawn his attention to climate change through his work at the Gates Foundation on the problem of energy poverty in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
He edited for Fortune magazine today on a package called Blueprint for a climate breakthrough – the very first guest editor in Fortune91 years of history. Clifton Leaf, Editor-in-Chief of Fortune, explains why Gates’ climate book inspired their editorial team to ask him to collaborate with them:
Amid the death and economic destruction of the coronavirus, Bill – like so many other experts and concerned citizens of the world – could see what was lurking just on the horizon: an even more colossal danger to life such as us. know it.
And it turned out that he wrote a book on it.
When I read this book, How to avoid a climate catastrophe, which debuts today, I was struck by the clarity of the message. In my opinion, Bill wrote the most understandable explanation of what is driving our global warming; how to measure the impact of the myriad of contributions to this staggering and seemingly incalculable problem; and finally how to find more effective approaches for each of them. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to a how-to guide to dealing with the climate crisis. And I knew then that I wanted to devote Fortune, for at least a day, to get this message across. The next step was to see if Bill wanted to be a part of this effort, and I’m glad he accepted.
Gates also posted a video on February 14 explaining his reasoning for writing How to avoid a climate catastrophe, and declares from his point of view: “It is our power to invent that gives me hope”:
Revolutionary energy
As Electrek reported in December 2016, Gates and other notable billionaires, from Richard Branson to Jack Ma, founded Breakthrough Energy, a billion dollar fund to invest and scale up energy technology and innovation clean to help the world reach net zero by 2050.
It has grown since its founding, and in an article today, Gates explained Breakthrough Energy to Fortune:
[Breakthrough Energy] is a network of programs, funds and advocacy efforts, all designed to bring clean energy technologies to market faster.
And then deployed on a large scale.
As Breakthrough Energy’s Amy Harder tweeted, her website has been redesigned to make it easier for everyone to understand what they’re working on:
Gates sees Breakthrough Energy as a tool for implementing the ideas in his book, as he explains on his blog, Notes on the doors:
We will support big thinkers and cutting-edge technologies and businesses, as well as public and private policies that will accelerate the transition to clean energy. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll turn the ideas in my book into action and try to turn this plan into reality.
It is directed by three basic premises:
- To avoid a climate catastrophe, we must achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions.
- We need to deploy the tools we already have, like solar and wind power, faster and smarter.
- And we need to create and deploy breakthrough technologies that can take us to the end.
Why are so many people suspicious of Bill Gates?
First of all, a warning. I wrote and edited for News Deeply and one of our projects, Women’s Advancement Deeply, was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We need to do great and meaningful work on important issues. We were grateful for the financial support.
And again, Gates is putting his money behind another topic that is close to my heart. As a result, I have a positive bias towards it.
So I don’t understand the hate or fear that other people feel. I searched on Google: “Why do people hate Bill Gates?” There is a parcel articles. It turns out, for example, that a Forbes the writer does not understand either. John Brandon explored the conspiracy theory that Gates wants to inject people with microchips. He concluded that the theories are so bizarre that people just have to hate billionaires.
Oh, and he’s not responsible for COVID either – Reuters verified this bizarre theory. In fact, Reuters helpfully lists all of these COVID conspiracy theories on Gates:
Many examples of disinformation related to COVID-19 have made reference to Gates. These include, but are not limited to, a false statement that the pandemic is a hoax in which an old Gates quote on pandemic preparedness is used (here); false or distorted claims that Gates plans to microchip to fight coronavirus (here and here); a false claim that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was linked to a patent plot (here); and a false statement that linked Bill Gates to a pharmaceutical company that could develop a vaccine against the virus (here).
Today, Twitter is panicking over Gates suggesting cutting back on our meat consumption, a small part of his suggestions for tackling climate change. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) took the plunge this afternoon with an answer (since nothing else is happening in Texas):
So I’ll be honest. I find the hysteria exasperating. I’ll leave you with another video from Gates which I find extremely useful and which explains what we can all do to tackle climate change. And no, I’m not worried that he’ll put a microchip in my veggie burger or my highly anticipated COVID vaccine. He has better things to do.
Let us know your thoughts (not based on conspiracy theory) in the comments section below.
Photo: Luke MacGregor via TIME
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