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TheProle

(3,940 posts)
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 03:52 PM Oct 2025

Bill Gates Says Climate Change 'Will Not Lead to Humanity's Demise'

Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who has spent billions of his own money to raise the alarm about the dangers of climate change, is now pushing back against what he calls a “doomsday outlook” and appears to have shifted his stance on the risks posed by a warming planet.

In a lengthy memo released Tuesday, Mr. Gates sought to tamp down the alarmism he said many people use to describe the effects of rising temperatures. Instead, he called for redirecting efforts toward improving lives in the developing world.

“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” he wrote. “People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”

Coming just four years after he published a book titled “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” Tuesday’s memo appears to amount to a major reframing of how Mr. Gates, who is worth an estimated $122 billion, is thinking about the challenges posed by a rapidly warming world.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/climate/bill-gates-climate-change-humanity.html?unlocked_article_code=1.w08.otzW.hDLZWjtDtQNF&smid=url-share
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Bill Gates Says Climate Change 'Will Not Lead to Humanity's Demise' (Original Post) TheProle Oct 2025 OP
TPTB got to him sounds like durablend Oct 2025 #1
Maybe Not BlueKota Oct 2025 #2
He wants more data centers for AI, no matter the environmental harm. highplainsdem Oct 2025 #3
with his hundred billion he should be okay rurallib Oct 2025 #4
We support the billionaires, they do not support us. hunter Oct 2025 #13
The rich fat cats will survive. Irish_Dem Oct 2025 #5
Exactly snot Oct 2025 #25
I don't really care what Bill Gates thinks Bluestocking Oct 2025 #6
BINGO!! InAbLuEsTaTe Oct 2025 #27
Is Bill Gates a scientist? spanone Oct 2025 #7
Easy for him to say La Coliniere Oct 2025 #8
Humanity will muddle through. maxsolomon Oct 2025 #9
What does he know? bucolic_frolic Oct 2025 #10
At least not until people find a use for memory above 640K. nt Gore1FL Oct 2025 #11
Billionaires will though. travelingthrulife Oct 2025 #12
Well, i guess we're gonna find out 0rganism Oct 2025 #14
Position yourself in the best spot under the banquet table you can afford. CrispyQ Oct 2025 #30
Remember this canetoad Oct 2025 #15
LOL OC375 Oct 2025 #16
When He Shows Me Documentation... ProfessorGAC Oct 2025 #17
He's in the files PuraVidaDreamin Oct 2025 #18
4 more houses on the Outer Banks collapsed into the ocean Marthe48 Oct 2025 #19
Hot take, but he's not really wrong sir pball Oct 2025 #20
I agree Kaleva Oct 2025 #22
Rapid climate change is a Hallmark of extinction Johonny Oct 2025 #21
It will lead to CIVILIZATION'S demise NickB79 Oct 2025 #23
When he gets his advanced degree in climatology, biology or ecology I'll care what he says. hatrack Oct 2025 #24
Billionaires always have options that the rest of us DON'T have FakeNoose Oct 2025 #26
Well yeah, it's not going to kill off the species. BlueTsunami2018 Oct 2025 #28
Why should we accept any suffering from climate change? We have the tech and tools to mitigate it, just not the will. Midnight Writer Oct 2025 #29

hunter

(40,476 posts)
13. We support the billionaires, they do not support us.
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 04:40 PM
Oct 2025

His hundred billion means nothing without the rest of us.

La Coliniere

(1,818 posts)
8. Easy for him to say
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 04:17 PM
Oct 2025

when he and his oligarch buddies will have comfortable Xanadus to retreat to. The rest of us will have to do the best we can.

maxsolomon

(38,393 posts)
9. Humanity will muddle through.
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 04:26 PM
Oct 2025

The equatorial regions will become uninhabitable, though. It's already happening.

Think mass migration, 100x more that what's already turned the US and Europe towards Isolationist Nationalism.

bucolic_frolic

(54,490 posts)
10. What does he know?
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 04:31 PM
Oct 2025

People will be clawing to find a cool spot and high ground, money won't guarantee anything to food won't be passed up the oligarch scale. It will be a leveling event.

0rganism

(25,527 posts)
14. Well, i guess we're gonna find out
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 04:46 PM
Oct 2025

It's much too late for prevention, time to talk about mitigation. Of course the wealthy will mostly thrive in the chaos, that's what "wealthy" implies, after all. They'll also need a larger population from which to recruit retainers and servants, so that's the ticket for the not-so-rich. Looking like feudalism making a comeback.

CrispyQ

(40,806 posts)
30. Position yourself in the best spot under the banquet table you can afford.
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 07:54 PM
Oct 2025

Better & more crumbs. And the best spots are generally blue cities/areas. Of course he's out to destroy them, but red areas won't be immune. It's so depressing.

ProfessorGAC

(76,132 posts)
17. When He Shows Me Documentation...
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 04:59 PM
Oct 2025

...of his PhD in physics or photochemistry I'll listen.
Until then, he's just an out if touch rich guy who isn't as clever as he thinks he is.

sir pball

(5,291 posts)
20. Hot take, but he's not really wrong
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 05:55 PM
Oct 2025

H. sapiens is one of the most adaptable animals on Earth; there will be huge upheavals, massive migration, serious geopolitical stuff (resource wars, power shifts)…but he's right that we ain't going extinct.

NickB79

(20,278 posts)
23. It will lead to CIVILIZATION'S demise
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 06:37 PM
Oct 2025

Humanity is like cockroaches, we can survive almost anything since we're now a global species. We could probably even survive a global nuclear war as a species.

But a global, technogically advanced civilization doesn't stand much of a chance against a 3+C temp spike in the next century.

hatrack

(64,500 posts)
24. When he gets his advanced degree in climatology, biology or ecology I'll care what he says.
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 06:45 PM
Oct 2025

Until such time, he's just another rich blowhard peddling hopium.

He's a slightly more intelligent version of Jeff Bezos blathering about millions of people living in space within 20 years, and robots visiting the moon.

It's like the whole lot of them are writing for "Boy's Life" circa 1962: "While Mr. Davis will orbit Earth for his vacation, Janet and the kids are spending part of their summer in Atlantea, America's domed city under the ocean!"

BlueTsunami2018

(4,914 posts)
28. Well yeah, it's not going to kill off the species.
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 07:15 PM
Oct 2025

But it is going to kill a whole lot of people. I suppose the “undesirables.”

Midnight Writer

(25,206 posts)
29. Why should we accept any suffering from climate change? We have the tech and tools to mitigate it, just not the will.
Tue Oct 28, 2025, 07:41 PM
Oct 2025

The only reason we have a climate change problem is the greed and selfishness of a relatively few rich assholes that would rather see the planet burn than to give up the chance to make a few billion more.

There is an old saw that goes "I have something billionaires will never have. Enough."

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