Bill McKibben's Review Is Why I Won't Buy Bill Gates' New Book
And why, if Gates is serious about climate, he should write another book only after he rethinks the politics of inertia and his own.Bill McKibben is the author, most recently, of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? and writes the Climate Crisis newsletter for The New Yorker.
HOW TO AVOID A CLIMATE DISASTER
The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
By Bill Gates
Hes absolutely right that we should be investing in research across a wide list of technologies because we may need them down the line to help scrub the last increments of fossil fuel from the system, but the key work will be done (or not) over the next decade, and it will be done by sun and wind...
politics ... is where Gates really wears blinders. I think more like an engineer than a political scientist, he says proudly but that means he can write an entire book about the climate disaster without discussing the role that the fossil fuel industry played, and continues to play, in preventing action.
We now know from great investigative reporting that the oil companies knew everything about climate change back in the 1980s, and that they systematically built an edifice of disinformation and denial to keep us in the dark. Thats why weve wasted almost three decades of scientific warning. I dont have a solution to the politics of climate change, Gates writes, but in fact he does: He founded, and his foundation is a shareholder in, a company that has donated money to exactly the politicians who are in the pocket of big oil. A Bloomberg analysis last fall found that Microsoft had given only a third of its contributions to climate-friendly politicians...
Microsoft had joined 42 other corporations in a letter to President-elect Biden calling on him to enact ambitious climate policies and then donated to David Perdue for his Georgia Senate runoff (other signatories to the letter also gave to Kelly Loeffler). Had they won and the G.O.P. retained control of the Senate, the chances for those ambitious climate policies would have been nil....
Gates mentions in passing at one point that he chose to divest his fortune from fossil fuel companies, but only because I dont want to profit if their stock prices go up because we dont develop zero-carbon alternatives. He scoffed at the idea that activists (who otherwise go mostly unmentioned in this book) thought that divesting alone would transform the worlds energy system. But of course those activists, myself included, thought no such thing. They understood that weakening the fossil fuel industry was simply one key part of the job of rapid decarbonization, just like engineering. That is, the activists were thinking multidimensionally, which Gates is so far not.
Maybe thats a weakness that comes with wealth; its obviously easy enough to slag Gates for flying in a private jet (and his publisher must have winced a little when he chose the winter of his book launch to join a bidding war for ownership of the worlds largest private jet servicing company). But I think thats missing the point: The exhaust plume from his airplane wont make or break the planets temperature, but given his resources and political reach, the quality of his analysis just might.
Power comes in many forms, from geothermal and nuclear to congressional and economic; its wonderful that Gates has decided to work hard on climate questions, but to be truly helpful he needs to resolve to be a better geek he needs to really get down on his hands and knees and examine how that power works in all its messiness. Politics very much included.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/books/review/bill-gates-how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster.html
leftieNanner
(15,190 posts)When compared to Rachel Maddow's book Blowout.
She gives you a complete look at the fossil fuel industry, including the politics. And it's damning.
Worth a read.
ancianita
(36,207 posts)Last edited Sun Mar 7, 2021, 09:38 PM - Edit history (1)
Thank you for the recommendation. I'm buying it.
Re the above, I've read McKibben for years. He is the real deal who's forgotten more about Climate than Gates has learned. Regardless of McKibben's review, Gates' book will probably remain at #1 on the NYT best seller list.
paleotn
(17,997 posts)The only solutions to climate change are by their nature political. No other way around it. Either those who get it, all of them, either get political or we're all wasting our time.
ancianita
(36,207 posts)The decision that Big Fossil made over 30 years ago was political. And though Exxon's been removed from the NYSE and many are disinvesting from Big Fossil, it has caused the short time we now have to meet Paris Accord goals, and human inertia and political ignorance will be our undoing if we Democrats don't stay in control past 2024.
progree
(10,930 posts)Response to ancianita (Original post)
progree This message was self-deleted by its author.
ancianita
(36,207 posts)Those statements are, however, just his/her opinion.
It's a bit weird that you, not being NNadir, would present his/her opinions on McKibben this way, and in this context. What would be your point in doing that.