Gates Retreats From 'Doomsday' Climate View, Prioritizes Aid To Poorest Countries 51
Bill Gates is retreating from his earlier warnings about climate change. The Microsoft co-founder now argues that what he called the "doomsday view of climate change" has caused the climate community to focus too heavily on near-term emissions goals and divert resources from addressing poverty and disease in the world's poorest countries.
In a blog post, Gates wrote that climate change will have serious consequences but will not lead to humanity's demise. He acknowledges that some climate advocates will call him a hypocrite given his own carbon footprint and his 2021 book warning that climate change could be as deadly as COVID-19 by mid-century and five times as deadly by 2100.
The poorest countries receive less than 1% of rich countries' budgets at their highest level and that this share is shrinking as wealthy nations cut aid and low-income countries struggle with debt, he wrote. Rising temperatures are now inevitable and that the current consensus suggests Earth's average temperature will be between two and three degrees Celsius higher than 1850 levels by 2100.
In a blog post, Gates wrote that climate change will have serious consequences but will not lead to humanity's demise. He acknowledges that some climate advocates will call him a hypocrite given his own carbon footprint and his 2021 book warning that climate change could be as deadly as COVID-19 by mid-century and five times as deadly by 2100.
The poorest countries receive less than 1% of rich countries' budgets at their highest level and that this share is shrinking as wealthy nations cut aid and low-income countries struggle with debt, he wrote. Rising temperatures are now inevitable and that the current consensus suggests Earth's average temperature will be between two and three degrees Celsius higher than 1850 levels by 2100.
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ah yes, the well known country known as "Europeâ(TM)s"
Maybe? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Yes.
Re:Maybe? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it possible Gates found it was more lucrative to monetize aid to poor countries than climate aid?
Precisely my first thought. He figured out some way to make more money by making it look like he's helping poor countries. Probably a nice lack of regulations in poor countries. Regulations that make it really difficult to set up a nonprofit / charity and then rake money in from it hand over fist.
Re:Maybe? (Score:5, Interesting)
Gates donates vaccines to chosen poor countries specifically to avoid production of generic medicines. This means that the people in other poorer countries that don't have their own drugs manufacturers end up not getting the medicine.
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It doesn't help that she now looks like Justin Bieber after a week long meth bender.
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Re:Maybe? (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe the days of Gates caring about money are behind him. You can fault his past motives, but now he seems very clearly focused on philanthropic work.
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Indeed. And he correctly believes that starving and suffering people aren't in a position where they can do anything about climate change, either to work to prevent it (stop using fossil fuels), or even to adapt to it (rising sea levels).
In short, Bill Gates is right.
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I believe the days of Gates caring about money are behind him.
I believe that you are gullible. Which of us is correct?
I heard about this one tiger that changed his stripes... and all he did was starve to death since he knew nothing other killing other animals for food. (yes, people can change. they rarely change without great external force... and who/what can force Bill Gates?)
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I am. The man is actively giving away his wealth and has been for at least half a decade now: https://www.forbes.com/sites/k... [forbes.com]
He's on record on wanting to give away 99% of his wealth over the next two decades. If he actually wanted to keep growing his wealth, his wealth growth wouldn't have been flat for the past 5 years (when practically every other billionaire has nearly doubled or tripled in that time: https://ips-dc.org/total-u-s-b... [ips-dc.org]).
I kno
Gates and what he wants to say can fuck right off (Score:3, Informative)
until he starts paying taxes like everybody else.
Fuckhead billionaires...
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The dude has no earned income. Keep your outrage and point it at the taxation systems.
Re:Gates and what he wants to say can fuck right o (Score:4, Informative)
He has no earned income because, like all billionaires, he's arranged to have no income in order to dodge taxes.
I'm mad at the loopholes, but I'm also mad at the fuckers who exploit the loopholes, because just because being a selfish asshole is legal doesn't make it okay to be a selfish asshole.
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The dude has no earned income. Keep your outrage and point it at the taxation systems.
And that's the problem exactly. He's one of the world's richest men... but he doesn't pay taxes because billionaires have made sure that the money they made isn't in the form that is taxed.
Re: Gates and what he wants to say can fuck right (Score:2)
It's true that he has never EARNED income, but that's irrelevant to whether he should pay taxes on his ill-gotten goods.
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably. Just another coward then. No surprise. Some people do not even find a backbone when the risk to them is very small.
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No he's a humanist and a realist. If you want to solve climate change you need people who are in a position to do something about it. Stop burning fossil fuels and have access to alternatives. Telling the poor, cold, and hungry to stop burning coal is arrogant, frankly. As far as the 1% goes, if they were all like him in actually trying to help people, the world would be in a great place to tackle climate change.
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You are clearly reading too much into this. BG was never even remotely a "humanist".
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As somebody who was in tech during the 90s and 00s, I can say with high certainty that Bill Gates is a psychopath. All the white- and green-washing of his image in the time since doesn't change that.
Whatever he's doing, he's doing for his own gain.
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You're not thinking this through. I know it's shocking to have a high-profile defection from your side but maybe consider the reasons for it he gav
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A lot of people got rich from the Climate Scam,
I can't think of anybody who got rich on climate. The rich people are mostly tech bros, stock investors, or people who inherited family wealth.
but now they're flipping to AI. All those AI datacentres require building reliable power stations
Now you're talking. The tech bros are all-in on AI and crypto, and realized that a goal of lowering their carbon emissions is hard to reconcile with their goal of minting billions of dollars with AI. So all of a sudden they're getting a bit silent about their former climate goals.
Actually worth a read and debate (Score:5, Insightful)
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Many of us are reading this while at work or school, and don't actually have time to both:
1. read the article
2. post snark.
Obviously, number 2 is the higher priority, so most of us will ignore your admonitions to read the article and possibly mod you down for being so audacious.
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His intended audience is I think the COP30 in Brazil, and those are thoughtful folks who can handle nuance, buuuuut then there are Americans.
Ah yes, COP30 in Brazil. The climate conference that required the destruction of the Amazon rainforest to build a four-lane road to travel from the private planes to the conference. Amazing show of support for saving the planet. https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com]
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The anti-global-warming whackos don't give a shit about Bill Gates and haven't for some time, if that's some comfort.
Here's the funniest part: we don't need 'famous person affirmation'.
I've been calling global warming complete bullshit all on my own for years, baby.
Really, Bill? (Score:1)
Nevermind that climate change itself will increase the spread of disease and poverty conditions...
Just donate 25% of your wealth to eliminating poverty and really make a change.
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Instead he's donating 100% of it by the time he dies.
ennui (Score:2)
Billy got tired of playing with one of his toys, now likes another toy better.
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Nope. Read his article a little more carefully.
Triage (Score:2)
Or in this case, harm reduction.
Sounds like he's realized the climate is screwed and we are completely incapable of thinking far enough ahead to do anything about it.
As the effects of climate change continue to appear, we can address them on a case-by-case basis...if those effects directly involve anything we care about right now.
Meanwhile we should forget about fixing the root cause and apply our efforts where they might have some effect.
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Far more likely he got some threats from Trump or one of his flunkies and is simply caving to them.
Wow. You people really do believe he's some kind of mafioso.
I lived through the envirohippy movement of the 70's. That one died in the 80's and wasn't revived 'til Gore made it a thing again.
And all the tech bros fell in lockstep with that.
FFWD 26 years, and now you have a new scam to fleece the stupid with: AI. Like others here pointed out, AI and Environazism are not compatible, they are at odds with each others. So, they abandoned their environazi "friends" and now are making new AI-oriented friends.
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Far more likely he got some threats from Trump or one of his flunkies and is simply caving to them.
Wow. You people really do believe he's some kind of mafioso.
Have you looked at the evidence? There is no "belief" here. But you seem to be deep in delusion. Well, after the dust settles, you can try "How could I have known?", but nobody is going to believe you.
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It sounds to me like you're scrambling to explain why someone defected from your side without being willing to consider their own explanation, because that would mean having to reconsider your side's approach more broadly.
The alarmist approach has only been counterproductive.
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That or he panders to Trump. In any case, he is still a bad person and all attempts to be different were just for show. Not that this is any surprise.
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Gates is into "AI" now.
Is he? I can't find any evidence he's a significant player in AI. A lot the billionaires, yes, but I don't see Gates on the list.
"AI" consumes enormous amounts of energy at the expense of the climate. So he has chosen to become a climate change denier, because it serves his interests.
If you actually read the article, you'll see he's not a climate denier. His point is that there are other urgent problems, not that climate isn't changing due to global warming.
Pure Evil! (Score:1)
Why? Because his name is Gates, no further reason need be given.