Billionaires
Won’t Save Us
LAST
WEEK, two separate communication salvos were
fired into the arena of environmental politics,
each in their own way attempting to influence
the upcoming United Nations–sponsored climate
talks, COP30, that kick off November 10 in the
Brazilian city of Belém.
One
was a peer-reviewed article, published in the journal
BioScience, that warned that global
society is “hurtling toward climate chaos.” The
authors — a who’s who of scientists including
Peter Gleick, Michael Mann, William Ripple, and
Johan Rockström — concluded that 22 of 34
“planetary vital signs” are flashing red, and
that “the consequences of human-driven
alterations of the climate are no longer future
threats but are here now.” The second message
was a 5,000-word memo from one of
the world’s richest men that offered the
supposedly soothing consolation that climate
change “will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
Guess
which one received more attention?
Billionaire
philanthropist Bill Gates’s October 27 open
letter predictably got the chattering classes
chattering. After all, in the attention economy,
a rich man’s pronouncements trump the detailed
research of eminent scientists. And, just as
predictably, the loudest voices of
climate-science denial pounced on Gates’s words
to assure us all that climate change is a big
nothing burger. Although Gates had been careful
to insist that climate change remains “a serious
problem,” his nuances were willfully
overlooked.…
The
Gates memo is the type of classic online
manifesto that generates more heat than light,
more uproar than insight. I’m reluctant to give
the fire any more oxygen. But when someone who
is worth more than $100 billion seeks to
influence the highest level of global
decision-making, that person’s views deserve as
widespread and as detailed a parsing as
possible.
Especially
when that person is wrong.
Journalist and author Jason Dove
Mark dives into the larger questions about the
limits of elite-led climate action.
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