Books

Bill Gates proffers better tech in 'How to Avoid a Climate Disaster'

In Bill Gates' new book, it's not so much thinking outside the box, but thinking of how to build a better box

Updated 2 years ago · Published on 03 Apr 2021 12:00PM

Bill Gates proffers better tech in 'How to Avoid a Climate Disaster'
Bill Gates is best known as the multi-billionaire founder of Microsoft. – Facebook pic, April 3, 2021

by Marc de Faoite

BEING an equatorial country, Malaysia experiences hot temperatures. Obviously. But just because it is hot doesn’t mean it isn’t getting hotter. 

In early March of this year, Think City, an agency that falls under the purview of Khazanah Nasional, published an eye-opening report showing the precipitous rise in temperatures over the past decades in urban areas in Malaysia. According to United Nations data, in 1960 Malaysia’s urban-dwellers represented less than 27% of the population. Fast-forward to today and that figure has almost tripled, at more than 76%.

The Think City report was timely, coming hot on the heels of soaring temperatures in late-February and early-March, with Yellow-Level heatwaves (35 to 37 degrees Celsius for three days in a row) recorded in almost a dozen areas in Peninsular Malaysia.

These are ‘dry-bulb’ temperatures. If they were ‘wet-bulb’ temperatures it would be catastrophic. Once the wet-bulb temperature rises above 35°C sweating can no longer keep body temperature at a safe level, leading to overheating that can result in death within hours. If Malaysia, or any other country, were to experience prolonged periods of temperatures like these, it would likely lead to death-tolls that would make the number of fatalities from Covid-19 seem paltry by comparison.

This might sound alarming, even alarmist, yet it is one of the scenarios Bill Gates describes in his new book ‘How To Avoid A Climate Disaster’ – unless drastic action is taken to lower the emission of greenhouse gases. 

Bill Gates is best known as the multi-billionaire founder of Microsoft and frequently listed in the top three richest people on the planet. Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he has long made philanthropy central to his concerns. Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, we were reminded that Gates had spoken publicly for more than a decade about the threat of just such a pandemic. People listened at the time, nodded their heads, then moved on, the threat duly noted but unheeded.

Whether this book will elicit similar reactions remains to be seen. But Gates is far from the only one ringing the climate bell, and unlike the threat of a pandemic, people are already witnessing and experiencing the effects of climate change, and need less convincing that ‘something’ needs to be done. 

What that ‘something’ might entail is the subject of this book. Gates makes it clear that there is no single action we can take that will be enough. Climate change is something that needs to be tackled from multiple directions and fast.

Capitalism and consumerism cause climate change. As a species, we have manufactured and bought ourselves into this problem. We haven’t done this equally though. The main culprit is a materialistic, so-called ‘western lifestyle’. If we all lived as simply as sub-Saharan farmers the consequences of our lifestyles might still be unsustainable in the long-term, but they would not be quite so potentially catastrophic. But who wants to willingly adopt the standard of living of a sub-Saharan farmer?

Basically, no one, claims Gates, nor should anyone have to. Not only should we refuse frugality or ascetism as a prerequisite to avoiding imminent climate disaster, we should all aspire to live a life of abundance, indulging in all, or almost all, of the excesses consumerism, allows.

In Gates’ world, the solution lies not in making do with less, but actively striving for more. It’s understandable how a billionaire might espouse such a counter-intuitive view, but the simple fact is that billionaires, Gates included, have carbon footprints thousands of times higher than an ordinary person, whether a sub-Saharan farmer or anyone else with even an ill-defined but reasonably decent standard of living.

The solutions Gates explores in this book are interesting. Many of them are likely necessary. But they are technical solutions to a societal problem. When you think like a hammer every problem looks like a nail. But to stretch the analogy, if you think like a claw-hammer you realise that you have options. You can either keep hammering, or you can turn around and rip the nail right out. But this is not Gates’ approach. Capitalism will save capitalism. Consumerism will save consumerism. We just need better tech.

Innovation, inventions, and technology are words that crop up repeatedly throughout this book. And in fairness Gates makes some very compelling arguments. He may be blinkered, but he is certainly not stupid. On top of that, he has access to some of the most qualified and smartest minds on the planet.

Where he perhaps intersects most with more conventional thought is in the chapter on agriculture, highlighting that the two leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture are situated on either end of the digestive systems of ruminant animals, mostly cattle. Fewer cheeseburgers is perhaps his most readily applicable advice.

Viewed through the prism of this book, Malaysia has a few opportunities. The dependence on electricity, particularly when it comes to the energy-hungry air-conditioning that will become increasingly necessary, not just for comfort but for survival on a hotter planet, will cease to be such liability if electricity can be produced by means other than fossil fuels. Coastlines can be planted with carbon-absorbing mangroves that will act as better defenses against rising tides than manufactured barriers.

That Gates’ approach squares difficultly with solutions involving using and needing less, makes it a book likely to be taken more seriously by business communities, decision-makers, and hedonists in general. One of the subtexts here is while there may be unavoidable suffering involved in climate change, facing its challenges can also mean huge sums of money for those willing to make smart investments.

Written by a self-confessed geek, there is no shortage of facts and figures. But this book is engagingly written, in a plain and easy-to-understand style. While this is most definitely not an ecologist’s or an environmentalist’s climate change book – which is not necessarily a bad thing, since there are already plenty of those – it is a very welcome addition to a much-needed conversation. – The Vibes, April 3, 2021

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