[Well, I finished this book in early April, and I have waited too long to write this review. In the meantime, Bill & Melinda Gates have announced they are divorcing after 27 years of marriage, possible driven by Bill's ties to sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein. Other tales of bizarre, entitled sexual practices by Bill are also circulating.Meanwhile, among others, our previous author Cory Doctorow has called out Bill for his priorization of intellectual property rights (aka maximizing corporate profits) in the handling of the COVID-19 vaccine: talking Oxford University out of giving their patents to the world for free and instead giving them to AstroZeneca; and heading the to-date toothless vaccine charity program COVAX.
Professionally, I have disliked Bill Gates and Microsoft going back to the 1980s. Microsoft's monopolistic practices (make it child's play to pirate Word and Excel until they have driven WordPerfect and VisiCalc out of business, then start harping on intellectual property) were rightly busted by the Feds. Then W took office and it all went away. The complete lack of security in MS-DOS and early Windows still plagues the computer industry today.
Oh well. On to the review. I suspect I will be making short shrift of it.]
The introduction is titled "51 Billion To Zero". 51 billion is "is how many tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year". That the 1st 2 words of the book represent a number tells us that Gates is going to take a quantitative approach to this topic.
Gates gives us the motto of his foundation: "Everyone deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life". This is a similar sentiment to the George Orwell quote which is my pinned tweet: "Either we all live in a decent world or no one does". So this is a good sentiment.
Gates also introduces us to Vaclav Smil, the Czech-born expert on ecology, particularly focusing on energy.
Chapter 1 is titled "Why Zero?". It lays some scientific groundwork.
Hotter air can hold more moisture, and as the air gets warmer, it gets thirstier, drinking up more water from the soil.Gates calls out the danger of heatstroke, recalling the horrifying scenario that opens KSR's "The Ministry For The Future":
In the regions that are most in jeopardy — the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and parts of China — there will be times of the year when hundreds of millions of people will be at risk of dying.
Chapter 2 is titled "This Will Be Hard". Right at the time then the developing world can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel in getting lifestyies somewhat like the developed West, we realize that the light is the headlight of the onrushing train of the climate crisis. Gates states that
The best books I have read on this topic are Vaclav Smil’s Energy Transitions and Energy Myths and Realities ...This is a pretty strong statement:
Unless we move fast toward zero, bad things (and probably many of them) will happen well within most people’s lifetime, and very bad things will happen within a generation. Even if climate change doesn’t rank as an existential threat to humanity, it will make most people worse off, and it will make the poorest even poorer.
Chapter 3 is titled "Five Questions To Ask In Every Climate Conversation". The 5 questions are Gates' "mental framework" for understanding the climate crisis. They are:
These are great numbers to have - the numbers are probably the book's greatest strength.
- How Much of the 51 Billion Tons Are We Talking About?
What’s Your Plan for Cement?
Who knew that cement (which holds concrete together) was such an environmental disaster?How Much Power Are We Talking About? Another great table.
How Much Space Do You Need?
And another great table.
How Much Is This Going to Cost?
Gates defines the term "Green Premium": how much more does the green, i.e. no CO2 emitted, solution to a problam cost than the current, presumably fossil fuel-based, solution.[I found myself at a disadvantage throughout these discussions - I think MMT has ruined me. Because once you start thinking in MMT patterns, the question "how much does it cost?" immediately triggers the MMT truism, "cost doesn't matter - only the availability of resources does". I'm going to try to put that aside for now and just address it at the end.]
Meanwhile, Gates puts the "Green Premium" concept to use:
Looking at all the different premiums, we can decide which zero-carbon solutions we should deploy now and where we should pursue breakthroughs because the clean alternatives aren’t cheap enough.
The next 5 chapters discuss in turn the 5 "things we do" listed in the 1st box above.
Given it's foundational nature, electricity generation ("How We Plug In") is discussed 1st. Clearly energy storage for renewables is 1 of the critical technologies that must be improved. Gates also is an advocate for (and investor in) nuclear power. I also believe that nuclear power should be vigorously developed.
It would surely be a lot easier to "avoid a climate disaster" if nuclear fusion power generation had been developed at any time in the last 70 years. This is a place where science and technology have let us down.
Gates provides many computations and estimates of the Green Premiums associated with activities and objects within these 5 domains.
Chapter 9 is titled "Adapting to a Warmer World". Gates raises an interesting point about the developing world - that helping them adapt to our warming world is more important than reducing their miniscule carbon footprint.
Please don’t take away vaccine money and put it into electric cars. Africa is responsible for only about 2 percent of all global emissions. What you really should be funding there is adaptation. The best way we can help the poor adapt to climate change is to make sure they’re healthy enough to survive it. And to thrive despite it.Gates introduces us to CGIAR. Per Wikipedia, "CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) is a global partnership that unites international organizations engaged in research about food security." Gates is apparently a leader of the Global Commission on Adaptation.
Chapter 10 is titled "Why Government Policies Matter". Gates begins by talking anecdotally about the creation of the EPA as an example of government addressing environmental issues. Other successful government projects:
- Electrification;
- Energy security - pursued after the Oil Embargo of the early 1970s;
- Economic recovery - as was done after the Great Recession of 2008.
- Mind the Investment Gap ...
- Level the Playing Field ...
- Overcome Nonmarket Barriers ...
- Stay Up to Date ...
- Plan for a Just Transition ...
- Do the Hard Stuff Too ...
- Work on Technology, Policy, and Markets at the Same Time
Chapter 11 is titled "A Plan For Getting To Zero". Gates divides the elements of "the my plan" into 2 categories:
- expanding the supply of innovations; ...
- accelerating the demand for innovations.
- Hydrogen produced without emitting carbon
- Grid-scale electricity storage that can last a full season
- Electrofuels
- Advanced biofuels
- Zero-carbon cement
- Zero-carbon steel
- Plant- and cell-based meat and dairy
- Zero-carbon fertilizer
- Next-generation nuclear fission
- Nuclear fusion
- Carbon capture (both direct air capture and point capture)
- Underground electricity transmission
- Zero-carbon plastics
- Geothermal plastics
- Pumped hydro
- Thermal storage
- Drought- and flood-tolerant food crops
- Zero-carbon alternatives to palm oil
- Coolants that don’t contain F-gases
- Quintuple clean energy and climate-related R&D over the next decade. ...
- Make bigger bets on high-risk, high-reward R&D projects. ...
- Match R&D with our greatest needs. ...
- Work with industry from the beginning.
The demand side is a little more complicated than the supply piece. It actually involves two steps: the proof phase, and the scale-up phase.This leads to the demand side list of goverment to-dos [I guess his editor didn't notice the lack of parallelism in these section headers]:...
The proof phase is a valley of death, a place where good ideas go to die.
...
Governments (as well as big companies) can help energy start-ups make it out of the valley alive because they’re massive consumers. If they prioritize buying green, they’ll help bring more products to market by creating certainty and reducing costs.
- Use procurement power. ...
- Create incentives that lower costs and reduce risk. ...
- Build the infrastructure that will get new technologies to market. ...
- Change the rules so new technologies can compete. ...
- Put a price on carbon. ...
- Clean electricity standards. ...
- Clean fuel standards. ...
- Clean product standards. ...
- Out with the old. ...
The federal government ... collects most tax revenue, which means that federal financial incentives will be the most effective at driving change.State and local governments also have their role to play, via state legislatures and agencies, and city councils and municipal agencies....
Two things are clear. First, the amount of money invested in getting to zero, and adapting to the damage that we know is coming, will need to ramp up dramatically and for the long haul. To me, this means that governments and multilateral banks will need to find much better ways to tap private capital. Their coffers aren’t big enough to do this on their own.
Second, the time frames for climate investment are long, and the risks are high. So the public sector should be using its financial strength to lengthen the investment horizon—reflecting the fact that returns may not come for many years—and reduce the risk of these investments. It’ll be tricky to mix public and private money on such a large scale, but it's essential. We need our best minds in finance working on this problem.
Chapter 12 is titled "What Each Of Us Can Do". Gates provides to-do lists for our different roles in society.
- As a Citizen ...
- Make calls, write letters, attend town halls. ...
- Look locally as well as nationally. ...
- Run for office. ...
- As a Consumer ...
- Sign up for a green pricing program with your electric utility. ...
- Reduce your home’s emissions. ...
- Buy an electric vehicle. ...
- Try a plant-based burger. ...
- As an Employee or Employer ...
- Set up an internal carbon tax. ...
- Prioritize innovation in low-carbon solutions. ...
- Be an early adopter. ...
- Engage in the policy-making process. ...
- Connect with government-funded research. ...
- Help early-stage innovators get across the valley of death. ...
I’m an optimist because I know what technology can accomplish and because I know what people can accomplish. I’m profoundly inspired by all the passion I see, especially among young people, for solving this problem. If we keep our eye on the big goal—getting to zero—and we make serious plans to achieve that goal, we can avoid a disaster. We can keep the climate bearable for everyone, help hundreds of millions of poor people make the most of their lives, and preserve the planet for generations to come.
This book is a quick read, and chock full of facts and figures. Thanks Bill! Kobo says it takes 5-6 hours to read, I strongly recommend that you do so. Meanwhile ...
At the start of Chapter 11, Gates states:
In energy, software, and just about every other pursuit, it’s a mistake to think of innovation only in the strict, technological sense. Innovation is not just a matter of inventing a new machine or some new process; it’s also coming up with new approaches to business models, supply chains, markets, and policies that will help new inventions come to life and reach a global scale. Innovation is both new devices and new ways of doing things.To me this totally begs the question: what about innovation in our basic society, our basic economy, our basic monetary system? Particularly on the issue of money, we saw in Chapter 11 Gates talked about playing fast and loose with $$$ moving between governments, banks, and private capital - "We need our best minds in finance working on this problem". But he still is worried about investment and ROI.
I guess it goes back to the title of Naomi Klein's 2014 book "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate". In Chapter 2 Gates admits that the climate crisis might represent "an existential threat to humanity", but then when it comes to addressing the threat, he takes pretty much a "business as usual" approach to the crisis.
Note, just to make sure we are all on the same page, "an existential threat to humanity" means that the human race could completely die out, could become extinct, could be totally wiped from existence.
What if "business as usual" is not enough? What if we need a "This Changes Everything" approach?
But of course Bill Gates is not going to go there. Why? Because he is 1 of the richest men in the world. So, by and large, he's really pretty OK with the status quo just as it is now. Capitalism, A-OK. Free markets everywhere, even when inappropriate, A-OK. And modern money theory (MMT), which says, money doesn't matter, only resources do?
LOL, probably the main purpose of money is to keep the rich people rich, and the ultra-rich even more so. So of course he's going to take a "business as usual" approach. [snark]He's in the finest 1st class suite on the Titanic, but he's still got to hold onto that privilege, and the power to abuse women and underlings that comes with it.[/snark]
I'll repeat a statement from Chapter 11:
To me, this means that governments and multilateral banks will need to find much better ways to tap private capital. Their coffers aren’t big enough to do this on their own.Government "coffers aren't big enough"??? MMT completely disagrees - any government with its own fiat currency has infinite coffers of money. Gates probably knows that, but, again, that's not something 1 of the world's richest men is going to admit to.
Part of the reason that this review wound up being so late was that I was ruminating on My Latest Mad Scheme, which will be revealed in my next post.
But before that, I kept having this thought as I approached the end of this book: how about we put 2 grad students to work and rewrite this book making the following changes: 1 grad student tallies how much everything costs - pretty much just as a thought experiment (Gedankenexperiment).
Meanwhile, grad student #2 identifies what the resources involved are, and where there are potential shortages thereof. We then know what we REALLY have to worry about trying to avoid a climate disaster. The other, the $$$, is BS.
What does the book read like then?
[Updated 2021-06-01 2:18 pm]
1 thing I meant to mention and forgot: why aren't insurance companies being more activist in the face of the climate crisis? The continuing worsening of natural disasters is surely costing them $B or 10s or 100s of $B. I would think at some point it will become existential for them. Why aren't they acting?
