Bill Gates book list - BookTube - How To Avoid A Climate Disaster . Meeting scientists, talking to them about all these problems, it became clearer and clearer that getting from 51 billion tons of emissions down to zero was necessary for the entire world, particularly for the lives of our children and grandchildren to not be worse off and natural ecosystems not to completely disappear.
Hi, everyone. I'm here in my office for a special episode
of "BookTube" on my new book "How
to Avoid a Climate Disaster." The book is a plan for how the world can
get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Through the book, I talk about all the different areas of
emissions and suggest with the right innovative policies, innovative science
breakthroughs, how we can actually zero out every one of those categories.
Let's get started. So, when talking to Bill Gates, you
gotta have a clean and clear background. Sorry, football, you got to get out of
here. Bill Gates, how are you, my friend? Emmanuel Acho here, former NFL
linebacker turned sports analyst and television host, but current author. Yes,
author. You know,
I feel like the wisdom is invaluable, and I have questions.
What I realized is this, climate change and talking about
race are actually very similar because so many people deny the existence of it.
So my question for you, to those that are willfully ignorant about climate
change and the existence of climate change,
Like so many people who are willfully ignorant about racism
and the existence of racism, what do you say to people who just don't think
climate change is real? Emmanuel,
It’s great to meet you, and I'll get rid of my football,
too, so that's not distracting me there. Your question is excellent. Like a lot
of things, climate injustice is partly because it's out of sight.
Out of sight often means out of mind.
If you could really see the suffering-- people whose crops
fail so they can't feed their kids-- if that was in your neighborhood, just
like a lot of the social injustices within a few blocks of your house, then I
think we would take action because I do think people care. I think young people
going through school are seeing not only the science, but also the effects. The
wildfires are kind of undeniable.
The sea level rise is undeniable. I think if they take the
time to look at the data, whether it's on racial inequities or climate, they'll
go, "Wow, this is clear as can be." Both: Hi, Bill Gates-y. - I'm
Mitch. - And I'm Greg. This was weird. We are AsapSCIENCE, queer science
educators and comedians who use social media to try and make science make
sense.
Make sense? We began our journey as scientists and then
transformed our passion for science into a chance to inspire the rest of the
world. We are constantly thinking about the climate crisis,
Whether we're making videos with Emma Thompson to stop the
Canadian government from seismic blasting for oil in Inuit waters... Or
explaining catastrophic truths about climate change because we just want as
many people as possible to understand.
What is happening? Also, if you want to do a dance with us,
we have heels right in your size. Mitch: We really appreciate your book on the
climate crisis.
It can
be such a complex and overwhelming subject
And the fact that you made it so digestible is really
powerful. So, your book is called "How
To Avoid a Climate Disaster," but many would argue that the climate
disaster is already here.
Given the climate disruptions that we are already
experiencing, is it realistic to think that a future disaster can be avoided or
averted? Wow, it's great to meet you guys. I didn't know you had a shoe size
10.5.
I'll have to think about that. I'm not a very good dancer.
It's true that the temperature increase that's already taken place is causing a
lot of problems. Every degree makes a gigantic difference here.
As long as you keep putting CO2 up into the atmosphere, it
gets hotter and hotter, and that's why even though it seems daunting, we've got
to go from 51 billion down all the way to zero.
The
clarity of zero is very, very important because .
It means that things that are a 20% or 30% reduction, those
should not be the priority if there's a way to innovate the very process, like
with electric cars, to get it to completely zero and then say, okay, it's okay
that buses are taking kids to school and people are moving around. It's not a
sin because we've gone all the way to zero. The bad effects are going to keep
growing. Two degrees centigrade is the best we can do, and that is a very
ambitious goal. Some people actually are despairing and think it's impossible.
But because of innovation, I don't believe that. I believe that although it's
hard and it'll take us this whole 30-year period doing our best work every
single one of those years, I absolutely think we can get to zero. Every degree
counts amazingly. The richest 10% of the world's population is responsible for
more than half of the carbon emissions that we have seen since 1990. That is,
like, a staggering figure. And individuals in the richest 1% emit 100 times
more than those in the poorest half of the population. So what can everyday
people do to challenge billionaires to be responsible for their impact on
climate change? You're absolutely right. I probably have one of the largest
carbon footprints because of my travel, so I'm funding things that this year will
eliminate that footprint. I'm switching to biofuels that cost almost three
times as much. For the non-aviation pieces, I'm paying a company called
Climeworks that does the brute force technique called direct air capture. And
part of the reason I really like the offsets I'm paying for is that it's
catalytic. The more people who buy green aviation fuel, the volume goes up,
coming down in price, and the innovations will be coming along. Philanthropic
things can make a difference here. I created a group called Breakthrough Energy
Ventures funding scientists, so I've spent a bit over two billion so far. I'll
do an equivalent of that again. I've been talking with people who do
philanthropy, and that is absolutely critical. Just like the U.S. as the
richest country needs to drive the innovation, the better off in the United
States need to fund and speak out on this as a critical issue. Hey, Bill, for
everyone who doesn't know, my name is Ariel. The last time we met up, we were
talking about your favorite climate change books. And today, we're talking
about your climate change book. For the last ten years, I've been making videos
on YouTube encouraging everyone to read. I know that books can change minds and
teach us new things, which is why I'm so excited about your book. In many
habitats, so much of the damage that has been done may be already too great to
be reversed. There's a really difficult balance between how much money and time
do we spend on trying to salvage things that our climate change has already destroyed
versus how much money and time do we put into creating the new technologies and
trying to stop more damage from happening. Do you think we should be taking a
triage approach to the natural world, preserving the things that can still be
saved but focusing more on eliminating the conditions that cause the most harm?
So nice to be talking to you again, Ariel. And that's a great question. The
damage of climate change, as you say, it's not just that people will suffer,
it's also the beauty of the natural world, including the Arctic with polar
bears or coral reefs, that are such an incredible thing. The extra heating is a
gigantic problem. Coral reefs start dying off in that higher temperature, and
so you have these bleaching events that are big die-offs. We haven't given up
on any of those natural ecosystems. If we can limit the temperature rise, we
hope that some species of coral, we'll be able to deal with the problem and we
can repopulate the areas where the corals have died off with those corals. For humans
as well, we do need to help out the poorest to do farming near the equator. So,
adaptation, which means making better seeds for them, that's greatly
underfunded. Most people think about mitigation, which is the effort to get
emissions from the 51 billion all the way down to zero, and so we do need to do
both in parallel-- help the people who are suffering while at the same time, we
stop causing more of a problem.
Wish we could get to zero before 2050, but that's probably
our best case. We'll have to have adaptation and mitigation to deal with all
these problems. How's it going, Bill? My name is Destin Sandlin.
I live here in north Alabama.
I have a YouTube channel called Smarter Every Day. I like
to explore the world using science, and I'm an old-fashioned mechanical and
aerospace engineer. In your book, I want to hone in on chapter six. You talked
about nuclear energy, and I'm a fan of nuclear energy.
In fact, my house is powered by the Browns Ferry nuclear
power plant. And I just view nuclear energy as a very smart, intelligent bridge
to green power. I know there's a lot of people that worry about nuclear energy
because of things like Fukushima and Chernobyl.
There's this worry about safety, but I find them to be
extremely safe when I dig into the research. So what are your thoughts on
strategies to communicate the efficiency and safety of nuclear power?
Hi, Destin. Great to meet another fan of nuclear energy.
Nuclear has an amazing starting point because nuclear energy emits no greenhouse gases. There are very few technologies that do that. Hydro does that, but we can't add much new hydro. Wind and solar do that, but they're intermittent, and so if you get a cold front over the Midwest, those will be shut down for several weeks at a time. Unfortunately with nuclear power, the design we started with back in the 1950s, there's never been a time when that got changed. And even though the deaths, as you say, are extremely low, mainly due to one big accident in the USSR, Chernobyl, and that's what's plagued the nuclear industry. But they're never actually gone and done a design from scratch whose safety and economics can be far beyond anything we have today. And so I am funding a nuclear fission company called TerraPower, and the plan is to build a plant starting from scratch and saying, hey, we can't rely on an operator to push the right button. I know we have a lot of convincing to do, but I think as people think about climate change and this reliability equation, they'll have to say, "Well, I'm a skeptic, but it could be a absolutely critical part of the solution, not just in the U.S., but around the entire world. Hello, everyone. I am Prajakta Koli, a YouTuber and an actor based in India that chooses comedy to show real life in a new way. I'm very passionate about using my platform to create conversations that bring about positive change. I've traveled to the U.N. headquarters to participate in the International Day of Tolerance, and for the Goalkeepers program, which is an initiative by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. You've been working towards a better world for many years now through your work with Gates Foundation. Was there a specific incident or an insight that sparked your interest in making all these conversations about climate change? Hello, Prajakta. I'm impressed by all the different ways you're using your voice. I came to this work by going to Africa and seeing that the energy poverty there was holding those countries back. Melinda and I realized that getting electricity, getting air conditioning, getting lighting at night was going to be important, and so I had to study what about this climate problem?
Bill Gates book list - BookTube - How To Avoid A Climate Disaster
Should that be a constraint on
just building coal plants, which in many places would be the cheapest way to
make electricity? Or do we need to do it a better or different way for these
countries? And what I've learned is actually the places that will suffer the
most from climate change are actually these developing countries. The rich
countries are more in the temperate parts of the world, and the poorer
countries are more in the equatorial regions where the poorest are people who
do subsistence farming. So the basic idea of justice, that everyone can live a
healthy and productive life, brought me to climate change. I wrote this book
because I'm excited that we have a goal-- getting from 51 billion tons of
emissions down to zero by 2050. And I'm excited that lots of people are very
committed to this cause, particularly young people. So those are two of the
three ingredients to solve the problem. The third one is that we need a plan.
Our only hope is to follow that model that worked for the electric car and have
innovation. You know, it's only 30 years, so the whole planet's going to have
to collaborate on this and innovate our way all the way down to zero. Boy, we
need a dozen more, you know, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs-type people. There's a lot
of room for heroes in this space.
No comments:
Post a Comment