Bill Gates Gets Waffly On Climate Change; Activists Get Nervous

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."

Bill Gates caused a stir this past week with his latest hot take on climate change. Climate scientists were not impressed. And they worried the influential Gates would help gut efforts to combat the issue.  

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. 

 Gates wrote:

"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.  

Among Jane Goodall's Many Lasting Legacies Is Advocacy For A Sustainable Earth, Climate Change Solutions

Practicing what she preached: During Jane
Goodall's September visit to New York City
for Climate Week, she got around town
on an environmentally friendly 
Pedicab.  Goodall passed away
Wednesday at age 91. 

As you've almost surely heard already, the world lost a Great One Wednesday. Jane Goodall, the famous  primatologist, anthropologist, conservationist, media figure and one of the best women to ever grace this Earth, passed away at the age of 91.  

A big part of Goodall's advocacy was creating and keeping a sustainable planet for all creatures. Climate change might have seemed tangental to Goodall's mission, but it was a critical part of it.   

For Goodall, it wasn't just about keep the world safe and clean and stable for chimpanzees. She had all animals - including us humans - in her heart. 

In a 2019 ABC interview, she said climate change has left the planet imperiled. "We are definitely at a point where we need to make something happen... We are imperiled. We have a window of time. I'm fairly sure we do. But, we've got to take action," she said. 

Her advocacy lasted until the very end. Goodall was on a speaking tour in California this week and died of natural causes. Retirement had never really crossed her mind. 

Just recently, on September 21-28, she attended New York Climate Week  during which she gave interviews to publications like Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg regarding the natural world and our need to preserve it. 

She has acknowledged that people have come to her "depressed" 'about climate change and other environmental dangers. But she responded with a message of courage.

On her Facebook page from Climate Week, Goodall said the climate crisis is the greatest challenge of our time, but change is still possible if we act with courage and hope.  

Alway finding ways to be a good example, Goodall got around New York City when visiting there by hiring Pedicabs, which are carriages powered by drivers propelling the vehicles via bicycle. 

Vox highlighted recent interviews in which Goodall gave a plug for literally saving Earth from excessive technology, the worst excesses of business interests and - of course - climate change. 

According to Vox:  

"'It seems these days everybody is so involved with technology that we forgot that we're not only part of the natural world, we're an animal like all the others,' Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, a conservation group, said last week during the Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit in NYC. 'We're an animal like all the others. But we depend on it for clean air, water, food, clothing -everything.'

And yet - 'We're destroying the planet,' she said.

Vox noted that as recently as last week, she said we know what's killing the planet: Industrial agriculture, including livestock and burning fossil fuels. 

People magazine noted that Goodall acknowledged that caring for humans and the environment is "a tough problem" as she put it. But she believed solutions were out there.

"We've got to get together," she said. "And scientists are beginning now to really work out the technology that can help us live in greater harmony with the natural world....But it's a problem that should be at the heart of everything. It should be at the heart of politics, and it should be at the heart of business."

At her core, Goodall was an optimist, a rarity in our fraught world nowadays. I suspect she saw how animals often ingeniously figure things out. She had confidence that the creatures known as humans could do the same if we could just learn to understand that advancement isn't necessarily just bulldozing through everything. 

Goodall taught me and I'm sure countless others to look at all animals with awe and wonder, and, ultimately, understanding. In large part because of Goodell, I frequently stop and watch the animals and birds I encounter as they live their lives.   

I observe how nothing goes to waste in the animal world, that everything has its purpose, there are important symbiotic relationships between species, and that we also need to take a moment to play, and find joy. (If you've ever seen a bear cub in action, you know what I'm talking about).  

Goodall was a joyful warrior on a quest to teach us (sometimes dumb) humans that we can find ways to live in a world that sustains us all. To the end, she had faith that we would somehow find a way to make it happen. Wrestling climate change to submission is a big part of that. 

Her thinking on this might seem naive and pollyann-ish. But Goodall was far, far too smart to indulge in optimistic fantasies. 

She spend a lifetime watching and researching and loving the animal kingdom and all the wonderful things they do.

If chimpanzees can do it, so can us humans.  Where others saw defeatism, Goodall saw possibility. Of all the incredible things Goodall did in her 91 years, her sense of hope is her greatest legacy.   

Vermont Governor Trying To Scale Back Climate Initiatives

Flooding in Richmond, Vermont, July, 2023. Climate driven
disasters are increasing costing Vermonters a lot of money.
Efforts to combat greenhouse emissions also cost 
money, leading to political tension in Montpelier. 

 Vermont Gov. Phil Scott is a Republican, but he's by no means a Trump Republican

In fact, the two men do not get along with each other, at least based on Scott's past comments about the current president. 

Trump hates any efforts to fight climate change, as he considers the science a hoax.

Scott thinks climate change is a real thing, so I guess he's certain hurdled that low bar. The Vermont governor also thinks we should act to combat climate change. But it appears he thinks we've gone to far with that project. At least for now. 

As WCAX reports: 

"Gov. Phil Scott wants Vermont lawmakers to change course on fighting climate change and proposes lawmakers roll back mandates to decarbonize. For the governor, it's all about affordability. What state lawmakers choose to do or not to do will have a direct effect on what Vermonters may pay for heating oil, electric rates and more.

Environmental advocates are sounding the alarm over what they see as the state walking back on a commitment to the climate and the future."

"We say no to these rollbacks because it is a moral imperative,' said Laura Zakaras of Third Act Vermont."

Scott has long opposed some if not all the climate initiatives passed in recent years by the Vermont legislature. Democrats had a super majority, which meant anything they passed was veto-proof. So the Democrats in recent years passed a flurry of anti-climate change legislation. 

In November, Republicans made gains in the legislature, so now Scott has more power to oppose Democrats. And try to roll back some of the more ambitious climate initiatives now enshrined intoVermont law. 

It's not that Scott doesn't want to combat climate change. He does. He's seen first hand how climate-worsened disasters have made life harder for Vermonters in recent years. His tack is to develop a plan of his own to deal with climate change. 

Per VTDigger:

"'We agree on the need to reduce emissions,' Scott said when announcing the proposal at a January 30 press conference. 'But we need to be realistic about what we can do and make sure we're on a timely that makes sense, and doesn't harm Vermonters financially as a result."

One law is troublesome for both Scott, and the actual deadlines in the statute The Global Warming Solutions Act sets deadlines to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, 2030 and 2050. That Democratic legislature overrode Scott's veto of the bill in 2020.

This Global Warming Solutions Act requires a lot of self-discipline, accountability and creativity in Vermont for it to work and signs are we might not have enough oomph to comply with it. 

There's no plan in place that would satisfy the 2030 deadline, and that could get messy. Here's why, as VTDigger reports:

"A specific measure within the law, called a legal 'cause of action,' allows citizens to sue the Agency of Natural Resources if the state isn't on track to meet its deadlines. The Conservation Law Foundation has already filed a lawsuit challenging the Agency of Natural Resources' projection that it will meet the 2025 deadline."

A Republican sponsored bill would get rid of the part of this statute that allows those lawsuits if Vermont doesn't meet those emissions deadlines. 

This is all just another example of how hard it really is to reduce emissions and combat climate change. It's costly now, and people living pay check to pay check don't have the means to pay higher taxes, or inflationary costs on other goods, like fuel, if that's what the emissions rules.

Then again, if nobody contributes to cutting emissions, it's more costly for all of us down the road. Climate change is kind of a lose/lose in that regard.   

We don't know what will happen this legislative session, of course.  Fighting climate change is a hard enough fight in tiny little localities like Vermont. 

No consider doing this on a global scale

It's daunting. 

   

 

And there's the tension that always seems to come in these potential expensive ways to deal with climate change.

It's kind of pay now or pay later. with even well-meaning