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| The influential billionaire Bill Gates has done some rethinking on how to fund the battle against climate change. That has climate activists nervous and has the Trump people falsely crowing they've "won" the battle against the climate change "hoax." |
They also worried - correctly - that the Trump and MAGA crowd would twist Gate's words and declare some sort of "victory" over climate change activism.
Gates' statements weren't radical, and unlike people of a certain political persuasion, he certainly has a firm grasp on facts.
But Gates' latest thoughts could upend where and how much money is spent combating climate change, and the crises that are caused in part, but not entirely on climate change.
Basically, Gates is saying that climate change is important, but in the near future, you'll get more bang for your buck if you pour money into global poverty relief than climate change.
He put his thoughts into an essay he released Tuesday.
"Although climate change will have serious consequences - particularly for people in the poorest countries - it will not lead to humanity's demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future. Emissions projections have gone down, and with the right policies and investments, innovation will allow us to drive emissions down much further.
"Unfortunately, the doomsday outlook is causing much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals, and it's diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world."
In short, Gates stated what he said was this truth: "Climate change is a serious problem, but it will not be the end of civilization."
He said near-term resources should prioritize erasing poverty and disease, and improving the overall wellbeing of humankind. Climate change needs attention, he says, but there are bigger fish to fry, figuratively speaking.
The bottom line, Gates said, is, "How do we make sure aid spending is delivering the greatest possible impact for the most vulnerable people?"
What's really needed, Gates says, is to increase the wealth of nations to make their people healthier and safer. True, when nations get wealthier, their energy use, and thus carbon emissions go up. But Gates believes we can innovate our way out of spewing these greenhouse substances into the atmosphere.
However, many climate scientists, like Kristie Eli of the University of Washington, told the Associated Press that faster deployment of green technologies alone is not enough to overcome the rising effects of climate change.
Others said Gates raises good points, but he's framing the question of climate change incorrectly.
Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said on Bluesky:
"If you take the time to read the whole Gates memo (which I did), the bulk of the content was mostly solid and encouraging. Really!
It was the FRAME that was off -- very, very THAT'S the problem."
"Climate change is not a separate bucket" Hayhoe told Axios. "The reason we care about climate change is that it's the hole in every bucket."
What she's saying is climate change represents a threat that makes all those other problems worse, or creates them when they weren't there originally.
Other climate experts, like Bill McKibben, note that climate change is already costing a LOT of money and is impoverishing people throughout the world. So if you really want to fight poverty, you have to go full bore on climate change, along with all the other forms of aid out there.
Another worry is that Gates, who has such influence as one of the world's wealthiest men, might shift too many resources away from climate change. Worse, it might encourage people with an agenda to misconstrue Gates' opinion piece into a call to ignore climate change.
At the same time, Gates; thoughts on climate change and other philanthropic needs might be a victim of changed political realities caused by the very people who deny climate change.
Like the Trump administration.
Trump predictably mischaracterized Gates' statements right away.
"I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax.... Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, ,and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!," Trump blathered on his social media site Truth Social.
Never mind he didn't win anything, that Gates never made any admission he's wrong, and the billionaire founder of Microsoft doesn't suddenly think climate change is a hoax.
It also appears that Gates is reacting to the Trump administrations horrifically deep foreign aid cuts, which is making the crises of poverty and death and conflict worse. So, other groups need to step in, Gates indicated.
In the absence of the U.S., foreign aid, help from organizations to combat poverty, hunger and disease is greater than ever.
Critics Gates's essay say such funding is important, but so is money for climate change efforts. Again, it's a matter of not one or the other, but both.
"Both are utterly feasible, and readily so, if the Big Oil lobby is brought under control," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.
Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field also has a dual priority approach. "We should invest for both the long term and the short term....A vibrant long-term future depends on both tackling climate change and supporting human development," he said in an email response to the Associated Press.
Money isn't unlimited. But Gates at least is the only big billionaire I'm aware of who is giving large portions of his wealth to help others. I'm not seeing the likes of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg doing the same thing.
Maybe Gates isn't quite right in his analysis of climate change funding. And his essay didn't do any favors for those in the trenches trying to combat climate change and encourage others to do so.
Gates is no hero in my book, but the fact that he's doing something positive is more than I can so for most of the ultra rich.
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