Bill Gates, Philanthropy, and Climate Change
Who isn’t interested in Bill Gates’ views? Whether he’s talking about the impact of the digital revolution on society at large, his philanthropic efforts to eliminate diseases like polio and malaria, or his insights into other macro issues like global warming, his talks are always captivating and his opinions carry plenty of weight. (As a quick aside, I’m often reminded of Gates deeply studied position on global warming when I come across deniers. Are we to suppose that he needs a few bucks of government support to perpetuate something he deems a hoax? Or that he’s a liberal academic lightweight who hasn’t done his homework on solar flares and ice ages? Neither idea passes muster with me.)
Here’s the interview Gates did a few days ago with Charlie Rose that aired on PBS last night.
20 years ago, someone who was in a position to know told me that the toughest couple of moments one could possibly face was a discussion with Gates on anything. “He has more knowledge and certainty on dozens of subjects than you have on your mother’s maiden name — and he’s completely intolerant of people who show up unprepared,” my friend told me.
Even with all the fear of God this may have inspired, I challenge Gates on a couple of points:
1) Up until very recently, he looked on solar as “cute,” something that had essentially no potential impact on the energy picture. Based on this interview (I was gratified to see), something had clearly changed his mind. What was it?
2) He obviously takes the issue of carbon and climate change quite seriously, but it’s not where his focus as a philanthropist lies. Why? I don’t think either of us will be on this Earth long enough to know for sure, but I believe climate change is going to cause far more misery than the diseases he’s trying to eradicate.
Am I proposing a dialog with the world’s most feared challenger? Let me practice for a few years first and think about it.
No one is an expert at everything! Including doctors, computer scientists….
SMART people don’t know a lot about subjects outside of their expertise. It takes time and resources to study geology, oceanography, climate science…
If you major in these subjects in college you are exposed to the evidence in rocks, sediments, ice cores…You test the theories (play devils advocate…) and see that ALL the evidence shows climate change is happening.
We did this in the late 1970s while I earned my BS in Geology and Marine Science Certificate from The Pennsylvania State University. The head of the department, geologist and oceanographer, Dr Schmaltz was a skeptical, careful genius who for years measured, sampled, tested researched and told us that global warming was a far worse problem than the Arab Oil Embargo that we were experiencing.
We need to have a fair election system, policy, action. I am tired of talking about these things for 42 years!
Bill Gates is a good leader, smart man, I wish he was in Politics. There is our problem, not energy, not food, nothing is in the way except Politics.
Greg Chick.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/science/earth/lonnie-thompson-climate-scientist-battles-time.html?hpw
“The reason Lonnie’s stuff is so powerful is that it’s so simple,” said Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist at Harvard and director of its Center for the Environment.
“His evidence dismisses the idea that this is some sort of 300-year or 500-year cycle, which is what the skeptics and the deniers want to say. You say: ‘No, because Lonnie’s ice didn’t melt then. It’s melting now, but it didn’t melt then.’ ”