May Bill Gates be reminded that he's not a climate scientist. Furthermore, to think that one can address the worsening health impacts without addressing climate change makes no sense because climate change is a big contributor to the worsening health from vector-borne diseases to loss of habitat to the negative effects of higher temperatures, especially in poorer areas.
Is Bill Gates not simply saying that the negative health impacts of climate change can be counteracted by economic growth? And therefore that these concerns should be weighted against each other.
Around 2016 I asked Amory Lovins after he spoke at Colorado School of Mines about Bill Gates' infatuation with nuclear and his fixation on technological fixes. Lovins told me he had met Gates on several occasions and had suggested to give him a weekend crash course on his own thinking which Gates said he would like. However, that meeting never happened. Apparently, Gates is surrounded by nuclear fan boys and gatekeepers and is highly influenced by Canadian energy guru Vaclav Smil who for all his merits has some very dubious (=inflexible and wrong) views on renewables. In my view Gates 'expertise' is an illusion held up because his name recognition buys influence. I have chosen to ignore him in favor of people who actually know stuff. Finally, Gates’ point in the Times piece about ‘humanity surviving’ reminds me an awful lot of FF henchman Bjorn Lomborg who opined that in a 3°C scenario the inundation of coastal areas will only affect small percentage of people. Gates = Lomborg-lite?
Thank you. Give me Amory Lovins any day over Gates. Just because Gates got rich in business doesn’t mean he has any expertise to opine on the world stage about a subject he’s clearly ill-informed on.
Thank you, Bill, for dissecting Gates' letter for us and putting it into context.
Disappointed but not surprised and another reminder that we should not lionize billionaires. Great news in the bullet points, however, they can't stop the green revolution now that it's profitable. (Something to be cheerful about). 😀
Also, it wasn't just Emily of Heated who broke the story about CBS firing their climate staff. Sammy Roth, formerly of the LA Times, did too, yesterday, in his new Substack column.
A critical flaw in Gates’ screed is downplaying the increasing risk of feedbacks in the 2-3 deg. C range. Ice sheets. Rainforests. Ocean circulation. Which could easily push it past 3. He seems blithe to all of this. Or maybe he thinks we can geoengineer our way out of them. Of course, the terrible optics which give aid and comfort to the deniers. I wonder if a supreme egotist like Gates would even consult his PR people, or if he did whether they would have the guts to advise against it.
I was saddened by this take and by many of the comments. Gates doesn’t know everything but few of the (despised here) billionaire class have done more with their money to help on global poverty and develop new tech that will help bend the curve on climate. There are plenty of real enemies out there in the climate space. I didn’t love his essay either, but can’t we find the room for a bigger tent for folks who a) believe in climate change and b) want to solve it. Sometimes I feel that our side is more interested in fighting about ideological purity more than teaming up success?
This is more than a question of ideology. It is a process of establishing an accurate estimation of the relative risks of different strategies. Gates is essentially denying that climate change is a risk worth addressing in an urgent way.
It’s embarrassing that Gates is no better than Trump and countless others in drawing an equivalency between the emissions generated by creating more climate-friendly technologies and the far greater emissions they would remove over decades of operation.
Sorry but you can’t build solar energy flow harvesting machines and whole system support supply chains without fossil fuels’ ~60 times higher energy density than batteries. PERIOD. Like mining in remote areas, agriculture on soft land. Let alone limited supply of raw materials like copper, rare earths, and other elements needed for solar and wind harvesting machines, even building sand, are all in rapidly diminishing supply, so scaling up from current global 20% electric energy (up from 15% in 1970) is never going to happen for 8billion humans no matter how much £$¥€ you chuckle at it.
Failing to even mention raw materials supply and instead carp on about financial costs renders this essay and any energy supply analysis bankrupt (to mix my metaphors)!!
You have a point, but unfortunately it doesn't save us either. The idea that we can shepherd 8.4 billion people (Yes, still rising) through a systemic collapse of virtually all planetary life support is not realistic.
That is my point: we have far exceeded the future ability of this Pale Blue Dot to support the number of humans alive today. How 8.4 billion people will collectively mange the physically reality of this dictated de-growth is frankly way beyond my pay grade !
The “PERIOD” part is always a giveaway that the person wants to cut off discussion before the bankruptcy of their arguments is exposed. Oops. Too late.
The density argument is bogus and meaningless. And old. EROEI matters.
We can and are building renewables with renewables. In fact those who build renewables are, strangely, often pro-renewable and use even more renewables than the grid’s average. Works fine.
There’s plenty of every material needed to power the world 100% with renewable energy. Another lie by the fossil fueled far right.
Hydro has held relatively steady while wind and solar are increasing exponentially. Now at THIRTY percent of global electricity, renewables are expected to double again by 2030. The 1 constant of renewables is that they do everything faster than expected. Faster, cheaper, more reliable, more resilient, better in every way.
You fail to explain how to build “renewables” without fossil fuels thereby exposing the vacuity of your position. Yes there’s a few partially electrified demo mines here and there, but 99% of mines and heavy long distance heavy load transportation trucks and building factories and infrastructure etc globally ALL rely on diesel.
Then you simply dismiss energy density thereby further exposing your ignorance.
EROI is often abused by ring fencing off complex whole system supply chain externalities.
You state “Now at THIRTY percent of global electricity, renewables are expected to double again by 2030.” But electricity is only 20% of global energy consumption, so 30% of 20% = 6% of global energy is renewables which is going to double in 5 years all built from renewable electricity !! Get a grip mate I have some shoe laces you can pull on to help you levitate if you ask me nicely!!.
Good luck in your world of anti engineering magical nonsense!
We must stop burning fossil fuels as fast as humanly possible or civilization and millions of species are unlikely to survive another century. Nukes can’t do it; with a dozen intractable problems, any 1 of which would be fatal in a world that wasn’t almost totally corrupt,
1) they’re too expensive and
2) they supply even less energy than renewables do.
That leaves either renewable energy or nothing to replace FFs.
Oil’s EROEI was 100:1 in the 1930s; now it’s 13:1. It’s still falling and it can’t get up. In Appalachia it now takes 3 times more destruction (euphemistic “mountaintop removal”) to get the same amount of coal as it did in the 1990s, and the coal is poorer quality—less energy, more pollution. 1000 miles of streams have been buried in toxic rubble there; to get the same amount more would bury 5000 miles. It’s a global phenomenon. Renewables’ power, efficiency, EROEI, and ‘density’ are all improving fast. The only place density matters even a little is in EVs; FFs aren’t 60 times better; by weight they’re technically 50 times better; by volume, 10 times. But ICEVs are 5% efficient, well to wheel; they waste 95% of the energy in the oil. And they’re getting worse fast. EVs are 40-60% efficient W2W—10 times more efficient—and getting better fast. So that 50 is really 5, or 1, and it’s disappearing from both ends, doubly fast.
Batteries are improving fast in every way—cost, ecological impact, safety, range, density, mining technology, etc.
"We must stop burning fossil fuels as fast as humanly possible or civilization and millions of species are unlikely to survive another century." Nonsense. Take a look at fossil fuel reserves, they are running out we're over half way through them. It took 250 years to burn the first half, the second half will barely last another century = less than half a billion human left as hunter gathers.
Burning all the rest of known fossil fuels would cause warming to almost 10C.
Long, loooong before that could happen, civilization would end, most of the world would be uninhabitable because of heat alone—never mind all the other devastating effects. Much of the world would be experiencing long stretches, or even be permanently at 170F, a temperature at which, if you go outside, you die.
Most of the world’s people live close enough to the coast that their cities—roughly 90% of the large cities—would no longer exist, drowned by sea level rise and monster storms,—storms made immensely more powerful and destructive by the warming world.
Those seas would be almost devoid of life because of heat and acidification.
“77% of Top Climate Scientists Think 2.5°C of Warming Is Coming—And They're Horrified”
Nearly half predicted 3°C or more in a recent poll of climate scientists.
6% thought the world would succeed in limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, [which we’ve already reached, & both temperature & emissions are still rising, so that’s impossible. Even more expect 4 - 5°] a survey published by The Guardian revealed.
Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester in the U.K. and Uppsala University in Sweden, asserts that “something like 10% of the planet’s population — around half a billion people — will survive if global temperatures rise by 4 C.”
David Roberts spreading Andersonian gloom by video: 2°C is beyond dangerous and also beyond hope. We will “blow past it”. (“My Tedx Talk Pimped Out”)
“Every year we wait adds $500 billion to the cost” [and that increase is itself increasing.]
“The BrutalLogic of Climate Change”, Grist, 12/05/2011 ...” The obvious truth about global warming is this: barring miracles, humanity is in for some awful shit.”... David Roberts, Vox, 5/15/2015
“What Lies Beneath: The scientific understatement of climate risks”
David Spratt, Ian Dunlop, 7 September, 2017
“Mainstream Climate Science: The New Denialism?”
Jonathan Porritt, March 7, 2024
“the idea that emissions could continue till 2050 and still achieve the 1.5–2°C goal was always a con; now it is fully exposed”
AMOC—Rahmstorf
“Betting against worst-case climate scenarios is risky business”
Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of physics of the oceans at Potsdam University in Germany, said that while there is still “large uncertainty where the tipping point of the AMOC is… the scientific evidence now is that we can’t even rule out crossing a tipping point already in the next decade or two,” and “the conservative IPCC estimate, based on climate models which are too stable… is in my view outdated now.”
I have lots more. But I know that there is no amount of evidence that will convince you, Natasha. What does that say about you?
Climate science consists of more than 350,000 peer-reviewed papers.
They were written by hundreds of thousands of scientists in a hundred different scientific specialties over nearly 2 centuries.
At least 11 also-peer reviewed studies have examined the extent of consensus on the foundations of the science. More than 99% agree, and the latest consensus study, from Cornell in 2021, found that 99.9% of the 88,000 papers published from 2012-2019 agreed:
Earth is warming.
It’s caused entirely by human greenhouse gases, almost all from burning fossil fuels and chemical-industrial agriculture.
It’s an imminent existential threat to civilization and millions of species.
We’ve known this for 40 years. It’s quite insane to deny any of it now. Please find a good psychotherapist for help in figuring out why you trust the worst criminal psychopaths in history more than you trust so many diligent scientists, and why you accept 99.999% of the science our world is built on but reject this overwhelming, as-certain-as-science-can-be science.
You write: "Earth is warming" nobody disagrees with the temperature records.
You write: "It’s caused entirely by human greenhouse gases" no it isn't there are plenty of other cycles. The only argument is the balance of factors.
You write: "why you trust the worst criminal psychopaths in history..." I'm assuming you mean the fossil fuel industry.... "more than you trust so many diligent scientists"...eh? I think you are being gas lighted: you are writing and reading these comments because 85% of global energy has been fossil fuels up until today. If you want to ban fossil fuels, please do a detailed entire whole supply chain analysis showing every single step of how you are going to electrify that 85%?
How were humans supposed to refuse your so called "worst criminal psychopaths in history" when 8.3billion humans up from under 1billion in 250 years DEMANDED they be given high energy density fossil fuels? Hardly a gas lighting exercise!
All mines don’t “rely” on diesel, whatever that undefined term is meant to mean. Another lie. “World’s Largest EV Never Has To Be Recharged” Greencarreports, August 18, 2019 (There’s a train like it in Sweden, and more elsewhere.) Unusual but growing. Magma Copper Mine in Arizona expects to be 60% solar powered next year. Operating mines in Nevada, Burkina Faso, and all over the world, and hundreds of closed mines are being converted to solar. Especially in China, of course.
The world would be 100% renewable powered already if the lunatic fossil-fuel-funded far right wing hadn’t been telling exactly these and other lies for decades. For being mean petty liars on the side of those psychopaths destroying the world, congratulations should go to the internet trolls spreading these lies, funded by fossil fuels and the far right with tens of billions of dollars—created, focus group-tested, and disseminated by an enormous jackalpack of PR and lobbying firms masquerading as think tanks.
And renewable energy is increasing exponentially, which clearly Prisssss refuses to understand or admit. 2030: 12% of the world’s energy. 2035: 25%. 2040: 50%. 2045: virtually 100%, even as electricity demand grows. Except it won’t; since renewables are so efficient, switching to them will reduce global energy demand by half at least so that transformation will happen at least twice as fast. It’s still disturbingly slow; hundreds of millions of people at least, and uncountable others, including thousands of species will die young. Congratulations again to Prissssssssss on a job well done, or at least well stood by and watched while others did the real hard dirty work.
There’s nothing to explain about building renewables with renewables; it’s being done, usually at a higher share than the local grid, since the people building them like them.
Prisss’sss 99% of mines thing is just made up. Another lie. S/he has no idea how many mines etc. are electrified (and increasingly, solar powered) and thus already partly and increasingly renewablized. And it’s not just mines. It’s everything, including factories like the many and increasing solar, wind, EV, battery, and other factories and gigafactories run largely or completely on solar and other renewable sources; it’s renewably powered electric trains, trucks, ships, and everything else. So, another lie. And I never said it was “all built by renewable energy” as Prisssss falsely claimed. Another.
But it doesn’t matter; Prisssss mistakes a snapshot for a statue. Tomorrow’s snapshots will be completely different.
Not replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, efficiency, and wiser lives 40 years ago will lead to ecological catastrophe. The longer we allow the nihilistic narcissistic psychotic psychopathic fossil fueled far right to delay solutions, the worse it will be, but we can still probably manage to save parts of civilization if we remove the insane people from power immediately.
The math of exponential growth—of both renewables and other solutions, and of climate disasters—is not in question. If we don’t make 1 happen, the other will. Prissssss apparently prefers destruction. I prefer sustainability.
Everything Prisssssssssss has said is false—either a lie, a delusion…or, wait. Those are the only choices. Everything Prisssssss has said is false. If anyone questions that I’m happy to provide credible sources for everything I’ve said.
Have you forgotten, that you are able to see this post, and type message here ONLY because of fossil fuels?
Yet you scream: "nihilistic narcissistic psychotic psychopathic fossil fueled far right" .... perhaps you need to get some psychotherapy mate, to deal with your screaming hatred?
"I’m happy to provide credible sources for everything I’ve said" OK where's your sources for this...
"The math of exponential growth—of both renewables and other solutions, and of climate disasters—is not in question."
I couldn't agree more. Being a billionaire doesn't make you an expert in anything other than working Capitalism regardless the negative consequences. I wish he'd just have kept this mouth shut given the insane denialist greed and grift driven regime currently at the helm of this country. Just totally reckless and irresponsible. Our economic system is broken and brutal as I'll talk about in my next post. This was just such a disappointing kick from a guy who has made so much money off of us and our planet.
Bill, you mention U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s statement “Warmer temperatures could expose as many as one billion people to deadly infectious diseases such as Zika, dengue, and chikungunya.”
Reading “one billion people” (1/8 of humanity!) being exposed to Zika, dengue, and chikungunya triggered a recollection of David Spratt explaining that 2 billion desperate refugees (1/4 of humanity) are expected to flee an overheated swath of real estate across Australia, Indonesia, India, Middle East, Northern Africa over to parts of S. & N. America during the next 20 years fleeing insufferable heat, drought, famine, etc. caused by reaching and passing unlivable 2.7°C projected in 2050-2060.
Watch two minutes beginning at time stamp 18:25 of Spratt’s presentation
The first of a few slides you’ll see shows a map of the globe with unlivable areas colored red, and two quoted texts:
“Those parts of the world that will exhibit levels of heat beyond that ever experienced in human history (with a mean annual temperature > 29°C) resulting in "near-unlivable conditions", currently found on only 0.8% of the planet's surface, mostly in the Sahara.”
… and …
“Half a degree further rise in global warming will triple area of Earth too hot for humans
King's College London, February 4, 2025
New assessment warns area the size of the USA will become too hot during extreme heat events for even healthy young humans to maintain a safe body temperature if we hit 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. For those aged over 60, the same 2 degree rise would see more than a third of the planet's land mass cross this critical "overheating' threshold.”
🤔 We’ve got no Planet B, and -10% CO2 emissions reduction—according to the UNFCCC's 2025 Synthesis Report analyzing 64 countries' updated climate commitments, emissions could decline by approximately 10% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels—if that is a plausible trajectory, we may likely fly by 2°C heading toward 3°-4°C with the near term (2050-2060) milestone of lethal 2.7°C.
Think about that. That expectation will be preceded by a two-decade ramping up of global mass migration and concomitant social chaos from 2 billion desperate people fleeing insufferable heat. When those refugees arrive in cooler countries (2030s–2040s) ahead of the 2.7°C milestone, what is Plan B? “Waiting for Net Zero” without cooling measures is no Plan B.
Bill gates has no credibility on climate. Billionaires don't deserve more attention than anyone else, they just buy it. Solar and wind, but mainly solar, are wonderful, and worth widespread distribution. Solar will not solve the world's problems, only the carbon one. Granted carbon emissions are the world's most serious problem, but far from the only one. And we cannot get abundant energy for everyone for a simple reason, we have other limiting factors. These include copper, a host of other minerals, and that natural resources needed for all the stuff we want to run on electricity. There are limits, and we are crossing them. All energy should be derived from solar (and other than nuclear it is) but energy alone cannot free us from the limits of the planet. We have to acknowledge that. Yes, tax the rich heavily, especially billionaires. Power everything with solar derived electricity, and live more with a whole lot less (if you are American) and maybe a bit more if you are from Mozambique.
“Low-carbon tech needs much fewer materials than it used to; this matters for resource extraction in the future” Hannah Ritchie Nov. 11, 2024
“By 2042, Chinese Battery Maker Will No Longer Need Mining as Recycling Takes Over” This Is Not Cool, May 22, 2024 … CEO of CATL, the world's largest battery company…says they're becoming so good at recycling… (already recycling 99.6% of Nickel and Cobalt)
“Will We Run Out of Critical Minerals for the Energy Transition?” This Is Not Cool, November 17, 2022
1 ship carrying solar panels carries the same amount of energy as 100 coal ships or 50 gas tankers. [So switching to 100% renewable energy will reduce the 40% of global shipping that is just carrying fossil fuels around by up to 99%. (Along with similar shares of rail and trucking) Since the cause of most whale deaths is ship strikes and fishing net entanglements, switching to 100% renewable energy and not eating fish will thus vastly reduce whale deaths “Renewable Energy Domination” video, 13:21
I don't disagree with these perspectives on minerals in the short term. Unfortunately the second law of thermodynamics still holds. Eventually we will run out, it will just take a lot longer if we learn to live with less. I am not sure we can convert our economy to electric as fast as we can lower consumption of manufactured goods, so I would like to see us emphasize both.
Absolutely. Among the necessary solutions to the climate and larger ecological crisis are renewable electricity and direct use (clothesline paradox energy), organic permaculture, public transit including high speed rail, EVs, heat pumps, electric arc furnaces, etc. but also radical economic and political equality both within and between countries, and healing the Wetiko disease that causes all our problems.
The last 2 are bound together, and should dramatically reduce exploitation of both people and the rest of nature. The last is likely to be the work of centuries.
I agree with you on this one. We should listen less to Bill G. and people like him. Unfortunately, media outlets and our consumption of them have slowly evolved so that we no longer go to them to be informed, but to be entertained. It's about social media exposure, rather than about saying what matters. And it's about weaving a certain fiction that incorporates elements from real life to maximize clicks and the corresponding "outrage", which unfortunately is all bark and no bite.
I think people who care about nature should start doing something beyond the conciliatory approach. Because if we stick to that, then all that will happen is a few new gigawatts of solar power in the electricity grid that will just be eaten up by the trillion dollar datacenters that tech companies build to power AI. Not an acceptable and useful approach in my opinion.
The real question is: why DO people listen to the bigwigs like Bill Gates? It's because the opposition (environmentalists) are conciliatory and don't really stand up for serious action to protect the environment. So, the average person sees mainstream environmentalism as rather weak, akin to the kid at school who keeps giving their lunch money to the bully because they're too afraid to push back and fight. That's the same reason why poeple like Trump get elected.
I don't mean to be blunt about this, nor am I trying to blame anyone, because the SYSTEM gives us very few options when it comes to really standing up to it. I truly believe you (and other environentalists) are trying their best within the system, and that's laudable. But I also think we need to find a new way that actually involves pushing back, rather than begging for scraps.
Wow - totally disappointing yet not totally surprising. His kowtowing to the orange blob recently to state dinners along with the other billionaire sycophants proves his basic moral and ethical values are weak - remember his poor judgement Epstein phase which destroyed his long marriage to a respectable, intelligent women? - and he now wants to be part of the 200+ billionaire club. 120 billion net worth is not enough for him to feel like a real man as these extreme materialists measure their worth via money and the greedy mass accumulation of it regardless of the costs to their souls or the planet itself. Horrible and yet typical of the modern superficial plastic material ethos of the new Gilded Age 2.0 21st century where he/she with most toys wins in the end - then what? According to Matthew in the New Testament and most major religions - it's not a good afterlife scenario for the greedy rich. But these greed diseased men (and women) don't believe in God, a soul or an afterlife, which is why they no common sense decency or care about the long term percussion of their toxic blind greed endeavors which include loading landfills with toxic materials (gadgets) and fossil fuel extraction/sue causing global warming etc. So f'ing fed up with Billionaires and the rigged Wall Street Casino system that props up their monopolies with fake perverted wealth! Eat the Rich and redistribute the wealth by force if necessary! RESIST!
May Bill Gates be reminded that he's not a climate scientist. Furthermore, to think that one can address the worsening health impacts without addressing climate change makes no sense because climate change is a big contributor to the worsening health from vector-borne diseases to loss of habitat to the negative effects of higher temperatures, especially in poorer areas.
Did his uncle go to MIT? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
To include the impact that burning fossil fuels has on our health & brains, aka. The dementia pandemic.
Is Bill Gates not simply saying that the negative health impacts of climate change can be counteracted by economic growth? And therefore that these concerns should be weighted against each other.
This strategy has gotten us here and will not save us.
Around 2016 I asked Amory Lovins after he spoke at Colorado School of Mines about Bill Gates' infatuation with nuclear and his fixation on technological fixes. Lovins told me he had met Gates on several occasions and had suggested to give him a weekend crash course on his own thinking which Gates said he would like. However, that meeting never happened. Apparently, Gates is surrounded by nuclear fan boys and gatekeepers and is highly influenced by Canadian energy guru Vaclav Smil who for all his merits has some very dubious (=inflexible and wrong) views on renewables. In my view Gates 'expertise' is an illusion held up because his name recognition buys influence. I have chosen to ignore him in favor of people who actually know stuff. Finally, Gates’ point in the Times piece about ‘humanity surviving’ reminds me an awful lot of FF henchman Bjorn Lomborg who opined that in a 3°C scenario the inundation of coastal areas will only affect small percentage of people. Gates = Lomborg-lite?
Thank you. Give me Amory Lovins any day over Gates. Just because Gates got rich in business doesn’t mean he has any expertise to opine on the world stage about a subject he’s clearly ill-informed on.
Thank you, Bill, for dissecting Gates' letter for us and putting it into context.
Disappointed but not surprised and another reminder that we should not lionize billionaires. Great news in the bullet points, however, they can't stop the green revolution now that it's profitable. (Something to be cheerful about). 😀
Hi Bill,
1000 percent on the other Bill.
Also, it wasn't just Emily of Heated who broke the story about CBS firing their climate staff. Sammy Roth, formerly of the LA Times, did too, yesterday, in his new Substack column.
Every passing day, it’s becoming more and more obvious that being obscenely wealthy has nothing to do with intelligence.
A critical flaw in Gates’ screed is downplaying the increasing risk of feedbacks in the 2-3 deg. C range. Ice sheets. Rainforests. Ocean circulation. Which could easily push it past 3. He seems blithe to all of this. Or maybe he thinks we can geoengineer our way out of them. Of course, the terrible optics which give aid and comfort to the deniers. I wonder if a supreme egotist like Gates would even consult his PR people, or if he did whether they would have the guts to advise against it.
Thank you for doing this rapid analysis, Bill, along with snagging the climate news.
I fear Gates' note will get a lot of traction - and reflects what he's hearing from funders.
I was saddened by this take and by many of the comments. Gates doesn’t know everything but few of the (despised here) billionaire class have done more with their money to help on global poverty and develop new tech that will help bend the curve on climate. There are plenty of real enemies out there in the climate space. I didn’t love his essay either, but can’t we find the room for a bigger tent for folks who a) believe in climate change and b) want to solve it. Sometimes I feel that our side is more interested in fighting about ideological purity more than teaming up success?
This is more than a question of ideology. It is a process of establishing an accurate estimation of the relative risks of different strategies. Gates is essentially denying that climate change is a risk worth addressing in an urgent way.
It’s embarrassing that Gates is no better than Trump and countless others in drawing an equivalency between the emissions generated by creating more climate-friendly technologies and the far greater emissions they would remove over decades of operation.
Sorry but you can’t build solar energy flow harvesting machines and whole system support supply chains without fossil fuels’ ~60 times higher energy density than batteries. PERIOD. Like mining in remote areas, agriculture on soft land. Let alone limited supply of raw materials like copper, rare earths, and other elements needed for solar and wind harvesting machines, even building sand, are all in rapidly diminishing supply, so scaling up from current global 20% electric energy (up from 15% in 1970) is never going to happen for 8billion humans no matter how much £$¥€ you chuckle at it.
Failing to even mention raw materials supply and instead carp on about financial costs renders this essay and any energy supply analysis bankrupt (to mix my metaphors)!!
You have a point, but unfortunately it doesn't save us either. The idea that we can shepherd 8.4 billion people (Yes, still rising) through a systemic collapse of virtually all planetary life support is not realistic.
That is my point: we have far exceeded the future ability of this Pale Blue Dot to support the number of humans alive today. How 8.4 billion people will collectively mange the physically reality of this dictated de-growth is frankly way beyond my pay grade !
All of that is false. Numbers, ideas, all of it.
The “PERIOD” part is always a giveaway that the person wants to cut off discussion before the bankruptcy of their arguments is exposed. Oops. Too late.
The density argument is bogus and meaningless. And old. EROEI matters.
We can and are building renewables with renewables. In fact those who build renewables are, strangely, often pro-renewable and use even more renewables than the grid’s average. Works fine.
There’s plenty of every material needed to power the world 100% with renewable energy. Another lie by the fossil fueled far right.
Hydro has held relatively steady while wind and solar are increasing exponentially. Now at THIRTY percent of global electricity, renewables are expected to double again by 2030. The 1 constant of renewables is that they do everything faster than expected. Faster, cheaper, more reliable, more resilient, better in every way.
“without fossil fuels’” what?
You fail to explain how to build “renewables” without fossil fuels thereby exposing the vacuity of your position. Yes there’s a few partially electrified demo mines here and there, but 99% of mines and heavy long distance heavy load transportation trucks and building factories and infrastructure etc globally ALL rely on diesel.
Then you simply dismiss energy density thereby further exposing your ignorance.
EROI is often abused by ring fencing off complex whole system supply chain externalities.
You state “Now at THIRTY percent of global electricity, renewables are expected to double again by 2030.” But electricity is only 20% of global energy consumption, so 30% of 20% = 6% of global energy is renewables which is going to double in 5 years all built from renewable electricity !! Get a grip mate I have some shoe laces you can pull on to help you levitate if you ask me nicely!!.
Good luck in your world of anti engineering magical nonsense!
We must stop burning fossil fuels as fast as humanly possible or civilization and millions of species are unlikely to survive another century. Nukes can’t do it; with a dozen intractable problems, any 1 of which would be fatal in a world that wasn’t almost totally corrupt,
1) they’re too expensive and
2) they supply even less energy than renewables do.
That leaves either renewable energy or nothing to replace FFs.
Oil’s EROEI was 100:1 in the 1930s; now it’s 13:1. It’s still falling and it can’t get up. In Appalachia it now takes 3 times more destruction (euphemistic “mountaintop removal”) to get the same amount of coal as it did in the 1990s, and the coal is poorer quality—less energy, more pollution. 1000 miles of streams have been buried in toxic rubble there; to get the same amount more would bury 5000 miles. It’s a global phenomenon. Renewables’ power, efficiency, EROEI, and ‘density’ are all improving fast. The only place density matters even a little is in EVs; FFs aren’t 60 times better; by weight they’re technically 50 times better; by volume, 10 times. But ICEVs are 5% efficient, well to wheel; they waste 95% of the energy in the oil. And they’re getting worse fast. EVs are 40-60% efficient W2W—10 times more efficient—and getting better fast. So that 50 is really 5, or 1, and it’s disappearing from both ends, doubly fast.
Batteries are improving fast in every way—cost, ecological impact, safety, range, density, mining technology, etc.
"We must stop burning fossil fuels as fast as humanly possible or civilization and millions of species are unlikely to survive another century." Nonsense. Take a look at fossil fuel reserves, they are running out we're over half way through them. It took 250 years to burn the first half, the second half will barely last another century = less than half a billion human left as hunter gathers.
Burning all the rest of known fossil fuels would cause warming to almost 10C.
Long, loooong before that could happen, civilization would end, most of the world would be uninhabitable because of heat alone—never mind all the other devastating effects. Much of the world would be experiencing long stretches, or even be permanently at 170F, a temperature at which, if you go outside, you die.
Most of the world’s people live close enough to the coast that their cities—roughly 90% of the large cities—would no longer exist, drowned by sea level rise and monster storms,—storms made immensely more powerful and destructive by the warming world.
Those seas would be almost devoid of life because of heat and acidification.
“77% of Top Climate Scientists Think 2.5°C of Warming Is Coming—And They're Horrified”
May 08, 2024 https://www.commondreams.org/news/climate-scientists-2-5-world
Nearly half predicted 3°C or more in a recent poll of climate scientists.
6% thought the world would succeed in limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, [which we’ve already reached, & both temperature & emissions are still rising, so that’s impossible. Even more expect 4 - 5°] a survey published by The Guardian revealed.
Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester in the U.K. and Uppsala University in Sweden, asserts that “something like 10% of the planet’s population — around half a billion people — will survive if global temperatures rise by 4 C.”
1:40:00 Going Beyond "Dangerous" Climate Change, LSE talk + scenes / docu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T22A7mvJoc
David Roberts spreading Andersonian gloom by video: 2°C is beyond dangerous and also beyond hope. We will “blow past it”. (“My Tedx Talk Pimped Out”)
“Every year we wait adds $500 billion to the cost” [and that increase is itself increasing.]
“The BrutalLogic of Climate Change”, Grist, 12/05/2011 ...” The obvious truth about global warming is this: barring miracles, humanity is in for some awful shit.”... David Roberts, Vox, 5/15/2015
“What Lies Beneath: The scientific understatement of climate risks”
David Spratt, Ian Dunlop, 7 September, 2017
“Mainstream Climate Science: The New Denialism?”
Jonathan Porritt, March 7, 2024
“the idea that emissions could continue till 2050 and still achieve the 1.5–2°C goal was always a con; now it is fully exposed”
AMOC—Rahmstorf
“Betting against worst-case climate scenarios is risky business”
David Spratt | BOAS September 4, 2023 https://thebulletin.org/2023/09/betting-against-worst-case-climate-scenarios-is-risky-business/
Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of physics of the oceans at Potsdam University in Germany, said that while there is still “large uncertainty where the tipping point of the AMOC is… the scientific evidence now is that we can’t even rule out crossing a tipping point already in the next decade or two,” and “the conservative IPCC estimate, based on climate models which are too stable… is in my view outdated now.”
I have lots more. But I know that there is no amount of evidence that will convince you, Natasha. What does that say about you?
Climate science consists of more than 350,000 peer-reviewed papers.
They were written by hundreds of thousands of scientists in a hundred different scientific specialties over nearly 2 centuries.
At least 11 also-peer reviewed studies have examined the extent of consensus on the foundations of the science. More than 99% agree, and the latest consensus study, from Cornell in 2021, found that 99.9% of the 88,000 papers published from 2012-2019 agreed:
Earth is warming.
It’s caused entirely by human greenhouse gases, almost all from burning fossil fuels and chemical-industrial agriculture.
It’s an imminent existential threat to civilization and millions of species.
We’ve known this for 40 years. It’s quite insane to deny any of it now. Please find a good psychotherapist for help in figuring out why you trust the worst criminal psychopaths in history more than you trust so many diligent scientists, and why you accept 99.999% of the science our world is built on but reject this overwhelming, as-certain-as-science-can-be science.
https://thinc.blog/2025/11/13/bigger-than-yellowstone-the-science-of-geo-catastrophe-and-deep-time/
You write: "Earth is warming" nobody disagrees with the temperature records.
You write: "It’s caused entirely by human greenhouse gases" no it isn't there are plenty of other cycles. The only argument is the balance of factors.
You write: "why you trust the worst criminal psychopaths in history..." I'm assuming you mean the fossil fuel industry.... "more than you trust so many diligent scientists"...eh? I think you are being gas lighted: you are writing and reading these comments because 85% of global energy has been fossil fuels up until today. If you want to ban fossil fuels, please do a detailed entire whole supply chain analysis showing every single step of how you are going to electrify that 85%?
How were humans supposed to refuse your so called "worst criminal psychopaths in history" when 8.3billion humans up from under 1billion in 250 years DEMANDED they be given high energy density fossil fuels? Hardly a gas lighting exercise!
All mines don’t “rely” on diesel, whatever that undefined term is meant to mean. Another lie. “World’s Largest EV Never Has To Be Recharged” Greencarreports, August 18, 2019 (There’s a train like it in Sweden, and more elsewhere.) Unusual but growing. Magma Copper Mine in Arizona expects to be 60% solar powered next year. Operating mines in Nevada, Burkina Faso, and all over the world, and hundreds of closed mines are being converted to solar. Especially in China, of course.
The world would be 100% renewable powered already if the lunatic fossil-fuel-funded far right wing hadn’t been telling exactly these and other lies for decades. For being mean petty liars on the side of those psychopaths destroying the world, congratulations should go to the internet trolls spreading these lies, funded by fossil fuels and the far right with tens of billions of dollars—created, focus group-tested, and disseminated by an enormous jackalpack of PR and lobbying firms masquerading as think tanks.
And renewable energy is increasing exponentially, which clearly Prisssss refuses to understand or admit. 2030: 12% of the world’s energy. 2035: 25%. 2040: 50%. 2045: virtually 100%, even as electricity demand grows. Except it won’t; since renewables are so efficient, switching to them will reduce global energy demand by half at least so that transformation will happen at least twice as fast. It’s still disturbingly slow; hundreds of millions of people at least, and uncountable others, including thousands of species will die young. Congratulations again to Prissssssssss on a job well done, or at least well stood by and watched while others did the real hard dirty work.
There’s nothing to explain about building renewables with renewables; it’s being done, usually at a higher share than the local grid, since the people building them like them.
Prisss’sss 99% of mines thing is just made up. Another lie. S/he has no idea how many mines etc. are electrified (and increasingly, solar powered) and thus already partly and increasingly renewablized. And it’s not just mines. It’s everything, including factories like the many and increasing solar, wind, EV, battery, and other factories and gigafactories run largely or completely on solar and other renewable sources; it’s renewably powered electric trains, trucks, ships, and everything else. So, another lie. And I never said it was “all built by renewable energy” as Prisssss falsely claimed. Another.
But it doesn’t matter; Prisssss mistakes a snapshot for a statue. Tomorrow’s snapshots will be completely different.
Hope you’re enjoying your fantasy !!
Not replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, efficiency, and wiser lives 40 years ago will lead to ecological catastrophe. The longer we allow the nihilistic narcissistic psychotic psychopathic fossil fueled far right to delay solutions, the worse it will be, but we can still probably manage to save parts of civilization if we remove the insane people from power immediately.
The math of exponential growth—of both renewables and other solutions, and of climate disasters—is not in question. If we don’t make 1 happen, the other will. Prissssss apparently prefers destruction. I prefer sustainability.
Everything Prisssssssssss has said is false—either a lie, a delusion…or, wait. Those are the only choices. Everything Prisssssss has said is false. If anyone questions that I’m happy to provide credible sources for everything I’ve said.
Have you forgotten, that you are able to see this post, and type message here ONLY because of fossil fuels?
Yet you scream: "nihilistic narcissistic psychotic psychopathic fossil fueled far right" .... perhaps you need to get some psychotherapy mate, to deal with your screaming hatred?
"I’m happy to provide credible sources for everything I’ve said" OK where's your sources for this...
"The math of exponential growth—of both renewables and other solutions, and of climate disasters—is not in question."
... given we live on a finite planet?
I question your assertions, give us reference and calculations please. Thank you.
I couldn't agree more. Being a billionaire doesn't make you an expert in anything other than working Capitalism regardless the negative consequences. I wish he'd just have kept this mouth shut given the insane denialist greed and grift driven regime currently at the helm of this country. Just totally reckless and irresponsible. Our economic system is broken and brutal as I'll talk about in my next post. This was just such a disappointing kick from a guy who has made so much money off of us and our planet.
Bill, you mention U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s statement “Warmer temperatures could expose as many as one billion people to deadly infectious diseases such as Zika, dengue, and chikungunya.”
Reading “one billion people” (1/8 of humanity!) being exposed to Zika, dengue, and chikungunya triggered a recollection of David Spratt explaining that 2 billion desperate refugees (1/4 of humanity) are expected to flee an overheated swath of real estate across Australia, Indonesia, India, Middle East, Northern Africa over to parts of S. & N. America during the next 20 years fleeing insufferable heat, drought, famine, etc. caused by reaching and passing unlivable 2.7°C projected in 2050-2060.
Watch two minutes beginning at time stamp 18:25 of Spratt’s presentation
(https://youtu.be/PH4d6zr2CTI?t=1125s)
The first of a few slides you’ll see shows a map of the globe with unlivable areas colored red, and two quoted texts:
“Those parts of the world that will exhibit levels of heat beyond that ever experienced in human history (with a mean annual temperature > 29°C) resulting in "near-unlivable conditions", currently found on only 0.8% of the planet's surface, mostly in the Sahara.”
… and …
“Half a degree further rise in global warming will triple area of Earth too hot for humans
King's College London, February 4, 2025
New assessment warns area the size of the USA will become too hot during extreme heat events for even healthy young humans to maintain a safe body temperature if we hit 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. For those aged over 60, the same 2 degree rise would see more than a third of the planet's land mass cross this critical "overheating' threshold.”
🤔 We’ve got no Planet B, and -10% CO2 emissions reduction—according to the UNFCCC's 2025 Synthesis Report analyzing 64 countries' updated climate commitments, emissions could decline by approximately 10% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels—if that is a plausible trajectory, we may likely fly by 2°C heading toward 3°-4°C with the near term (2050-2060) milestone of lethal 2.7°C.
Think about that. That expectation will be preceded by a two-decade ramping up of global mass migration and concomitant social chaos from 2 billion desperate people fleeing insufferable heat. When those refugees arrive in cooler countries (2030s–2040s) ahead of the 2.7°C milestone, what is Plan B? “Waiting for Net Zero” without cooling measures is no Plan B.
🌍🌏🌎😎 COOL IT!
Bill gates has no credibility on climate. Billionaires don't deserve more attention than anyone else, they just buy it. Solar and wind, but mainly solar, are wonderful, and worth widespread distribution. Solar will not solve the world's problems, only the carbon one. Granted carbon emissions are the world's most serious problem, but far from the only one. And we cannot get abundant energy for everyone for a simple reason, we have other limiting factors. These include copper, a host of other minerals, and that natural resources needed for all the stuff we want to run on electricity. There are limits, and we are crossing them. All energy should be derived from solar (and other than nuclear it is) but energy alone cannot free us from the limits of the planet. We have to acknowledge that. Yes, tax the rich heavily, especially billionaires. Power everything with solar derived electricity, and live more with a whole lot less (if you are American) and maybe a bit more if you are from Mozambique.
“If I can answer this very specific question about mineral shortage — it’s an absolutely bogus problem.” Kingsmill Bond, energy strategist at Ember.
“A Fossil Fuel Economy Requires 535x More Mining Than a Clean Energy Economy” Michael Thomas, Distilled, March 29, 2023 https://www.distilled.earth/p/a-fossil-fuel-economy-requires-535x
“New Video: Clean Energy = Less Mining” This Is Not Cool, September 15, 2022 https://climatecrocks.com/2022/09/15/new-video-clean-energy-less-mining/
"Mining quantities for low-carbon energy is hundreds to thousands of times lower than mining for fossil fuels” Hannah Ritchie, Jan. 18, 2023 https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/mining-low-carbon-vs-fossil
“Low-carbon tech needs much fewer materials than it used to; this matters for resource extraction in the future” Hannah Ritchie Nov. 11, 2024
“By 2042, Chinese Battery Maker Will No Longer Need Mining as Recycling Takes Over” This Is Not Cool, May 22, 2024 … CEO of CATL, the world's largest battery company…says they're becoming so good at recycling… (already recycling 99.6% of Nickel and Cobalt)
“Solar Much More Efficient Use of Land vs Ethanol” This Is Not Cool, January 22, 2022 https://thinc.blog/2022/01/22/solar-much-more-efficient-use-of-land-vs-ethanol/ Josh Pierce video, 1 min. PV-powered EVs get 70-100 times more vehicle miles per acre than corn ethanol, without the ecological damage.
“Will We Run Out of Critical Minerals for the Energy Transition?” This Is Not Cool, November 17, 2022
1 ship carrying solar panels carries the same amount of energy as 100 coal ships or 50 gas tankers. [So switching to 100% renewable energy will reduce the 40% of global shipping that is just carrying fossil fuels around by up to 99%. (Along with similar shares of rail and trucking) Since the cause of most whale deaths is ship strikes and fishing net entanglements, switching to 100% renewable energy and not eating fish will thus vastly reduce whale deaths “Renewable Energy Domination” video, 13:21
I don't disagree with these perspectives on minerals in the short term. Unfortunately the second law of thermodynamics still holds. Eventually we will run out, it will just take a lot longer if we learn to live with less. I am not sure we can convert our economy to electric as fast as we can lower consumption of manufactured goods, so I would like to see us emphasize both.
Absolutely. Among the necessary solutions to the climate and larger ecological crisis are renewable electricity and direct use (clothesline paradox energy), organic permaculture, public transit including high speed rail, EVs, heat pumps, electric arc furnaces, etc. but also radical economic and political equality both within and between countries, and healing the Wetiko disease that causes all our problems.
The last 2 are bound together, and should dramatically reduce exploitation of both people and the rest of nature. The last is likely to be the work of centuries.
"Seeing Wetiko: on Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition” Alnoor Ladha, Martin Kirk. https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/seeing-wetiko-on-capitalism-mind-viruses-and-antidotes-for-a-world-in-transition/
Paul Levy on Wetiko Part 1 (Of 3) “Wetiko: The Greatest Epidemic Known to Humanity http://realitysandwich.com/75652/greatest_epidemic/
Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil, by Paul Levy
"Don't Look Up" really was a documentary, wasn't it?
I agree with you on this one. We should listen less to Bill G. and people like him. Unfortunately, media outlets and our consumption of them have slowly evolved so that we no longer go to them to be informed, but to be entertained. It's about social media exposure, rather than about saying what matters. And it's about weaving a certain fiction that incorporates elements from real life to maximize clicks and the corresponding "outrage", which unfortunately is all bark and no bite.
I think people who care about nature should start doing something beyond the conciliatory approach. Because if we stick to that, then all that will happen is a few new gigawatts of solar power in the electricity grid that will just be eaten up by the trillion dollar datacenters that tech companies build to power AI. Not an acceptable and useful approach in my opinion.
The real question is: why DO people listen to the bigwigs like Bill Gates? It's because the opposition (environmentalists) are conciliatory and don't really stand up for serious action to protect the environment. So, the average person sees mainstream environmentalism as rather weak, akin to the kid at school who keeps giving their lunch money to the bully because they're too afraid to push back and fight. That's the same reason why poeple like Trump get elected.
I don't mean to be blunt about this, nor am I trying to blame anyone, because the SYSTEM gives us very few options when it comes to really standing up to it. I truly believe you (and other environentalists) are trying their best within the system, and that's laudable. But I also think we need to find a new way that actually involves pushing back, rather than begging for scraps.
Wow - totally disappointing yet not totally surprising. His kowtowing to the orange blob recently to state dinners along with the other billionaire sycophants proves his basic moral and ethical values are weak - remember his poor judgement Epstein phase which destroyed his long marriage to a respectable, intelligent women? - and he now wants to be part of the 200+ billionaire club. 120 billion net worth is not enough for him to feel like a real man as these extreme materialists measure their worth via money and the greedy mass accumulation of it regardless of the costs to their souls or the planet itself. Horrible and yet typical of the modern superficial plastic material ethos of the new Gilded Age 2.0 21st century where he/she with most toys wins in the end - then what? According to Matthew in the New Testament and most major religions - it's not a good afterlife scenario for the greedy rich. But these greed diseased men (and women) don't believe in God, a soul or an afterlife, which is why they no common sense decency or care about the long term percussion of their toxic blind greed endeavors which include loading landfills with toxic materials (gadgets) and fossil fuel extraction/sue causing global warming etc. So f'ing fed up with Billionaires and the rigged Wall Street Casino system that props up their monopolies with fake perverted wealth! Eat the Rich and redistribute the wealth by force if necessary! RESIST!