The cultural profile of Bill Gates has undergone several revisions since he burst on the scene as a nerdy brainiac with thick glasses and enough ambition for 200 humans over four decades ago.
Boy genius. Mad scientist. Oddball inventor. Shrewd businessman. Iconic CEO. Borderline unhinged weirdo.
Add another description to his Wikipedia page: Sensible realist. Is that true? Could it be?
The Microsoft founder pushed back at left-wing climate alarmists, basically telling them their dreams of having people radically change their behavior for the sake of the environment is a fool’s errand. Unrealistic and a waste of time.
Gates spoke on Bloomberg’s Zero podcast hosted by Akshat Rathi. The host asked Gates if, in order to address climate change, a “revolution” was needed.
Gates basically told him there’s a better chance he and his ex-wife Melissa visit a Sandals resort together over the holidays.
“I don’t think it’s realistic to say that people are utterly going to change their lifestyle because of concerns about climate. You can have a cultural revolution where you’re trying to throw everything up; you can create a North Korean-type situation where the state’s in control. Other than immense central authority to have people just obey, I think the collective action problem is just completely not solvable.”
Until a few months ago, Gates told people that eating meat had to stop to save the planet. Maybe he loves cheeseburgers and ribeyes too much to carry through with that mantra.
“Anyone who says that we will tell people to stop eating meat, or stop wanting to have a nice house, and we’ll just basically change human desires, I think that that’s too difficult. You can make a case for it. But I don’t think it’s realistic for that to play an absolutely central role.”
Here’s more from Gates that will surely have him receiving a stern voice mail or text message from Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore.
“But just having a few rich countries, a few rich companies and a few rich individuals buy their way out so they can say they’re not part of the problem, that has nothing to do with solving the problem. Those [remaining] two-thirds of emissions are pretty basic in terms of the calories and shelter and transport and goods being used. So, the excesses of the rich countries … even curbing those completely out of existence is not a solution to this problem.”
The podcast was taped in August before the Progressive Dems’ pushed through their climate legislation bill.
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