In 2021, Random House published a book by software tycoon Bill Gates titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. The message was clear: The world is heading toward a climate catastrophe if humans keep using fossil fuels. Everyone in the world had been hearing that message loud and clear for the previous two decades, and Gates, who’s been moonlighting as a climate expert for just as long, was not only one of the loudest voices to broadcast it, but someone who had put piles of money where his mouth was.
But something very interesting happened this week. Sure, he still believes man-made climate change exists. And sure, the world hasn’t reached its emissions goals. But there’s no disaster on the horizon. “Climate change is not the biggest threat to the lives and livelihoods of people in poor countries, and it won’t be in the future,” Gates announced this week on his personal blog, GatesNotes.
To show that he’s serious, reports say, he’s not even attending the United Nations’ annual COP30 (Conference of the Parties) climate freakout summit next month in Brazil. But he did offer advice to the people going. He suggested they do something more useful with their money and influence. Perhaps they should focus on “improving lives.” He said, “Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries.” There’s a limited amount of resources to go around, and spending so much on climate change is “diverting money and attention from efforts that will have more impact on the human condition,” he added. The essence of his argument is this:
We should measure success by our impact on human welfare more than our impact on the global temperature, and that our success relies on putting energy, health, and agriculture at the center of our strategies.
Authentic Concern for Poor Countries?
It’s this newfound conviction (at least publicly) for rational do-goodness that Gates cites as the major reason for his surprising pivot. “We should deal with disease and extreme weather in proportion to the suffering they cause, and should go after the underlying conditions that leave people vulnerable to them,” he says. “While we need to limit the number of extremely hot and cold days, we also need to make sure that fewer people live in poverty and poor health so that extreme weather isn’t such a threat to them.”
As climate alarmism has become inescapable over the last decade, many critics, from Bjorn Lomborg to Jordan Peterson, have pointed out the absurdity of forcing people in poor countries to go green. And now Gates seems to agree. He’s not suggesting that countries should start drilling all over the place, but he is acknowledging that the modern environmental agenda, at least with its focus on wind and solar, doesn’t do normal people any good.
It’s a stunning reversal that prompts the obvious question: What is Bill Gates really up to?
Or Abandoning a Sinking Ship?
Could it be that, like any calculated opportunist, he realizes it’s no longer beneficial to keep associating with and throwing money into a propaganda campaign that has been exposed and widely rejected? A few weeks ago, the leader of the most powerful country in the world skewered the “climate con” seven ways from Sunday with the entire world watching. In pre-election polls, climate change has consistently ranked at the bottom of the list of concerns that normal people have, despite Greta Thunberg’s incessant shaming and mainstream media’s persistent climate screeching campaigns. And anyone who’s ever taken inventory of social media responses to alarmist articles or other climate-change propaganda has likely noticed that most people aren’t buying it. A majority of responses ridicule and reject the entire premise.
The climate hoax jig is up, and maybe Gates doesn’t want to be the last man on the island who still doesn’t know he’s lost the war.
Or a New Grift?
Or maybe what’s happening is that Gates is diverting efforts and money to a more promising grift of control, one that requires a lot more energy, so much more energy that his own company now emits 23 percent more emissions than it did five years ago. In 2020, Microsoft vowed to be carbon negative by 2030. But since then, Gates’ company has only increased its emissions output. Like every other tech company in the world, Microsoft is really high on AI. And AI needs energy — lots of it. This, of course, adds another layer to Gate’s hypocrisy.
In fact, in his blog, Gates lauds AI as a major vehicle for doing the real good he now says the elites should be doing around the world. “Artificial intelligence has already begun to help do that,” he says. He elaborates:
Today, for example, AI-powered devices make it possible for health workers to provide ultrasound exams for pregnant women in low-income settings — a breakthrough that means many more women will get the treatment they need to survive childbirth and deliver a healthy baby. AI is also helping researchers develop new vaccines and treatments faster, adding to the long list of affordable lifesaving tools that are already available, including vaccines, biofortified foods, bed nets, and treatments for diseases like AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
Better health, he reasons, results in higher agricultural output. It also leads to higher child-survival rates, which, “unexpectedly,” results in people having smaller families (Gates has always been bothered by there being so many people on this planet). And fewer people emit less carbon.
Or Enough Progress Already Made?
Gates also justifies his reversal with the progress that’s already been made. Even though the world won’t meet the climate goals the elites set at the Paris COP in 2015, we’re doing better, he said. Emissions have dropped 40 percent over the last 10 years. He acknowledged that the alarmists never talk about this, but he doesn’t say why.
Gates also expressed optimism that we will soon produce clean energy that actually works, alternatives that are “as cheap and practical as their fossil fuel counterparts.” He acknowledged that the “public is more likely to switch to clean technology when it’s cheaper and better than fossil fuels.” And he admitted that wind and solar on a mass scale are worthless. “Although wind and solar have gotten cheaper and better, we don’t yet have all the tools we need to meet the growing demand for energy without increasing carbon emissions,” he said. He envisions a future that includes “new nuclear fission and fusion facilities. Fusion, he adds, “has moved from science fiction to near-commercial.”
This too is tied to a point climate-alarmism’s critics have made. Why cover the beautiful American landscape in ugly and inefficient solar panels and wind turbines when we can generate loads of cheap, reliable energy by way of nuclear power? Why not embrace nuclear? As a colleague once remarked, maybe it’s “because it works.”
Not About Saving the Planet
As TNA and The John Birch Society have maintained for more than 30 years, the climate agenda was never about saving the planet. That has always been a ruse the international elites used to scare us into giving up control of every aspect of our lives in exchange for keeping the planet from blowing up. They’ve been trying to convince us to give up our choice of where we live, what we drive, what we eat, and how warm or cool we keep our homes. TNA published several reports throughout the 90s warning that the climate agenda would eventually lead to the level of hysteria and policy influence we’ve seen over the last few years.
For those who never took Gates seriously and don’t live in a state run by people who bought into the climate nonsense, his turnaround doesn’t matter much. Most Americans still drive cars with internal combustion engines, warm our homes in the winter and cool them in the summer without disruption, and only see wind turbines and solar panels on road trips.
But we’re nevertheless glad to see Gates admit there is no impending climate crisis. Whatever his genuine reason for doing this, the entire world benefits when there’s one less billionaire elitist spewing nonsense that shapes energy policies all over the Western world. Hopefully, this is the first of many dominoes to fall.
Now we wait for him to admit that sunshine, flatulating cows, organically grown food, and unvaccinated people are also no longer a threat. But we won’t hold our breath.
