How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

Bill Gates is obviously a bright person, he built Microsoft and was a great innovator. But this book is disappointing. Gates has clearly not studied climate science, he just assumes the IPCC reports and models are correct. Then he accepts their health and economic projections, built with climate model output. He does no due diligence. If he ran his business like this, he would not have succeeded. So after blindly accepting, the consensus position on climate science he then proceeds to tell us what we must do to combat his hypothesized scourge of climate change. Later he implores the governments of the world to unite in forcing us to do what he wants. In my opinion, this is a very shallow look at a complex topic. It is more of a propaganda pamphlet than a serious book. Bill Gates should do his homework for his next book. Not recommended.

Bill Gates' new book was very disappointing to me. He did not seem to be able to relate to the realities of life. He imagines that the federal government will fund all kinds of very expensive bits of technology. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated financial woes and increased the tendency of elected officials to be more tight-fisted. Doesn't he know this? Senators and Representatives from fossil-fuel-dependent states are not going to go along with Gates' idea of deliberately making fossil fuel products so much more expensive that people will want to buy carbon-free alternatives. Gates seems to imagine that there will be money available to upgrade the electric grids, the need for which was seen in the recent Texas power outages. He is giving some funding, but even billionaires cannot come up with trillions of dollars. Gates' true colors can be seen in what he did fairly recently - convincing Oxford University NOT to allow its Covid vaccine to be used for free by the entire world. (Jonas Salk gave his polio vaccine free to the world.) That example of Salk's apparently didn't sit well with Gates. He managed to convince Oxford University to partner up with AstraZeneca, so that Oxford's vaccine would enter the world of for-profit medicine. Meanwhile the Secretary-General of the UN reminds us that people in poor countries can't get Covid vaccines. Way to go, Gates. Morally bankrupt and a pie-in-the-sky billionaire who doesn't seem to see how close the world is to climate disaster. It is not going to be able to wait for his "wonderful" innovations. There was only one US plant to capture and sequester carbon emissions and it closed in early 2021. Let's have some reality checks.

Bill Gates, with his vast supply of wealth and power surely has to have heard of the carbon-sequestration benefits of regenerative agriculture and no-till methods by now. However, instead of highlighting what will likely be one of the best solutions we have, he ignores it altogether, goes on a rant about cow farts and promotes the fake-meat companies he’s heavily invested in as our best solutions. Unfortunately, this thinking will still continue to kill the majority the planet’s soil and will also do nothing to stop the loss of carbon from the soil by tilling. Only regenerative agriculture can do this but Bill Gates doesn’t want you to know it exists because he’s got money to make off of turning people into fake-meat eating vegans, with zero long-term knowledge or consideration of the effects. Oh the joys of capitalism. Very disappointed but not surprised. Automatic fail.

pie in the sky, Gates totally ignores the single biggest issue that’s plaguing climate disaster in today’s world - POLITICS. To his credit, Gates doesn’t get bogged down and techie in this book. There’s enough data and science to support his assertions to make them seem reasonable, providing everyone holds hands and plays nice; providing everyone involved in fossil fuels just rolls over and drinks the KoolAid, no job required anytime soon, anywhere close to home. There are lots of examples for how things can improve rather quickly, what they will potentially cost, how rich countries can and should help poor countries; there are countless opportunities for involvement should readers find themselves motivated for service. Once again I’m struck by the complete absence of the need for political support and cooperation. Does he REALLY think that a change from red to blue will move this project forward so easily? Gates continues fly around on his private jet while working on this issue. Incongruous? Oxymoronic? Perhaps it’s just plain entitlement, but it doesn’t make for good optics. There are other options and as he said repeatedly in the book, “hard choices need to be made”. Maybe not by everyone? No doubt I’ll be in the minority on this one but I’m a fan of the reality bus. All the good writing and professional publishing in the world cannot sweep away the fact that what we truly need is cooperation from our elected officials at EVERY level. So far, the price of gas for cars in the NE, (I drive a hybrid), has risen 20% since January 20th; that hurts. It’s too soon to understand the impact this white, cold winter will have on my heating budget. According to my “green provider”, I’m running ahead of last year but more efficient than others in my area. It’s many degrees colder and we had ZERO snow last year. This should be way more fun than huddling under a blanket with my pup in relative darkness each night; yup - hard choices📚

In this relatively short and very readable book Gates provides a comprehensive overview of the who, what, why and where of global warming. (Not surprisingly, the issue is very much related to the Gates Foundation’s well-publicized interest in global health and the eradication of poverty.) This is a great primer covering what is causing the problem today and what can be done about it, clearly delineating the technology that currently exists and that which should be pursued through a joint effort of the citizenry, the government, and industry. He also provides a simple methodology, called Green Premiums, for understanding the relative costs of the current technology that can reduce greenhouse gases. This, in turn, provides a brilliant way to establish priorities and focus our effort and our investment. To his credit, Gates has gone out of his way to look beyond the emotional divisions often associated with the topic. It’s a book about building bridges toward a common goal and steers clear of ideology and politics. “I think more like an engineer than a political scientist, and I don’t have a solution to the politics of climate change.” He also stays clear of the technical-speak that often clouds the issue. This book is written for a mass audience and while there are statistics, he studiously avoids the complicated science that often just serves to cloud the issue and to put constructive discussion out of reach of the general public. My only personal disappointment in the book is that he goes just a little too far in avoiding any discussion of the need for behavioral change. “We aren’t going to solve the climate problem by telling people not to eat toast.” He advocates the use of heat pumps and electric cars and encourages consumers to step up to more energy efficient purchases but he stays clear of any suggestion that our cultural norms and priorities contribute to the problem in any way. I understand why. One of the most nonsensical criticisms we hear from those who refuse to acknowledge either the reality of climate change or that humankind is contributing to it is that “These people just want us all to be poor.” But there is a big difference between being poor and being just as happy and fulfilled as the richest billionaires are now but getting by with less – and thus contributing less to climate change (and other socio-economic ills that currently plague us). Think of it as cultural simplification. If you are in the top one-third of income earners do you really need half of the stuff you own to live a happy and fulfilling life? I think not. And in the end I believe cultural simplification will be necessary to solve the climate change crisis. Technology alone won’t be enough if we just keep building bigger homes and buying more exotic toys and experiences. Most of us could live in much smaller homes and lead simpler lives and still be just as happy. And I speak from experience. I have lived all along the continuum that is wealth and income and I can assure you that the size of my house or how many toys I owned but seldom used had no bearing on my sense of personal fulfillment. That, however, was not the objective of this book. Gates undoubtedly knew, however he personally feels about the topic, that all else would be lost once he set foot on that path. And, as a result, we have a wonderful primer on the state of the issue and a road map for where we go from here that I believe everyone should be able to buy in to. It’s simple, understandable, and chock full of common sense.

Starting from the 1st Chapter, you get the idea that Bill Gates did nothing more than restate the Sierra Club's headline titles or the Environment Defense Fund. It is evident that with all Bill Gates talk of consulting with experts, he offers nothing more than an understanding of the issues that a reviewer of late-night news versus the average person who has taken the time to read papers from both sides of the argument. In swallowing hook-line and sinker every morsel of bad versus investigating the veracity of the claims or the massive number of mistakes models made over the past 30 years, Gates assumes truth to whatever gurus of doom he consults for information. For instance, he perpetuates the myth that natural gas may worsen due to 'leaks,' a debunked idea. Besides, the US leads all western nations in CO2 reduction largely due to a transition to natural gas and fracking over coal. Near the end of chapter 2, Gates attempts to answer the rationalization of skeptics, even those not opposed to the AGW theory. He fails miserably in accounting for many of the better claims made by many that the costs to fight climate change heavily outweigh the costs to mitigate. Financial models put forth using the numbers of the IPCC in lost GDP to show the futility in going 'green' versus mitigation. Don't get me started on his lack of understanding of government incompetence completely wrecks any of his financial models, such as his silly 'Green Premium' that comes in Chapter 3. He finishes Chapter Two by admitting outright that only a drastic set of changes will save the world as doom is headed our way within a generation. Adaption is not even considered. More on this later. With Chapter 3, Gates creates Five questions to provide a framework for guidance in decision making. Except, his own answers seem to be a bit off by a lot in some instances. For instance, nuclear is by far way denser in energy output than fossil fuels in both materials (by a long shot) and in square meters for energy output by an energy plant. Further, his book uses the 'Green Premium' as a means of continual cost analysis. The book notes the GP values are from a calculation supposedly explained on breakthrough.org. Yet, no explanation of where the numbers come from except more gibberish about using fossil fuels exacts real costs. Somehow, through forced governmental policy change, always a winning market move, we will pay this incredible difference in cost to use sustainable energy. Of course, Gates feels for those that will have to carry the burden of this cost but again, government policy will manage that burden. The government, of course, is going to do everything properly. Chapters 4 through 8 are dedicated to the five different sources of energy consumption. Gates once again assume we can mitigate each source of energy consumption in some miracle fashion through the force of government policy and government 'investment.' One can easily read in higher taxes to pay for future failed government intervention. Gates assumes that we will achieve some level of success similar to the microwave and space exploration, forgetting these were largely done when the government did not have nearly the bureaucratic size, unionization of administrative staff, nor the cost that government employees consume in wages and worse, magnificently sized pension benefits. Even when Gates makes a relevant point, such as how nuclear would easily achieve far superior energy service, Gates seems to forget that the very politicians his organization backs are the very ones who would never allow a successful transition to more nuclear. Oddly, it's within the Republican and Libertarian parties a consensus is available to allow a successful increase in the creation of more nuclear reactors of which Gates has a vested interest. Gates spends one entire chapter on adaption, but it is a marginal effort. Gates could discuss what many see as only a minor reduction in GDP if the earth were to warm between 2 to 4 degrees C. Thus, the large calamity he insinuates throughout the book is largely a scare tactic. Gates avoids this discussion here as he did in Chapter 2. In chapter 10, Gates is either revising history or just making stuff up. From his falsified history retelling that Obama spurred innovation with the 1 trillion dollar waste labeled a 'stimulus' (which contributed to the Tea Party winning 63 Republican seats in 2010), to his completely fictionalized history that it is up to the government to invest in R&D as it did with the microprocessors (?). Even Obama labeled much of his stimulus a failure. Not only did that stimulus throw good money at non-existent garbage projects, but there were dozens of 'green' project failures. Further proof Gates has zero clues in making any of his book's fairy tale wishes come true. His goal to 'level the playing field' is to exact huge costs on today's successful energy use, which will only make the world's poor poorer. But do not worry, Gates states we will use more successful government actions to fix this inequity. To top off the laughs that keep coming, Gates cites SPAIN as a success in the green energy transition! Yes, the US and the world, for that matter, require nearly 15 to 20% unemployment, whatever the costs to achieve proper climate costs when the US achieved less than 4% unemployment under Trump at that time. SPAIN! What a joke. I am finishing this book shortly and will continue the rest of this review and modify the rating as I complete the book.

I've received this book this morning and went thru a third way into the book. It's hard to ignore when someone like Bill Gates makes a loud noise about something. As someone who pays a close attention to various investments he has been making in the recent years, I noticed that he's been making significant investment into clean energy and biotechnology. Therefore, I had to buy this book to get a full picture of his perspective on where we are headed towards to in terms of climate change. Some people may dismiss book by saying "He is not an expert on this matter so it's not worth reading this book." With all due respect, I disagree with them wholeheartedly. Elon Musk may not know everything about electric vehicles or rocket science, but he runs a few of the most innovative/futuristic companies of our generation. Same thing - Bill Gates has a substantial stake in this field in which there are many smart people working for him. We should most certainly listen in to what he has to say and I appreciate Bill Gates taking actions on this front. I may update this review after I finish the book but I certainly recommend this book for anyone who is interested not only in climate change but where to invest as well.

This book is an excellent overview of what can be done to address climate change, it has an optimistic outlook and is also very practical. It is probably more for the general public than for the climate change experts (who might make fun of Bill Gates’ awakening to climate change only in 2006). He starts with the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases getting into the atmosphere every year and breaks down the different contributors. The plan is to reach zero emission by 2050. The book contains many interesting ideas for governments, businesses and individuals.

Bill Gates is a geek. I use the term in admiration. He is a man of science and business. Anything he can know; he expends the time and energy to do so. He is also a man with a heart. He and his wife, Melinda, created their philanthropic organization because, “Everyone deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life.” Unfortunately, the ravages of a deteriorating climate stand in the way of their lofty aspirations, and the survival of the societies they serve. He, after an incredible effort to know as much as one can, has charted a rough course we can use to avoid climate destruction. But he left out the primary problem. He completely missed the issue holding America down. Read the 1-star reviews. There is an incredible number of reviews which border on senile, cynical, and ignorant. They are the creation of people who seem petty, jealous, defeatist, and without moral courage. When the ship of humanity finally unfurls its sails to catch the winds of a sustainable future, will these people refuse to weigh anchor? Will they fight to remain tethered to the flaming dock of a doomed fossil fuel world? There are two populations in our 50 states. One is the Americans, and the other is the Ameri-cants. Bill does not confront the tricky issues whose answers lie in sociology, psychology, and evolutionary biology. The answers hidden in these professions will help us evade the shoals of Ameri-cants. When we drag up anchor to set sail, what do we do with those who sow the seeds of despair, discontent, and mutiny? Can we win them over as Braver Angels propose? While you ponder this, read the book. Buy his book and give them away. Ask others their opinion. Remember, the biggest obstacle is the cynic who thinks himself an intellectual. Somewhere out there is the counter to the pessimist. It is our duty to find and employ it before the Ameri-cants drag us to the bottom.

Mr. Gates opens his pitch by stating that humans are putting 51 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. While that sounds like a lot it really isn’t stated there is normally 3,000 billion tons of CO2 there and that level is historically quite low. He also makes the claim that some of the CO2 humans produce will still be in the atmosphere in 10,000 years but there is no science supporting such a claim. The book goes on to mention many other claims from the climate scientists and the computer climate models at the UN’s IPCC. He glosses over the total failure of their models to predict such things as the pause in warming that occurred beginning in 1979 despite increasing CO2 levels. He attempts to correlate increasing CO2 and temperature but fails to give evidence supportive of causation. He fails to explain how there could be out of control warming now when there wasn’t with CO2 levels 25 times as high or higher. He never mentions the Climategate email scandal nor the discredited Hockey Stick. It’s ironic Mr. Gates should be trying to make his next billion off global warming when both NASA and NOAA have agreed the sun has gone into a Grand Solar Minimum. This will likely last between 30 and 50 years, perhaps longer. It’s going to be getting colder, not warmer. A lot colder. Even if the GSM had not happened the book would still get two thumbs down as there is simply no proof that human activity has had much of any effect on planetary warming. There is evidence that rising CO2 levels have benefited agricultural production levels and all else green and growing. My opinion is Mr. Gates ‘solutions’ are not only not needed but likely to do far more harm than good, especially to the desperately poor of the world.

Bill Gates is obviously a bright person, he built Microsoft and was a great innovator. But this book is disappointing. Gates has clearly not studied climate science, he just assumes the IPCC reports and models are correct. Then he accepts their health and economic projections, built with climate model output. He does no due diligence. If he ran his business like this, he would not have succeeded. So after blindly accepting, the consensus position on climate science he then proceeds to tell us what we must do to combat his hypothesized scourge of climate change. Later he implores the governments of the world to unite in forcing us to do what he wants. In my opinion, this is a very shallow look at a complex topic. It is more of a propaganda pamphlet than a serious book. Bill Gates should do his homework for his next book. Not recommended.

Bill Gates' new book was very disappointing to me. He did not seem to be able to relate to the realities of life. He imagines that the federal government will fund all kinds of very expensive bits of technology. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated financial woes and increased the tendency of elected officials to be more tight-fisted. Doesn't he know this? Senators and Representatives from fossil-fuel-dependent states are not going to go along with Gates' idea of deliberately making fossil fuel products so much more expensive that people will want to buy carbon-free alternatives. Gates seems to imagine that there will be money available to upgrade the electric grids, the need for which was seen in the recent Texas power outages. He is giving some funding, but even billionaires cannot come up with trillions of dollars. Gates' true colors can be seen in what he did fairly recently - convincing Oxford University NOT to allow its Covid vaccine to be used for free by the entire world. (Jonas Salk gave his polio vaccine free to the world.) That example of Salk's apparently didn't sit well with Gates. He managed to convince Oxford University to partner up with AstraZeneca, so that Oxford's vaccine would enter the world of for-profit medicine. Meanwhile the Secretary-General of the UN reminds us that people in poor countries can't get Covid vaccines. Way to go, Gates. Morally bankrupt and a pie-in-the-sky billionaire who doesn't seem to see how close the world is to climate disaster. It is not going to be able to wait for his "wonderful" innovations. There was only one US plant to capture and sequester carbon emissions and it closed in early 2021. Let's have some reality checks.

Bill Gates, with his vast supply of wealth and power surely has to have heard of the carbon-sequestration benefits of regenerative agriculture and no-till methods by now. However, instead of highlighting what will likely be one of the best solutions we have, he ignores it altogether, goes on a rant about cow farts and promotes the fake-meat companies he’s heavily invested in as our best solutions. Unfortunately, this thinking will still continue to kill the majority the planet’s soil and will also do nothing to stop the loss of carbon from the soil by tilling. Only regenerative agriculture can do this but Bill Gates doesn’t want you to know it exists because he’s got money to make off of turning people into fake-meat eating vegans, with zero long-term knowledge or consideration of the effects. Oh the joys of capitalism. Very disappointed but not surprised. Automatic fail.

pie in the sky, Gates totally ignores the single biggest issue that’s plaguing climate disaster in today’s world - POLITICS. To his credit, Gates doesn’t get bogged down and techie in this book. There’s enough data and science to support his assertions to make them seem reasonable, providing everyone holds hands and plays nice; providing everyone involved in fossil fuels just rolls over and drinks the KoolAid, no job required anytime soon, anywhere close to home. There are lots of examples for how things can improve rather quickly, what they will potentially cost, how rich countries can and should help poor countries; there are countless opportunities for involvement should readers find themselves motivated for service. Once again I’m struck by the complete absence of the need for political support and cooperation. Does he REALLY think that a change from red to blue will move this project forward so easily? Gates continues fly around on his private jet while working on this issue. Incongruous? Oxymoronic? Perhaps it’s just plain entitlement, but it doesn’t make for good optics. There are other options and as he said repeatedly in the book, “hard choices need to be made”. Maybe not by everyone? No doubt I’ll be in the minority on this one but I’m a fan of the reality bus. All the good writing and professional publishing in the world cannot sweep away the fact that what we truly need is cooperation from our elected officials at EVERY level. So far, the price of gas for cars in the NE, (I drive a hybrid), has risen 20% since January 20th; that hurts. It’s too soon to understand the impact this white, cold winter will have on my heating budget. According to my “green provider”, I’m running ahead of last year but more efficient than others in my area. It’s many degrees colder and we had ZERO snow last year. This should be way more fun than huddling under a blanket with my pup in relative darkness each night; yup - hard choices📚

In this relatively short and very readable book Gates provides a comprehensive overview of the who, what, why and where of global warming. (Not surprisingly, the issue is very much related to the Gates Foundation’s well-publicized interest in global health and the eradication of poverty.) This is a great primer covering what is causing the problem today and what can be done about it, clearly delineating the technology that currently exists and that which should be pursued through a joint effort of the citizenry, the government, and industry. He also provides a simple methodology, called Green Premiums, for understanding the relative costs of the current technology that can reduce greenhouse gases. This, in turn, provides a brilliant way to establish priorities and focus our effort and our investment. To his credit, Gates has gone out of his way to look beyond the emotional divisions often associated with the topic. It’s a book about building bridges toward a common goal and steers clear of ideology and politics. “I think more like an engineer than a political scientist, and I don’t have a solution to the politics of climate change.” He also stays clear of the technical-speak that often clouds the issue. This book is written for a mass audience and while there are statistics, he studiously avoids the complicated science that often just serves to cloud the issue and to put constructive discussion out of reach of the general public. My only personal disappointment in the book is that he goes just a little too far in avoiding any discussion of the need for behavioral change. “We aren’t going to solve the climate problem by telling people not to eat toast.” He advocates the use of heat pumps and electric cars and encourages consumers to step up to more energy efficient purchases but he stays clear of any suggestion that our cultural norms and priorities contribute to the problem in any way. I understand why. One of the most nonsensical criticisms we hear from those who refuse to acknowledge either the reality of climate change or that humankind is contributing to it is that “These people just want us all to be poor.” But there is a big difference between being poor and being just as happy and fulfilled as the richest billionaires are now but getting by with less – and thus contributing less to climate change (and other socio-economic ills that currently plague us). Think of it as cultural simplification. If you are in the top one-third of income earners do you really need half of the stuff you own to live a happy and fulfilling life? I think not. And in the end I believe cultural simplification will be necessary to solve the climate change crisis. Technology alone won’t be enough if we just keep building bigger homes and buying more exotic toys and experiences. Most of us could live in much smaller homes and lead simpler lives and still be just as happy. And I speak from experience. I have lived all along the continuum that is wealth and income and I can assure you that the size of my house or how many toys I owned but seldom used had no bearing on my sense of personal fulfillment. That, however, was not the objective of this book. Gates undoubtedly knew, however he personally feels about the topic, that all else would be lost once he set foot on that path. And, as a result, we have a wonderful primer on the state of the issue and a road map for where we go from here that I believe everyone should be able to buy in to. It’s simple, understandable, and chock full of common sense.

Starting from the 1st Chapter, you get the idea that Bill Gates did nothing more than restate the Sierra Club's headline titles or the Environment Defense Fund. It is evident that with all Bill Gates talk of consulting with experts, he offers nothing more than an understanding of the issues that a reviewer of late-night news versus the average person who has taken the time to read papers from both sides of the argument. In swallowing hook-line and sinker every morsel of bad versus investigating the veracity of the claims or the massive number of mistakes models made over the past 30 years, Gates assumes truth to whatever gurus of doom he consults for information. For instance, he perpetuates the myth that natural gas may worsen due to 'leaks,' a debunked idea. Besides, the US leads all western nations in CO2 reduction largely due to a transition to natural gas and fracking over coal. Near the end of chapter 2, Gates attempts to answer the rationalization of skeptics, even those not opposed to the AGW theory. He fails miserably in accounting for many of the better claims made by many that the costs to fight climate change heavily outweigh the costs to mitigate. Financial models put forth using the numbers of the IPCC in lost GDP to show the futility in going 'green' versus mitigation. Don't get me started on his lack of understanding of government incompetence completely wrecks any of his financial models, such as his silly 'Green Premium' that comes in Chapter 3. He finishes Chapter Two by admitting outright that only a drastic set of changes will save the world as doom is headed our way within a generation. Adaption is not even considered. More on this later. With Chapter 3, Gates creates Five questions to provide a framework for guidance in decision making. Except, his own answers seem to be a bit off by a lot in some instances. For instance, nuclear is by far way denser in energy output than fossil fuels in both materials (by a long shot) and in square meters for energy output by an energy plant. Further, his book uses the 'Green Premium' as a means of continual cost analysis. The book notes the GP values are from a calculation supposedly explained on breakthrough.org. Yet, no explanation of where the numbers come from except more gibberish about using fossil fuels exacts real costs. Somehow, through forced governmental policy change, always a winning market move, we will pay this incredible difference in cost to use sustainable energy. Of course, Gates feels for those that will have to carry the burden of this cost but again, government policy will manage that burden. The government, of course, is going to do everything properly. Chapters 4 through 8 are dedicated to the five different sources of energy consumption. Gates once again assume we can mitigate each source of energy consumption in some miracle fashion through the force of government policy and government 'investment.' One can easily read in higher taxes to pay for future failed government intervention. Gates assumes that we will achieve some level of success similar to the microwave and space exploration, forgetting these were largely done when the government did not have nearly the bureaucratic size, unionization of administrative staff, nor the cost that government employees consume in wages and worse, magnificently sized pension benefits. Even when Gates makes a relevant point, such as how nuclear would easily achieve far superior energy service, Gates seems to forget that the very politicians his organization backs are the very ones who would never allow a successful transition to more nuclear. Oddly, it's within the Republican and Libertarian parties a consensus is available to allow a successful increase in the creation of more nuclear reactors of which Gates has a vested interest. Gates spends one entire chapter on adaption, but it is a marginal effort. Gates could discuss what many see as only a minor reduction in GDP if the earth were to warm between 2 to 4 degrees C. Thus, the large calamity he insinuates throughout the book is largely a scare tactic. Gates avoids this discussion here as he did in Chapter 2. In chapter 10, Gates is either revising history or just making stuff up. From his falsified history retelling that Obama spurred innovation with the 1 trillion dollar waste labeled a 'stimulus' (which contributed to the Tea Party winning 63 Republican seats in 2010), to his completely fictionalized history that it is up to the government to invest in R&D as it did with the microprocessors (?). Even Obama labeled much of his stimulus a failure. Not only did that stimulus throw good money at non-existent garbage projects, but there were dozens of 'green' project failures. Further proof Gates has zero clues in making any of his book's fairy tale wishes come true. His goal to 'level the playing field' is to exact huge costs on today's successful energy use, which will only make the world's poor poorer. But do not worry, Gates states we will use more successful government actions to fix this inequity. To top off the laughs that keep coming, Gates cites SPAIN as a success in the green energy transition! Yes, the US and the world, for that matter, require nearly 15 to 20% unemployment, whatever the costs to achieve proper climate costs when the US achieved less than 4% unemployment under Trump at that time. SPAIN! What a joke. I am finishing this book shortly and will continue the rest of this review and modify the rating as I complete the book.

I've received this book this morning and went thru a third way into the book. It's hard to ignore when someone like Bill Gates makes a loud noise about something. As someone who pays a close attention to various investments he has been making in the recent years, I noticed that he's been making significant investment into clean energy and biotechnology. Therefore, I had to buy this book to get a full picture of his perspective on where we are headed towards to in terms of climate change. Some people may dismiss book by saying "He is not an expert on this matter so it's not worth reading this book." With all due respect, I disagree with them wholeheartedly. Elon Musk may not know everything about electric vehicles or rocket science, but he runs a few of the most innovative/futuristic companies of our generation. Same thing - Bill Gates has a substantial stake in this field in which there are many smart people working for him. We should most certainly listen in to what he has to say and I appreciate Bill Gates taking actions on this front. I may update this review after I finish the book but I certainly recommend this book for anyone who is interested not only in climate change but where to invest as well.

This book is an excellent overview of what can be done to address climate change, it has an optimistic outlook and is also very practical. It is probably more for the general public than for the climate change experts (who might make fun of Bill Gates’ awakening to climate change only in 2006). He starts with the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases getting into the atmosphere every year and breaks down the different contributors. The plan is to reach zero emission by 2050. The book contains many interesting ideas for governments, businesses and individuals.

Bill Gates is a geek. I use the term in admiration. He is a man of science and business. Anything he can know; he expends the time and energy to do so. He is also a man with a heart. He and his wife, Melinda, created their philanthropic organization because, “Everyone deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life.” Unfortunately, the ravages of a deteriorating climate stand in the way of their lofty aspirations, and the survival of the societies they serve. He, after an incredible effort to know as much as one can, has charted a rough course we can use to avoid climate destruction. But he left out the primary problem. He completely missed the issue holding America down. Read the 1-star reviews. There is an incredible number of reviews which border on senile, cynical, and ignorant. They are the creation of people who seem petty, jealous, defeatist, and without moral courage. When the ship of humanity finally unfurls its sails to catch the winds of a sustainable future, will these people refuse to weigh anchor? Will they fight to remain tethered to the flaming dock of a doomed fossil fuel world? There are two populations in our 50 states. One is the Americans, and the other is the Ameri-cants. Bill does not confront the tricky issues whose answers lie in sociology, psychology, and evolutionary biology. The answers hidden in these professions will help us evade the shoals of Ameri-cants. When we drag up anchor to set sail, what do we do with those who sow the seeds of despair, discontent, and mutiny? Can we win them over as Braver Angels propose? While you ponder this, read the book. Buy his book and give them away. Ask others their opinion. Remember, the biggest obstacle is the cynic who thinks himself an intellectual. Somewhere out there is the counter to the pessimist. It is our duty to find and employ it before the Ameri-cants drag us to the bottom.

Mr. Gates opens his pitch by stating that humans are putting 51 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. While that sounds like a lot it really isn’t stated there is normally 3,000 billion tons of CO2 there and that level is historically quite low. He also makes the claim that some of the CO2 humans produce will still be in the atmosphere in 10,000 years but there is no science supporting such a claim. The book goes on to mention many other claims from the climate scientists and the computer climate models at the UN’s IPCC. He glosses over the total failure of their models to predict such things as the pause in warming that occurred beginning in 1979 despite increasing CO2 levels. He attempts to correlate increasing CO2 and temperature but fails to give evidence supportive of causation. He fails to explain how there could be out of control warming now when there wasn’t with CO2 levels 25 times as high or higher. He never mentions the Climategate email scandal nor the discredited Hockey Stick. It’s ironic Mr. Gates should be trying to make his next billion off global warming when both NASA and NOAA have agreed the sun has gone into a Grand Solar Minimum. This will likely last between 30 and 50 years, perhaps longer. It’s going to be getting colder, not warmer. A lot colder. Even if the GSM had not happened the book would still get two thumbs down as there is simply no proof that human activity has had much of any effect on planetary warming. There is evidence that rising CO2 levels have benefited agricultural production levels and all else green and growing. My opinion is Mr. Gates ‘solutions’ are not only not needed but likely to do far more harm than good, especially to the desperately poor of the world.

Although the science can be complicated, Bill Gates was able to write this book in easy terms, so that it is accessible for every reader, even your politicians. Send them a copy. What becomes clear is that everyone can and should be involved in our pivot towards a zero carbon future. One of the most memorable passages is that our atmosphere is like a bathtub being filled with water. If we don’t stop the water completely, the bathtub will overflow and cause serious damage. Just reducing the flow will not avert the catastrophe, only delay it. Bill Gates has managed to create an overview that includes it all - the science, the innovations, the protests, the market, policies and politics and he gives us a detailed understanding of each aspect. With all the good that he is doing, I can now forgive him that he made his fortune with buggy software that drove many of us crazy.

No one presents a clearer case for the solution and what it will take to get us to a carbon-free, net zero, emissions. If you want to understand the problem, the solution, and what we need to do how and when, this is the single best book you need to read. You'll come away with a better understanding of the challenges to the solutions than any other source. Gates wrote a Václav Smil-like book that is better than what Václav Smil, one of Gates' heroes, could have written...and Smil's books are the best books on the subject before this one. Gates uses very clear, concise language, along with very relevant facts and graphs just when you need them. I found myself going "I didn't know that" over and over. It's not full of hyperbole. In fact, it seems Gates is going out of his way in painting a realistic picture of the problem and solutions. If you want to debate climate change and climate change solutions like someone with 160 IQ and a decade of deep study, like Gates is and did, read this book. And the send a copy to your children and friends.

Bill Gates readily concedes that the world isn’t short of “rich men with big ideas” in How To Avoid A Climate Disaster. He brings an intellectual honesty to the climate change debate that is absent from Democrat policy prescriptions, and often ignored by Republicans. Gates has done his homework, producing a book spilling over with facts and insights. The climate impact of each human activity (use of power, making things, moving around) is presented, along with its contribution to the 51 billion tons of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emitted annually. He presents the issues in an easily understood framework that many readers should find engaging and accessible. Although Bill Gates is surely a Democrat, it’s unlikely progressives will welcome his contribution. He dismisses Democrat orthodoxy by showing that the energy transition will be very expensive. He feels we should be motivated by the moral obligation to counter planetary warming because it will harm poorer countries the most. Rich countries can afford to manage rising sea levels (see Netherlands). Since the Gates Foundation is focused on disease and malnutrition in the developing world, his altruistic view isn’t surprising. And the moral argument is a respectable one. But it exposes the enormous political challenge in gaining popular support for higher domestic energy prices to stop, say, Bangladesh flooding. Last week Joe Biden rejected a French proposal to redirect 5% of our Covid vaccines to poorer countries until all Americans have been vaccinated. It was a minor acknowledgment of political reality. Few have the means or inclination to dedicate themselves to solving poor countries’ problems before their own. How To Avert A Climate Disaster reaches positive conclusions because it argues that current technology and innovation make solutions within reach. It provides policy prescriptions but deliberately avoids the politics. In many cases Gates calculates a “green premium”, reflecting the cost of converting transport, power generation, cement or steel production to be emission-free. Not surprisingly he favors a carbon tax to create price signals that fully reflect the externalities of burning fossil fuels. Renewables figure far less prominently than in the Green New Deal (see The Bovine Green Dream), a document Gates would likely view as fantasy if he didn’t studiously avoid such engagement. He illustrates the fundamental problem of solar and wind intermittency by considering the battery back-up a Tokyo 100% reliant on windmills would require to maintain power during a not-uncommon three-day typhoon. Even with optimistic assumptions about improved technology, the cost would be prohibitive. Gates concedes to have, “…lost more money on start-up battery companies than I ever imagined.” He knows a bit about the subject. Although efforts to curb emissions around the world generate enormous energy and press coverage, any actual improvements to date have come mostly from coal-to-gas switching for power generation (i.e. the U.S.) or last year’s drop in global economic activity due to Covid. U.S. energy costs haven’t risen noticeably, although California’s energy policies have managed to combine high costs with unreliability (see California Dreamin’ of Reliable Power). Gates believes poor countries should be allowed to increase emissions, since energy consumption is inextricably linked to improved economic well-being. “We can’t expect poor people to stay poor because too many rich countries emitted too many greenhouse gases” he argues from the lonely moral high ground. Reaching zero emissions by 2050 requires western democracies imposing substantial new regulation and costs on economic activity for decades. Meanwhile, the world’s building stock will grow mostly in poorer countries, requiring cement, steel and all the other emission-producing byproducts of human advancement. This construction will add the equivalent of another New York City every month for decades. Gates asserts that climate change will inevitably cost – inaction will lower GDP, and action will take lots of money. It’s well he doesn’t consider how governments will sell this to voters if an honest discussion ever occurs, because by comparison the technical challenges are more easily solved. Recognizing the political impracticality, Joe Biden instead disingenuously talks about “…tackling climate change and creating good union jobs here” (his emphasis). The technology already exists to capture the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels, whether to generate electricity (27% of global GHGs) or produce steel (manufactures also including cement and plastics in total are 31% of GHGs). Gates estimates that emission-free power in the U.S., to include gas and coal with carbon capture, would raise prices by 15%. The green premium to make ethylene (plastic), steel and cement without CO2 emissions would raise prices by around 12%, 23% and 110% respectively. We could already start implementing such policies if the support was there. But political leaders avoid such talk, recognizing that voters’ concern about climate change doesn’t include much tolerance for higher prices. An energy investor today has to assess plausible outcomes, ignoring the shrill rhetoric of climate extremists unburdened by the costs, facts and technological challenges Gates lays out. Emerging economies will continue to grow, feeding all the increase in global energy demand as they seek OECD living standards. Their GHG emissions will rise. How tolerant will western democracies be of rising costs for virtually everything while we save the planet and allow poorer countries to catch up? Bill Gates is an unfailing optimist – invariably the most pleasant posture for living. But your blogger found the comprehensive list of what needs to be done dauntingly improbable. Mitigants of the results of global warming are probably a better investment than betting on decades of extended selflessness by 1.3 billion OECD citizens, the rich world whose collective actions Gates believes will save all 7.6 billion of us. There are already bold options available. We could phase out coal. We could require carbon capture on industrial use of fossil fuels. We could use more nuclear, whose safety record per unit of power generated is unmatched. Instead, more solar and wind is the climate extremists’ mantra in spite of intermittency and the NIMBY challenges of building transmission lines to move power from sparsely populated solar and wind farms to population centers (see Review Of Russell Gold’s Superpower for an example of how hard this is). Burning less coal, carbon capture and compensating for renewables’ unreliability all support growth in natural gas demand. Gates argues against a shift to natural gas for power generation. He fears the 30-year life of a typical combined cycle power plant would embed its CO2 emissions for too long. It would show progress to 2030, while putting zero by 2050 out of reach. But if tangible results within the timeframe of election cycles are needed, it’s hard to see a better way. If in a decade that’s how things have turned out, Gates the pragmatic optimist will hail it as success. We should too.

Despite the importance of this subject, there are not many books that successfully bridge the gap between climate science and practical actions. Gates gives the reader a clear, comprehensive introduction to the actions he believes are necessary to achieve an effective global response. Gates pulls no punches, stating on the first page that humanity must achieve in the near future zero additional emissions of greenhouse gases. His recommended actions, if implemented, would affect many aspects of our lives, and some will no doubt be controversial. This book is chock full of interesting proposals, some possible now, others more speculative. I found the detailed descriptions of the specific recommended actions both informative and compelling. This book is not intended to be a scientific treatise about climate, and Gates gives references for those who want that. The book is also not about politics, and readers may complain that some (or many) of Gates' ideas are not possible in our deeply divided political situation in the US. One might also think that Gates has excessive faith in the power of human innovation. While all of these criticisms are to some extent valid, I view this book as a courageous effort to establish a global action program for the future, in order to prevent the immense disasters resulting from climate change. Gates' ideas challenge us to ask ourselves what kind of future do we want for ourselves and subsequent generations.

I’m am not going to disparage the messenger. The book is a worth while read and I would recommend everyone read it. The subject is complex, and the book does an excellent job of conveying that message. The problem for most readers is that B. G. is a visionary. Most of us can not imagine 50 to 80 years in the future, so the changes that the author proposed seem wildly impossible. Think about the changes that have occurred in America since the 1930’s--- most of us can’t even imagine what it was like to live then, nor would we want to live then. Our problem as a society is that we often want and expect change to occur overnight---the environmental problems that we face are long term, just like the fixes. As B. G. correctly points out, we must work on mitigation while we are in the process in developing the big breakthroughs. In fifty to eighty years the world will be an entirely different place. The important thing is, right now, we must do all that we can to mitigate the effects of climate change to the degree possible because we will be living with it for a long time.

Bill Gates presents an easy to understand argument for the different ways we can tackle climate change. I was expecting it to be dry and hard to follow, but it is the opposite. It's accessible, thought-provoking and entertaining at times. My 10 year old son listened to much of the audiobook with me and he understood most of it. This is a very important book and everyone should be required to read it! Reading some of the negative reviews on here it's obvious those people haven't read the book. So from someone who HAS read the book, do yourself a favor and buy it! I bought this as an audiobook and enjoyed it so much I had to get the print version too.

Waste of money and resources put into printing and distribution of this book. It is full of the same stuff we already know we need to do to mitigate climate change. Offers no real solutions other than waiting for younger generations to innovate them. Gates makes it clear his priorities and finances are committed to his foundation.

On one hand this book provides a good "climate change for dummies" explanation. In it Gates describes the process of global warming well enough. It is nice that Gates emphasizes the those populations that have least to do with incurring the damage are those who will pay the highest costs. But his view is crippled. He provides a narrow view of the kinds of innovation we need and that are occurring beyond the ones he likes. He is excited about nuclear energy as a necessary replacement for other energy sources, but ignores the inevitable and equally pervasive dangers of nuclear waste. I don’t know where he thinks it goes. He loves the idea of making everything electric, but I see no solid conversation of the problem of the batteries and where they go when we are done. He and his six rich friends love to hold ideological conversations about change, but he denies the fact that huge social and behavioral attitude shifts have to be effected in order for any progress to be made if we are to beat back climate change incurred by bad human behavior. We have to change the way we profit. We have to change how we build. We have to build less and build smarter. We have to defend wildlife areas foremost. We have to offer other options for success besides having more children. We need to make fewer children and we have to educate people in terms of how each of us needs to make some radical changes in the way we consume and live. We need make radical changes in economic paradigms. And finally we need to make creating waste extraordinarily expensive for large companies. If you want to make big profits, then you must pay the cost of the damage you leave behind or you should get shut down. Gates keeps saying you cannot effect these social changes. We fail until we do. He keeps saying “richer and better lives” which means more wild consumption which makes sense since we are talking about a guy that helped get us all addicted to hardware and software that hasn’t helped society except to expose us to more strangers and strange predatory behaviors. He is blind to the concept of learning to do without. Which I have seen people do the minute you explain why and how. People will change if you educate them, if you make them aware of the cost and the benefits of radical change. Gates gives us some examples himself in this book but cannot utilize the information except when he uses them as pieces of fun narratives. Read the first half and then put the book away. Fortunately you don't have to buy it to read it.

I was constantly amazed at WHAT VALUE is readily transmitted for money and time invested. I just cannot emphasize that enough. I've long sided STRONGLY with greenhouse reduction---but confess to NO real grasp of what needs ve done and in what order to what realistic ends practicable. THIS BOOK IS AN ASTONISHINGLY EFFECTIVE PRIMER for we who really desire some way to GET OUR HEADS AROUND THE CHALLENGES AND INTELLIGENT, INFORMED TARGETS AND METHODOLOGIES TOWARD SOLUTION. Please forgive the "Yelling CAPS". I'm trying to holler out to whom these words are precisely where they(we) KNOW we need to begin. I'm r e a l l y grateful Bill SO came through as this great read DOES. Thanks for excusing the style ;)

This book provides a flawed but still important presentation of the technological possibilities for fighting global warming. It makes a number of suggestions, the most important being that to fight global warming we should use nuclear energy in addition to solar and wind to replace dependence on fossil fuels. Bill Gates adopts an optimistic stance---he believes that it is possible for technological solutions to prevent the most dire consequences of global warming. Global warming is a consequence of population growth together with dependence on fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide which is in the process of warming planet earth via the greenhouse effect. Many essays and books have been written on this topic. Among the first was “An essay on the principle of population” by Thomas Malthus from 1798. Malthus might have questioned why life expectancies in much of Europe ranged from 30 to 40 years. He argued that the power to bear children was greater than the power of the environment to support those children, and hence the extra people would die from famine, pestilence or war. But the discovery and implementation of fossil fuels both increased living standards and allowed population on planet earth to explode. In 1898 the population of earth was less than a billion. It had doubled in 1921 when Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood which made available the technology of limiting births. It doubled again by 1968 when Paul Ehrlich published “the Population Bomb” which argued that people should strive for zero population growth. And it has doubled yet again. Current population of earth is about 7.8 billion. Cheap energy enabled not only population growth but higher standards of living, with life expectancies extending to about 80 years. Gates criticizes the Ehrlich argument, one might almost say he ridicules it. He points out that Norman Borlaug was able to increase food production and eliminate food scarcity as the binding constraint. But Ehrlich’s argument is surprisingly robust and almost based upon a quasi-mathematical theorem: No positive rate of population growth can be extended indefinitely. Indeed, 2% annual growth leads to a ball of human protoplasm expanding at the speed of light within an few thousand years. This defies the laws of physics. Moreover, the question arises: Why do we want so many people on our planet? At the current rate of 1.1% growth, the population of earth would be expected to grow to 15.6 billion by 2082. Is 15.6 billion better than 7.8 billion? If so, why? Gates simply ignores this question. A far better book is the one by Jim Hansen, “Storms of my Grandchildren,” which unfortunately paints a far bleaker picture of the possible consequences of global warming. Hanse, together with coauthors wrote the 1981 paper which first described how global warming might cause catastrophic climate effects on planet earth. The ideas in this paper gradually became accepted by the scientific community. We can look at global warming as a consequence of population growth coupled with reliance on fossil fuels. One possible outcome described in Hansen’s book is a totally lifeless earth by the year 2525. Why might such an outcome occur? The reason is that we may inadvertently set into motion various feedbacks which take climate change out of human control after various “tipping points” are crossed. For example, one such tipping point is the melting of the glaciers in Greenland. As the temperature rises, there will be a point at which this melting which start in earnest, and it may be that no amount of engineering can prevent it. This would result in a sea level rise of 6-7 meters which would flood many coastal cities. There is therefore some urgency in stopping global warming now. We have known about global warming since Hansen’s 1981 paper. How well are we doing in fighting climate change? The US has made some progress in wind and solar, with solar now about 2% of electricity production in the US, wind substantially more. Information for the last 30 years is available in graphical form from iea.org. We find that US and countries in Europe have made progress with renewables. But China and India have roughly TRIPLED their use of coal in the period 1990-2019. In other words, in spite of Paris Climate Accord and our attempts to expand solar and wind energy, we are falling behind. It is for that reason that I regard Gates’s suggestion that we spend more efforts on developing safe fission energy as so important. We need nuclear energy to help us transition away from fossil fuels. But we also need to be aware that population growth is part of the problem. This is largely a political problem, but still important. We are in a race between growing population and improvements in technology. Even modest efforts at controlling population growth, such as a recognition that it is morally wrong for families to have more than two biological children on an overpopulated earth, can help prevent the worst outcomes from global warming. And we should recognize that Paul Ehrlich made an important contribution. We would be far better off now if we had heeded his warning and worked to achieve zero population growth five decades ago.

Unquestioning acceptance that there is a disaster to avoid is just what those with political motivations are all too happy to exploit. Gates completely dispenses with any examination of climate change. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and while there are many 'solutions', there's little evidence or critical thought that they are actually necessary.

I’ve read a number of climate and energy books and would recommend this one for anyone new or old to the issue. It is incredibly informative, and his personal anecdotes and enthusiasm innovation make it a fun read. It's been interesting to observe Bill Gates' comments on climate change over time. IMO, years ago he seemed somewhat dismissive of the threat posed by global warming. From whatever point of view he began when taking up this issue, it seems to have helped him create this clear, focused, and concise climate book. Whatever you think to be true about Bill Gates, he may be almost the perfect person to write a climate book. He approaches this very objectively, asks all the deep and probing questions, and seems to insist on testing any assumption of the science, public perceptions, and technological readiness. He is also more willing to advocate for solutions that often quiet other leaders, such as advanced nuclear and meat alternatives. It probably doesn’t hurt that he in a position to do all this by virtue of the fact he has access to any expert in the world, can choose to do what he wants with his time, and is smart enough to digest it all. Anyone reading this book can clearly see that the author has thrown himself into this topic and made himself one of the leading world experts and thinkers on this subject. His honest reflections about his early thinking can seem almost naïve but is refreshing and helps make the book more interesting. I mean how many people with the author's level of knowledge of this subject (you will learn many things from this book) would admit to having been skeptical of energy conservation as one of the tools to reduce emissions? Hopefully this willingness to openly share his evolution of thinking will convince others that action is needed. Throughout, the book is incredibly comprehensive. I was most impressed and excited to see the focus on materials. A lot of people have given attention to emissions associated with the stuff we make, but I haven’t seen anyone outside of obscurity focus on plastics and related materials, an analysis that was spot-on in the book. Paying attention to this largely ignored, yet significant greenhouse gas polluting activity struck a chord with me and demonstrates how thoroughly this book is thought through and researched.

Those giving this book a five star review have correctly described it a good overview of possible means to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. What Gates seems to importantly avoid, however, is to predict how much these measures will cost; a common failure of most researchers and writers on the issues. Without knowledge of costs, even a range as there are great uncertanties on unproven technologies, we are unable to judge what level of spending is optimum, or even if the benefits which will be achieved will exceed the costs. And this cost issue is so important because the likely net zero costs, even if technologies are developed, are staggeringly large, perhaps twice the $5 trillion per year we now pay for energy.

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates lays out a framework for thinking about climate change and a systematic data-driven analysis of the climate crisis in his thoughtful, pragmatic, and must read book How to avoid a climate disaster: The solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need. He says “the core objective is to make sure everyone pays the true cost of their emissions.” Economists have known this for sometime and these are called negative externalities for which emitters do not pay. Because of this all the products we consume across the various sectors of the economy are cheaper than they really are. Moreover, he says “U.S. emissions would be about 8 percent higher if you included all the products that Americans consume but are made elsewhere. Britain’s would be about 40 percent higher.” To amend this, the global supply chain has to be greened and, more importantly, it must be reshored to significantly lower the emissions due to transportation of goods in global trade. To get from 51 to Zero as Gates says in his book, two things are clear: (1) the negative externality of emissions must be priced-in to the products we use through a tax on pretty much everything in the economy (such a tax would be a relatively small amount to pay to mitigate and adapt to climate change when compared with its economic and civilizational costs) which will significantly lower the green premium he uses as a metric and that tax revenue should be earmarked for investment in the green economy for future innovation and scaling to further lower the green premium, and (2) this should happen first and foremost in two countries to trigger the global shift to a green economy: China and United States which were responsible for 43% of global emissions in 2018. He quite rightfully lists the innovations we need to get to a zero emissions economy and is putting his money where his mouth is. In fact, his book is an offshoot of his work at Breakthroughenergy.org. His fellow billionaires Jeff Bezos with the $10 billion Earth Fund and Elon Musk with Tesla and the $100 million carbon removal XPrize have joined him to spark off the much needed fifth industrial revolution to save the planet from climate change. Even if we overcome the climate crisis, ensuring the sustainability of civilization is constrained by the steady depletion of natural resources – a problem that is only now beginning to get some attention with the concept of the circular economy – something no philanthropist (but for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation) is addressing yet.

I just finished reading the book and I'm feeling a weird mix of hopelessness and optimism. This is an excellent guide that breaks down all the areas that need attention. Electricity, growing food, making things, transportation and what a huge role the government needs to play in leading the way forward. So, Bill Gates, you wrote a wonderful book and I wish we could do all the things you outline and set them into motion this instant. I'm optimistic about the nuclear energy and I previously had no idea about what a dilemma making cement is and how much it's contributing. It's really overwhelming all of the things that need to change. How do we get such a divided world to work together with one goal that benefits the entire world?

Why tacitly accept that continued population growth is inevitable? What about strategies to reduce or even reach negative population growth? I think his casual dismissal of "the population bomb" is naïve. To avoid mass hunger and deprivation humanity has simply been exploiting oil to make more food and stuff. The population bomb is expressing itself as the climate catastrophe. Of course we should push for a zero carbon economy and improve efficiency. No sane person would argue against that. However, for any given efficacy level our environmental impact will be directly proportional to our average lifestyle multiplied by the number of people on earth. This is not to imply that things are fair, it's also true that there is an enormous disparity and unfairness in wealth distribution and that need to be addressed. But distributing wealth more fairly does not affect the trend with which population relates to environmental impacts.

I highly recommend Bill Gate’s new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster”. The world creates 51 Billion tons of Carbon Dioxide (greenhouse gas) a year. We must become Carbon neutral by 2050 to limit the damage caused by Global Warming. The book groups greenhouse producing activities into 5 categories. They are: Making Things (cement, steel, plastics) 31 % Plugging in (electricity) 27% Growing Things (plants, animals) 19% Getting Around (planes, cars, trucks, cargo ships) 16% Keeping Warm and Cool (heating, cooling) 7% Most people overlook about half of the above. Bill Gates lays out a high-level plan to get to zero carbon. We already have some of the technologies needed to reach zero carbon. Spoiler - Solar cells and Windmills by themselves are not enough! He also identifies areas where innovations and new technology will be needed. All in all, the book was both educational and enjoyable to read.

Bill Gates is not the place to look for an authoritative guide to good policy for countering the climate emergency which has had disastrous consequences already in many parts of the world. Some of Gates' advice, especially when it comes to agriculture, is far off-base. In many countries around the world, including the United States, industrial agriculture is ruining farming, polluting the land, air and water, and adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The Green Revolution ended famine in India in the 1950's and '60's and was a successful short-term stopgap, but its long-term continuation has had disastrous consequences for India. It is criminal to promote this outdated policy in other parts of the world. Recent agricultural science rejects the industrial approach to agriculture which has dominated much global policy for the last 60 years or so. Farms that have put scientifically-based regenerative and sustainable methods of farming to the test have been able to salvage land damaged or destroyed by industrial farming within a relatively short initial period. It has been successful even on large farms in a few countries (e.g. Australia) that have had the wisdom to try it. If the climate crisis is to be tamed, a widespread shift to sustainable agriculture is essential and should be a top priority in climate policy. On some aspects of renewable energy Gates' advice is somewhat better, and he sees the value of preserving existing forests and restoring coastal mangrove that has been removed. But some of his other proposals are questionable. He acknowledges that there is a crisis. But there is nothing about this book that contributes anything new to our understanding or provides new useful information about what is being done about the climate crisis.

The book entitled: “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need” by Bill Gates is a well written treatise on climate change worth purchasing and reading including actions needed. As an entrepreneur and capitalist now focused on giving his accumulated wealth to important world charities, Gates, with the aid of many acknowledged contributors writes a compelling outline of what the private sector and government should do in a coordinated manner to combat climate change. In a perfect world, one could speculate that the book should have been written by John Kerry, the new Climate czar but it still could be used as a road map for aggressive coordinated actions to be taken to control man-made climate change. Short of that, the book provides great technical detail and insight into a balanced approach to moving forward with both policy and technical actions. The main theme of the book is: “Fifty-one billion is how many tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year. … Zero is what we need to aim for.” The author states: “It’s hard to say exactly how much of America’s electricity will come from renewables in the end, but what we do know is that between now and 2050 we have to build them much faster—on the order of 5 to 10 times faster—than we’re doing right now.” The book also has a rational balanced approach stating for example: “In other words, fossil fuels are everywhere. Take oil as just one example: The world uses more than 4 billion gallons every day. When you’re using any product at that kind of volume, you can’t simply stop overnight.” Gates goes on to state: “Eventually it sank in. The world needs to provide more energy so the poorest can thrive, but we need to provide that energy without releasing any more greenhouse gases.” This book contains endorsements for several highly recommended readings that this reviewer has not yet read but suspects that the interested individual may wish to pursue reading them. The reader of Gate’s most comprehensive excellent book is forewarned and should be wary of several potentially misleading points or subtleties. Often the author himself points these out. Perhaps because he sees climate change as such a critical world issue, he has invested his own resources in not only writing this book but also investing in companies to contribute to solving the climate change problems; one therefore might be suspect of the potential for conflict of interest. Another more nuanced observation is that the book often slips from facts based upon past data to predictions about what the future holds. And while the book includes extensive notes at the end, the book does not make it apparent to the casual reader in the main text what is true and what is predicted, leaving the reader to trust the excellent salesmanship of the author to believe the points that he is making or sometimes trying to make. Gates writes a little about the Covid-19 pandemic (including our failure to prepare for it despite warnings) and how, while it did reduce greenhouse gases, it was not as much as one might have expected. To provide historical context, Gates states: “During the last ice age, the average temperature was just 6 degrees Celsius lower than it is today. During the age of the dinosaurs, when the average temperature was perhaps 4 degrees Celsius higher than today, there were crocodiles living above the Arctic Circle.” In terms of climate change challenges, the author goes on to remind us that: “Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas, but there are a handful of others, such as nitrous oxide and methane.” Gates goes on to state: “The 51 billion tons I keep mentioning is the world’s annual emissions in carbon dioxide equivalents. You may see numbers like 37 billion elsewhere—that’s just carbon dioxide, without the other greenhouse gases—or 10 billion, which is just the carbon itself. … Greenhouse gas emissions have increased dramatically since the 1850s due to human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. … So that’s the first part of the answer to the question “Why do we have to get to zero?”—because every bit of carbon we put into the atmosphere adds to the greenhouse effect. … There’s no getting around physics. Carbon dioxide emissions are on the rise, and so is the global temperature.” As illustrative of what is fact and what Gates predicts based upon the available scientific knowledge, Gates states: “What We Do and Don’t Know … One problem is that computer models are far from perfect. … The earth is warming, it’s warming because of human activity, and the impact is bad and will get much worse. … We’ve already raised the temperature at least 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times, and if we don’t reduce emissions, we’ll probably have between 1.5 and 3 degrees Celsius of warming by mid-century, and between 4 and 8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. … A hotter climate means there will be more frequent and destructive wildfires. … California is a dramatic example of what’s going on. Wildfires now occur there five times more often than in the 1970s, largely because the fire season is getting longer and the forests there now contain much more dry wood that’s likely to burn.” The author goes on to state: “If the temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius, coral reefs could vanish completely, destroying a major source of seafood for more than a billion people. … In the worst drought ever recorded in Syria—which lasted from 2007 to 2010—some 1.5 million people left farming areas for the cities, helping to set the stage for the armed conflict that started in 2011. That drought was made three times more likely by climate change. By 2018, roughly 13 million Syrians had been displaced. … In the next decade or two, the economic damage caused by climate change will likely be as bad as having a COVID-sized pandemic every 10 years. And by the end of the 21st century, it will be much worse if the world remains on its current emissions path.” Gates, in a chapter entitled: “THIS WILL BE HARD” states “… fossil fuels are everywhere. Take oil as just one example: The world uses more than 4 billion gallons every day. When you’re using any product at that kind of volume, you can’t simply stop overnight. … the amount of energy used per person will go up, and so will the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per person. … The global population is headed toward 10 billion by the end of the century, … We need to get to zero—producing even more energy than we do today, but without adding any carbon to the atmosphere—.” The author explains: “Another argument you often hear goes like this: Yes, climate change is real, and its effects will be bad, and we have everything we need to stop it. Between solar power, wind power, hydropower, and a few other tools, we’re good. It’s simply a matter of having the will to deploy them. Chapters 4 through 8 explain why I don’t buy that notion. We have some of what we need, but far from all of it. No single country wants to pay to mitigate its emissions unless everyone else will too. That’s why the Paris Agreement, in which more than 190 countries signed up to eventually limit their emissions, was such an achievement. Not because the current commitments will make a huge dent in emissions— but because it was a starting point that proved global cooperation is possible.” In order to separate the forest from the trees and focus on important issues, Gates goes on to articulate “Five Questions to Ask in Every Climate Conversation” and goes on to introduce the concept of “These additional costs are what I call Green Premiums.” as a method of identifying the short term costs of “going green” and goes on to state “You can imagine Green Premiums high enough that the United States is willing and able to pay them but India, China, Nigeria, and Mexico are not. We need the premiums to be so low that everyone will be able to decarbonize.” Writing in 2021 illustrative of the challenge, Gates states: “All told, fossil fuels provide two-thirds of the world’s electricity. Solar and wind, meanwhile, account for 7 percent.” In terms of options, the author writes that: “Small-scale solar can be an option for people in poor, rural areas who need to charge their cell phones and run lights at night. But that kind of solution is never going to deliver the massive amounts of cheap, always-available electricity these countries need to jump-start their economies. They’re looking to do what China did: grow their economies by attracting industries like manufacturing and call centers—the types of businesses that demand far more (and far more reliable) power than small-scale renewables can provide today. … If these countries opt for coal plants, as China and every rich country did, it’ll be a disaster for the climate. But right now, that’s their most economical option.” Gates states: “Germany produced about 10 times more solar in June 2018 than it did in December 2018. In fact, at times during the summer, Germany’s solar and wind plants generate so much electricity that the country can’t use it all. When that happens, it ends up transmitting some of the excess to neighboring Poland and the Czech Republic, whose leaders have complained that it’s straining their own power grids and causing unpredictable swings in the cost of electricity. ... completely decarbonizing America’s power grid by 2050 will require adding around 75 gigawatts of capacity every year for the next 30 years. … But more efficient panels and turbines aren’t enough …” In terms of “Making Carbon-Free Electricity and Nuclear fission” Gates writes, The United States gets around 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear plants; France has the highest share in the world, getting 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear. … In 2018, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed nearly 1,000 scenarios for getting to zero in the United States; all the cheapest paths involved using a power source that’s clean and always available—that is, one like nuclear power. … High-profile accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States, Chernobyl in the former U.S.S.R., and Fukushima in Japan put a spotlight on all these risks.” But goes on to state: “Nuclear power kills far, far fewer people than cars do. For that matter, it kills far fewer people than any fossil fuel. … Nevertheless, we should improve it, just as we did with cars, by analyzing the problems one by one and setting out to solve them with innovation.” The author explains in considerable detail that materials like steel and concrete generate greenhouse gases and how getting to zero requires attention to these processes. Gates explains: “In short, we make materials that have become just as essential to modern life as electricity is. We’re not going to give them up. … how we can keep producing these materials without making the climate unlivable. For the sake of brevity, we’ll focus on three of the most important materials: steel, concrete, and plastic.” Going on to provide some technical details, Gates states: “To make steel, you need to separate the oxygen from the iron and add a tiny bit of carbon. You can accomplish both at the same time by melting iron ore at very high temperatures … A bit of the carbon bonds with the iron, forming the steel we want, and the rest of the carbon grabs onto the oxygen, forming a by-product we don’t want: carbon dioxide. Quite a bit of carbon dioxide, in fact. Making 1 ton of steel produces about 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide. … To make cement, you need calcium. To get calcium, you start with limestone—which contains calcium plus carbon and oxygen—and burn it in a furnace along with some other materials. … Make a ton of cement, and you’ll get a ton of carbon dioxide.” Gates then moves on to discuss the significant tons of carbon equivalent gases created by agriculture, having earlier in the book explained some of the nuances of methane versus carbon dioxide gases. Consistent with part of this theme to tap into innovation, Gates points out: “In 1968, an American biologist named Paul Ehrlich published a best-selling book called The Population Bomb, … Ehrlich wrote. “In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death … None of this came to pass. In the time since The Population Bomb came out, India’s population has grown by more than 800 million people—it’s now more than double what it was in 1968—but India produces more than three times as much wheat and rice as it did back then, and its economy has grown by a factor of 50. Why? What did Ehrlich and other doomsayers miss? They didn’t factor in the power of innovation. They didn’t account for people like Norman Borlaug, the brilliant plant scientist … Starvation plummeted, and today Borlaug is widely credited with saving a billion lives. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970,” Illustrative of the incredible technical detail that Gates pulls together in this book: “All told, fertilizers were responsible for roughly 1.3 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, and the number will probably rise to 1.7 billion tons by mid-century... the American-style diet is responsible for almost as many emissions as all the energy Americans use in generating electricity, manufacturing, transportation, and buildings.” In terms of another important area of focus for reducing carbon, Gates writes: in “CHAPTER 7 HOW WE GET AROUND” 16 percent of 51 billion tons a year (total emissions to be eliminated) “Gas contains an amazing amount of energy—In the United States, gasoline is also remarkably cheap, right—gallon for gallon, gasoline is cheaper than Two Buck Chuck (Wine). … keep these two facts about gasoline in mind: It packs a punch, and it’s cheap. … The twin concepts of energy delivered per unit of fuel and per dollar spent are going to matter a lot as we look for ways to decarbonize our transportation system.” The author discusses at length electric vehicles, batteries and the success (or lack) in investing in battery technology.” He goes on to report: “The city of Shenzhen, China—home to 12 million people—has electrified its entire fleet of more than 16,000 buses and nearly two-thirds of its taxis.” And from a systems point of view, Gates states: “a typical truck running on diesel can go more than 1,000 miles without refueling. … Although electricity is a good option when you need to cover short distances, it’s not a practical solution for heavy, long-haul trucks.” Providing examples of government policies that worked, Gates reminds the reader that: “What’s now known as the Great Smog of London killed at least 4,000 people. …the 1950s and 1960s marked the arrival of air pollution as a major cause of public concern in the United States and Europe, and policy makers responded quickly. The next year, the British government enacted the Clean Air Act, which created smoke-control zones throughout the country where only cleaner-burning fuels could be used. Seven years later, America’s Clean Air Act established the modern regulatory system for controlling air pollution in the United States; … The U.S. Clean Air Act did what it was supposed to do—get poisonous gases out of the air—and since 1990 the level of nitrogen dioxide in American emissions has dropped by 56 percent, carbon monoxide by 77 percent, and sulfur dioxide by 88 percent.” And goes on to state: “we need the government to play a huge role in creating the right incentives and making sure the overall system will work for everyone.” The author summarizes: “Science tells us that in order to avoid a climate catastrophe, rich countries should reach net-zero emissions by 2050. … 2030 is not realistic. … there’s simply no way we’ll using them widely within a decade. … What we can do—and need to do—in the next 10 years is adopt the policies that will put us on a path to deep decarbonization by 2050.”

Bill Gates is doing a lot to make the world a better place. He doesn't just write checks. Instead, he literally rolls up his sleeves to solve problems as a generalist. Part of his success is to change his thinking when one approach doesn't work and he finds a better approach. Traditional philanthropy becomes too entrenched to do this. This book reflects his exploration into climate change, what he has done so far, and what we can all do to address it. Let me preface the rest of this review by stating up front I read this book and the corresponding Bjorn Lomborg book back to back with an open mind. My general take is that Gates gets the economics only partly right compared to Lomborg. On the engineering/problem solving they actually share a lot of the same views (even both telling the same story about Nobel prize winner Norman Borlaug's innovations to increase crop yields and prove the modern day Malthusians wrong); however, Gates (the engineer) is more concrete (pun intended) on the engineering issues. Why do I believe that Gates has it somewhat wrong on the economics? On the plus side, he doesn't treat climate change as a religious system along the lines of those parodied so easily by people like Shellenberger. Gates acknowledges the importance of alleviating poverty and improving health outcomes (especially in developing countries). Given his other philanthropy he is obviously concerned about these issues quite a bit. He certainly isn't saying "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" yet he fails to acknowledge that the tradeoffs between economic growth and climate change are as stark as Lomborg. Obviously, we need to assess this tradeoff as we go along (we will have better view of climate, economics, and engineering for the period 2040 to 2050 in 2030 than today) but Lomborg's assessment of the tradeoffs involved in achieving net zero 2050 seem much more compelling to me in arguing against net zero 2050 than Gates arguments in favor after reading both books. For those who haven't read Lomborg, he wants to address climate change but sees net zero as inhumane because of the delays in poverty relief necessary to achieve net zero as well as the potential for adaptation to alleviate some of the impacts. Gates also talks about the importance of adaptation but in a less optimistic manner. In addition, Lomborg talks about the positive effects of climate change that Gates largely omits (e.g., increased crop yields in certain geographies, decreased deaths from cold). These effects don't completely cancel out the negatives but need to be considered. On the engineering side, Gates does a great job explaining the types of decisions involved in addressing climate change sensibly. One could debate whether his view that moving from coal and oil to natural gas on a temporary basis is not a good way to minimize C02 but he explains it well in the context of net zero. Most importantly, he basically calls out as misguided people who only focus on solar, wind, and expensive electric cars made of freshly produced steel and powered by coal fired electricity as the whole solution. Some of the key messages worth heeding in this book are (1) addressing climate change will undoubtedly require cheap, safe nuclear power, (2) using a broader approach that catalogs the sources of CO2 and equivalents and addresses them all to varying degrees rather than a narrower approach only focused on a few sources will have a bigger impact, and (3) and encouraging lots of innovation from the private sector in developed countries can make it achievable and affordable. His chapter on government makes it clear that government can both help solve climate change problems and at the same time cause lots of problems. An example of the former is enabling carbon trading via cap and trade or otherwise and of the latter is locking in specific technologies and thwarting further innovation (as with heat pumps). He seems to be quite aware of the dangers of regulatory capture too. On balance this a good read for someone interested in the topic and he is to be commended for showing optimism for a way forward that will achieve some results.

I'm a quarter of the way through this book and I feel compelled to write a short review. I'll revisit it in due course. First and foremost, this book is clearly written by someone who is a very late arriver to the issue of climate change. Despite the enormous resources at his disposal, his analysis is superficial at best. The book is jam packed with terrible analogies and appears mostly aimed at newly woke billionaires, talking about the green premium on jet fuel. There are important messages in here. For example, we can't simply focus on emissions-related to energy/transport, for example. Yet even in doing so, the book flags process emissions from cement and overlooks the agricultural sector (at least so far). Meanwhile, some of the techno-commercial analysis is terrible. As one example, he calculates a green premium for electric power and then estimates the added cost of using battery storage assuming that you use as much energy overnight when the sun isn't shining as you do during the day. And - in doing this - he omits to deduct all the costs avoided by moving off grid (that pesky asset-intensive transmission and distribution network, remember). I should add that the book is refreshingly honest, documenting his slow awakening to the issues and bystander attitudes to them until recently. In this context, it's encouraging to read that he has divested from fossil fuels, but simultaneously shocking that he thinks this does not have any knock on impact on the industry. (Spoiler: I'm a finance guy - by divesting, he removes one more source of capital from the system, increasing cost of capital for fossil fuel companies and reducing it for green alternatives. Thus every divestment adds momentum to the forces for change, and hinders those that would hold back the clean energy revolution.) If this book attracts more attention to the problem amongst billionaires and inspires people that action is possible and can work, then it may serve a purpose. That said: save your money. Buy half a ton of carbon offsets instead.

I’ve read several books on climate change which were heavy on the environmental impact of inaction and light on the solutions. I found the reverse in this book. Bill mentions how we have to get to zero emissions by 2050 (and I like how he doesn’t sugar coat it as “goal” but instead states it as a non-negotiable must-do), but the focus of this book is on solutions. For me, this book was a page turner because every page was filled with such good information that was clearly explained and organized. This book is very readable and definitely not a difficult/scholarly read (it’s written for us normal people). The impending climate disaster (if we don’t correct it in time) is depressing. Before reading this book, I thought that all of us humans would have to collectively reduce waste, buy electric cars, install solar panels on our houses, etc. to have a fighting chance. While this certainly would help, Bill is a realist who seems to understand this will never happen and so he focuses on the scientific and industrial changes that need to happen. This makes me feel more hopeful, in a sense, because this seems more realistic than getting the world’s population to change their behavior in a time where we can’t even get everyone to wear a mask. I feel like Bill read tons of research and met with many experts and compiled the information he gathered into a comprehensive guide and high-level action plan. I give him an A+ on this assignment. I hope change will happen now that the man who warned us about our unpreparedness for a pandemic is giving us the same warning about climate change. I love Bill’s no-BS analytical style of writing. I like how he compares every solution to the stated goal (reducing green premiums to a viable level in order to have a chance of meeting 2050 zero emissions). This helped clarify and prioritize some things for me. For example, just getting everyone into an electric car is not going to solve our problems, and also how with some additional innovations, plastics could become the hero (carbon sinks) vs. the enemy. He also explained something I never realized before – I knew that steel and concrete were major contributors to CO2 levels, but I thought this was the result of the energy needed to make these products (not the actual byproduct or making them). The only critique of this book is that I wished he had talked more about how climate solutions also need to prevent further deforestation and reduction of biodiversity (I think he dedicated maybe one or two sentences to this topic). I also think he could have touched more upon the forces of the disinformation campaign (championed by the Koch brothers network of oil and gas) that delayed (and continue to delay) action for so long – these forces aren’t going away (and Fox news still has millions of viewers), and so every solution is going to have to account for this (and how? I still don’t know the answer). I think he doesn’t address this because it’s not the focus of this book. The focus is what we need to do and how we can potentially do it (and the rest falls into the vague category of “political innovations” that he mentions are also needed).

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and nobody should feel they should agree with Bill Gates just because he's Bill Gates, but some of the 1 star reviews are obvious agenda-driven commentaries. Bill Gates didn't do his homework?? Bill doesn't understand political gridlock? Come on folks, get real. He is a very smart guy, voracious reader and has been studying this stuff and talking to all sorts of people on the international political stage about climate and its impacts on different groups for YEARS. Not saying his word is gospel but dismissing it all with complaints like the ones above are pretty much absurd. Bottom line you need to understand what this book is (and isn't). It's not intended to be a scientific treatise / proof of all the kinds of things he's promoting, just a summary of what's most important. This book is a primer, typical mile-wide inch-deep (maybe 2-3 inches deep, a garden variety "dry flood" in Miami?) but it's going to be a good read for many voting citizens looking to get "the big picture" without having to nerd out on 500 page books specific to individual topics like solar efficiencies, carbon in agriculture, etc. While those books are important especially to policy makers and their staffs the average reader won't have the time or dedication. One of the things that is GOOD about this book is that Gates leaves all the far-left, far-right talking points NONSENSE out of the fold and instead focuses on educating readers on a variety of issues that are pragmatic concerns, not regularly covered by our sometimes lousy media. (Not lousy because fake but because media bosses care more about profits than detailed reporting - ever notice how each half hour of news is actually about 15 minutes of ads, 8-10 minutes of weather, sports, and "human interest" and 5-7 minutes of actual reporting on important events?) Another great aspect is that Gates provides an overview on the technology and carbon costs of making extremely important staples like concrete and steel, and about how we need to stop dismissing different types of nuclear power by over-stating the dangers (another easy way to tell if a climate author is trying to convince using emotion vs logic). He explains why we need devise a much more green approach to electricity generation overall (and other solutions relating to transport, agriculture, etc), while not denying developing countries some ability to use coal or gas on a limited basis. He echos other thoughtful authors in pointing out that we won't reach our goals with a bunch of wind and solar farms everywhere, and if we tried anyway, the amount of additional land use and species disruption would be HUGE. Many people don't realize just how damaging a wind-solar-thermal-only approach would be to overall ecology. Some is good, especially in developed areas where it can reasonably replace coal or gas plants (usually areas with smaller power demands) with minimal disruption (most of these areas will be coastal for wind, American SW / desert areas for solar). --------------- One flaw with this book is that it's not annotated, which could be part of the reason some people will be paranoid / skeptical about it, BUT I don't see anything here inconsistent with other good climate books I've read, including "Apocalypse Never" which covers a lot of important ground in debunking the far-left fear-mongering stuff, while simultaneously covering important topics like deforestation, selective use of nuclear (including developing safer kinds that will eventually cost less - Gates owns up where he has a financial interest), and farming efficiencies, in detail. In fact several of the two books' most important points are in common; another reason I trust Gates' conclusions here for the most part. Another minor flaw is that he doesn't spend much time on the #1 barrier we will face: human nature (greed, ignorance, clueless politicians on both sides, short-sighted solutions that are OK now but won't help 50 years from now). That said he does mention incentives at several points, alluding to the business mantra that if you want someone to do something, make it financially appealing to them in the long run. In the end it probably will be money that decides our fate, so incentives are not unimportant. Approaching this problem in a philosophically puritanized way (see US talk show circuit and regular cast of characters / influences) will never get us to our goals, only more fighting and minimal progress. One thing he did cover that I would like to hear more people in the media mention is that a crazy drive right now to get everyone into an electric car. This ONLY makes sense in the parts of (one's) country served heavily by one of: nuclear, hydro, wind, solar. If your house or office does not get the majority of its power from one of these sources, there is literally no climate benefit to getting an electric car or to paying that premium.

A thoughtful, careful book. I was afraid it would descend into "captain obvious" solutions, but instead it was skillfully researched, and pitched at a careful level just above policy wonk, with far more detail than popular treatments by journalists. Gates missed the diseconomy of coal plants: They are now becoming unable to compete with renewables in many areas. I think this hit after the book went to press, when interest rates went low, while wind, solar and batteries continued their fall in price. I was interested in the actual breakdown of our society's carbon footprint, especially the "cement problem." Ancient societies could not afford Portland cement either, (the fuel was too costly) and used large stone blocks, instead. I agree with Gates about the need for nuclear (a long standing interest of mine), but disagree with Gates about which -type- of nuclear to deploy. Gates fears proliferation of nuclear explosives. I welcome it, because I think it brought the long peace. I favor the conventional Korean Westinghouse AP1000 and AP1500 reactors ($2.03/watt of generating capacity when built by Koreans in Korea) and CANDU reactors, or if we want -advanced- tech, Nuscale, Holos or LFTRs (-much- cheaper). Gates wants a reactor with extreme features to prevent proliferation of nuclear explosives, and alas, wasted considerable investment money on it.

I thought it was a great book because it was written so I could understand it. It showed all sides of the issues, which I hadn't thought about. It gave me ideas of what I can do to contribute to saving Mother Earth. Mostly, it gave me hope.

The book is great to learn the topic of climate change from the perspectives of policy & government & big corps. But the contents of later chapters kind of repeat itself in the following chapters (in particular the five How to chapters). So I got bored as I went on. Overall it's a great book, I used to think climate change as a problem that should be taken action on individual scales, but Bill Gates looked it from top-down and believe the policy and government take the most responsibility. That's a good point, as we can't ask people to live a lower standard life, but is better to rely on technology transformation and policy change to improve energy efficiency, reduce emission, etc. The good part is that he used a quite plain language to explain all sorts of tech and non-tech terminologies. So very easy to read. One drawback is that we could not learn much about what we can do as an individual (he mentioned it briefly in the last chapter, which is the shortest chapter of all), but a good book does not have to include every aspect.

This is a must read book about a serious topic that humanity cannot afford to ignore. Don’t listen to the reviewers who are criticizing that the author himself is leaving a bigger footprint by traveling in jet and other things. That’s not the point. The author himself agrees on that and what he is trying to do is find the solution to our energy and consumption problems so nobody has to leave a footprint.

Bill has gone to a great length to write a very good book on how to avoid a climate disaster. His book is jam-packed with information, (which I think is the best part), the relevant how-to knowledges, the plans to tackle the problems and the exceptional thus required wiggle-rooms around those plans. All of them have to do with how to avoid/cope with climate change and its impending total disaster. His direction is to create the 100% clean energy use and 0% of the carbon emissions. This is because the energy we now use mostly comes from coal, oil, and natural gas and its use creates greenhouse gases; the chief one, which is carbon dioxide. These greenhouse gases cause global warming. My point here is we should create the clean energy movement and not the revolution because the violence and the destruction will not be worth it as will be talked about the how-to in the end. Bill states that right now fifty-one billion tons of greenhouse gases such as Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxide are added every year into the atmosphere. And as said before, greenhouse gases contribute to greenhouse effect and result in the warming of the earth incrementally. This could create increasing droughts and floods, and as I know, with no intervention, the earth will end up in total extinction of all living-beings or even worse as what Bill would call worst-case scenario. Bill writes in a personal, easy to read style, devoid of stuffiness in academic protocol. It makes his book more interesting to read. He's serious with his writing. He likes science a lot. His knowledges in all fields related are vast and deep. He's also brilliant for example in that he first orchestrates the things we do which are Making things, Plugging in, Growing things, Getting around, Keeping warm and cool and the climax of being smart is the problem of climate change comes from all these five activities and we need solutions in all of them. P.P. 54, 55 For the means to solve the climate change problem, Bill says we need to concentrate on markets, technology, and policy and in order for it to be effective, we need to tackle all of them at once and in the same direction. He also supports specifically nuclear energy which he says: "Nuclear is the only carbon-free energy source we can use almost anywhere, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." P. 190 How humans now are approaching the problem, Bill states in his One Last Thought chapter: "Unfortunately, the conversation about climate change has become unnecessarily polarized, not to mention clouded by conflicting information and confusing stories." P. 224 The goal of his writing this book is to spark more fruitful and productive conversations. As a part of that goal, he himself presents the plans which should lead to effective change in meaningfulness and also human adaptation. In various places, Bill seems highly concerned about the underdogs or the poors. As he says: "To sum up: Rich and middle-income people are causing the vast majority of climate change. The poorest people are doing less than anyone else to cause the problem, but they stand to suffer the worst from it. They deserve the world's help, and they need more of it than what they're getting." P. 169 Finally, I have an additional opinion that we should have a directly organized entity that leads the global warming movement. We can use anything such as USA government, or UN, or a big departmental division somewhere or in either of them. It will be good for directly hitting the problem. Bill probably could help leading that organization. He also could be right that we have to start from where we are and what we can do. Conclusion: we should do both, having a direct-hit organization and move forth from where we are. Useful website from the book: breakthroughenergy.org

This Bill Gates book on Climate has aroused an enormous number of reviews, most of them positive so I need not repeat these accolades here although I am firmly in the 5-star camp of a judgment of excellence. Instead, I focus on what is NOT in the book which can be revealing. Many complaints about climate change, in fact way too many of them, accuse climate scientists of being self-centered and following some sort of “party line” in order to win research money. Gates has traveled the world talking to scientists and engineers to gain the kind of inside information that is difficult for the rest of us to pick up first hand. Never once does he complain about scientists being members of an insider’s club that spew out false information in order to garner the acclaim and funding of their brethren. Gates is not a member of the club; he is not a climate scientist but instead is an entrepreneur who changed the world with a computer operating system. Now he and his smart wife spend BILLIONS of this accrued money helping mostly poor people in places like Africa. Something else not in the book is a lot of gritty scientific explanations of global warming. He knows this is unnecessary because the science is thoroughly worked out and can be found elsewhere. So, he trusts the science community and goes onto the next stage which is figuring out WHAT do we do about it? I find his choice of measurement and judgments of best approaches to be quite convincing. For this, I urge the book to be read and studied as it lays out a very good outline for what we all on planet earth need to do. This analysis is more like what you would hear in the boardroom and cafeteria instead of a conference of scientists. He examines what we as individuals can do, what investors and the world of private businesses can do, and very much what governments at all levels should do. Don’t miss this one!

Gates outlines a. much more comprehansive perspective than most on the breadth of the changes in manufacturing, building construction, and agriculture, and public policy that are as necessary as the changes in electricity and transportation systems that are making headlines this year. But some of his energy generation and transmission discussions seem to focus on solutions in search of problems that wind, solar, and storage systems have already largely overcome.

Who knew that making cement makes a lot of carbon dioxide? Bill does a thorough job of telling us where CO2 comes from and it will surprise you. Guess what: electric cars and solar panels are just a small part of the answer to our problem. Bill has lots of great ideas to eliminate CO2 emissions, but he thinks governments will do the right thing. I can't imagine many countries are going to do much of anything until the climate gets really really bad, like millions of people dying horribly. Wish I could be more positive.

Before buying this book I looked at the user reviews. The ones from the US gave the book one star and criticized Bill Gates for presuming to write about the subject. The reviews from outside the US gave the book 5 stars. From this I concluded that the negative reviews betrayed a bias against the topic in general and against the author in particular, so I bought the book & read it. Mr Gates may not be a climatologist, but he is highly informed on the topic, it’s consequences & the state of the art in its mitigation. Perhaps if a journalist wrote the book it would be less objectionable to some. I learned a lot and appreciated the author’s sensitivity to the political and financial barriers in addressing a looming climate catastrophe. My only criticism is that Mr Gates got a little repetitive, but I would recommend this book.

I would rather have my climate science and mitigation strategies delivered by real climate scientists rather than a billionaire who gave us the Windows OS. The proposals in this book are weak and full of pitfalls that are poorly described. It is unfortunate that Gates considers himself adequately informed to write such a book. This is a version of the Dunning-Kruger Effect that is common among the highly educated in a particular area. They believe that their expertise in that area affords them special insight into other fields.

Climate change is a serious but complex topic, which is unfortunate as it’s hard for people to invest time to understand it well. This book has educated me on the topic and I hope it will do so for many more people. Gates has laid out an ambition goal: that we need to reduce the 51 Billion tons of greenhouse gas to zero fast to avoid a climate disaster. The whole book is structured around this statement, from why zero has to be the goal, what makes up the 51B, and tools we have/need to bring it to zero. The book also strikes a great balance between supplying a wealth of facts without making it too academic to follow. Finally, the tone of the book invokes enough concerns and attention but also supplements with optimism and actions we could take to help. It got me thinking about how I could use my background to make an education game on climate change, to contribute to the beautiful world that has given us so much.

The book reviews the science of climate change, several technological options to mitigate its effects and several political options. There are no references to scientific sources, and the book suffers from some factual errors. For example, on page 28 the author says that “… sea level will go up. This is partly because polar ice is melting.” But when an iceberg that resides in the sea melts, the sea level does not change. Only the melting of icebergs residing on the continent and the water go to the sea are relevant to the sea level. Still, the book presents many interesting ideas, mainly about start-ups that develop technologies that are supposed to mitigate the effects of climate change, in an easy-to-understand style.

Begin by reading Pages 233 - 236 first and then proceed to page 3 (the introduction). This book is an OPPORTUNITY to become acquainted with a well presented assembly of (i) present day capabilities, (ii) up and coming innovations, (iii) a bedrock of common sense public policy and (iv) wise suggestions for R&D. Gates and the many who helped make this book possible are providing a wealth of puzzle pieces, orderly but not assembled. Sure, there are, in addition, practices, technologies, creativity and [other] wishes which this book could have included. THE TAKE AWAYS from this well written book are that there is no one answer and this book is a good “How To” to do something - - walk the walk - - for each and everyone. Waste no time on those who will only cry or sadly deny. Choose to be involved. This book is a gateway!

All roads lead to the same problem sources, and one of them is the emission of greenhouse gases. Bill Gates' compelling scientific explanation of negative climate change and a way to solve the problem is a must read for anybody who values life on planet Earth. Slapped in the face with indisputable adverse effects already, climate change is real and must be addressed on massive scales, what Gates' calls the biggest job ever attempted. He details both the problems and the solutions, and pleas for stepped-up efforts from inventors, engineers, governments, and the average Joe. Rather than stop consuming, Gates recommends cheap and clean--and universal--energy distribution and the application of smart technological solutions as well as behavior changes. Author Scott Campbell

You can tell Bill Gates has been in the Foundation business for the last 20 years. 90% of the book is about how we got here and 9% is "solutions" and 1% is a short discussion about technological change and developing different solutions. It also shows the ignorance of the current ECO-WARRIORS as the only cover 50% of the issues, even with the GREEN NEW DEAL. This book actually shows the stupidity of the GND, which got it 2 stars.

This is an interesting book and Bill Gates effectively points out the urgency of the problem. Then he explores several areas where changes are necessary and points to technologies that will help solve our crisis, nuclear and wind, being primary. He aims toward 2050 as the point where we must be “climate neutral”, without emissions, and calculates the cost disadvantages of alternative energy sources. I have one problem with the book and it’s a major one. Except for two examples of successes near the end of the book, photovoltaic generation of electricity is almost ignored entirely. Mr. Gates seems to make the assumption that electricity should be generated at single points and delivered to homes and businesses by transmission lines. In my view, that is long term unacceptable. Mr. Gates does admit that photovoltaic panel cost has dropped about 90% recently, but apparently feels that photovoltaics are not a viable option to make be significant part of the solution to climate change. It may be that he does feel that they may be but doesn’t really say so. That's an important lack. The book is good – as far as it goes,- but Mr. Gates’ assumption that power lines are necessary and neglect of photovoltaic does a lot to damage the good points he made.

The message is clear and vital: If we don't act - and decisively - SOON, our planet will become toxic to a degree that is irremediable during the reign of our species. Gates is a credible source. My only gripe was in the style of writing: sometimes repetitive and frequently too elementary, often to the point of condescending. Also, Gates somewhat glibly assumes that because he - and, he hopes, his readers - now understand the urgency of the matter, so, too, will the likes of China and India. One of the chief gripes one hears from climate nay-sayers is that even if the U.S. goes to painful lengths to clean up its own act, we will have only scratched the surface of the global problem - and to our own competitive detriment at that! Gates' (presumably accurate) insistence that the fact that we must act because we simply cannot fail to do so will also motivate the other areas of the world to follow along seems unrealistic. I did not find a cogent answer to the key question of HOW we get the world to do what it must. Nonetheless, READ THIS BOOK. We can only advance if enough of us understand the problem and some of its solutions.

Gates does a very good job explaining the nature of the problem and suggesting solutions. His arguments are very clearly, succinctly and simply put forth. Oddly, however, he doesn't touch on the problem of 1st world over-consumption, instead taking it as a premise that climate measures must aim to facilitate the developing world's catching up to our levels. Nowhere does he mention that gigantic expenditures on health care which are increasingly gobbled up by treating the worldwide problem of obesity could be redirected towards the mitigation strategies he suggests. In discussing the climate impact of food production, he doesn't address the reality that an increasing proportion of the population of industrialized nations is responsible for over-consuming what comes out of the food pipeline. This is to the detriment of nations that struggle to feed their populations, and fuels the very same global warming impacts he describes. Overall, this book is a very a propos treatise that is very easy to read and comprehend. It should be part of everyone's reading schedule.

I liked that he used the word “disaster” to describe this crisis. “Warming or change” do not do it justice. I missed a clear accounting of the cost of doing nothing, since money rules over everything, people must be shown that the cost of doing not enough will be larger than any expenditure to deter and delay what is coming. We are already seeing costs mount up due to hurricanes, wildfires et al. The other that needs to be clarified is that since carbon emissions last for a long time, the current leaders of the polluter tables, China, India , are dwarfed by the accumulated emissions of the USA, obviously. Obvious to some, but not all, I fear.

I’ve been an environmentalist before Earth Day was invented. I’ve read several books on climate change and this is the best. Bill Gates has written a hopeful, optimistic book on how we can sensibly approach and contain the problem of climate change. I recommend this book. Now for the caveat. He chooses to ignore the stresses that unchecked growth are placing upon our planet. For example, he attacks Paul Ehrlich’s book “The Population Bomb” because Ehrlich did not foresee that synthetic fertilizers and crop engineering would prevent the massive famine that was predicted in his 1968 book. The facts are that from the beginning of human time (at least 100,000 years ago) it took us until 1800 to reach a population of 1 billion humans. In the next 221 years an additional 6.9 billion humans have been added to the planet. At present an additional 80 million people are being added each year. Dr. Erlich did not foresee the improvement in food supply but he was not wrong about exploding human population growth. Bill Gates states his love for fertilizer. I agree that synthetic fertilizer is a great product of Innovative human technology and its invention has played a huge role in preventing human starvation. Yet there is no mention of how the increasingly widespread use of fertilizer has led to more fertilizer runoff into our streams, water supply, and oceans. Climate change is not the only side effect of a continually increasing human population. It bothers me that this book seems to be part of the “Growth is good” culture – the big “G” culture. This culture believes that we humans can increase our numbers indefinitely and Innovate - the big “I”- big G’s cousin - ourselves out of any mere earthly limits. This Growth culture always conjures up for me an image of a future human population existing in plastic rabbit warrens (with or without high speed internet connections) on a depleted and polluted planet. Again I do recommend “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” for its optimistic, honest, methodical discussion of climate change. However, I would like to recommend two very good books that address the “Growth is good” culture: “Countdown” by Alan Weisman and “2052” by Jorgen Randers. Both books make compelling arguments that - like it or not - there are real planetary limits on how much Growth we humans can put upon planet earth. Bottom Line: Being a responsible citizen I can foresee on some future day happily driving my all electric car down the road to get the best tasting char-grilled Veggie Burger ever - as Bill Gates recommends: just don’t tell me a good way to get there is down highway “G”.

Disregard the review that claims Bill Gates hasn't studied climate science. The reviewer is an oil industry pawn spewing agenda driven propaganda under the veil of science. This isn't part of the rational dialogue regarding Climate Change. It's simply unethical blather designed to maintain the status quo. Shame on those who muddy the water in this way on such an important subject. How To Avoid A Climate Disaster offers a way to tackle the mega challenge of Climate Change. Some of it is admittedly theoretical, and it acknowledges that there are lots of questions yet to be answered. However, that's the nature of innovation, which is required in a big way for creating supportive alternatives to curb our carbon emissions. Bill Gates is one of the most brilliant problem solvers of our time and this book is the best roadmap to potentially turn this dire situation around. His ideas come from his own analysis of data and cutting-edge computer models, as well as dialogue and cooperation with the best science minds on the subject. Of course, there is the reality of many people still denying climate change is real and caused by human activity. Political and industry agendas are often counter to sustainability of any kind. Then there is the fact that achieving the scale of global cooperation necessary for success is a very idealistic aspiration. However, the alternative is to give up, or justify the status quo until it's too late. Historically speaking, too late is nearly here. There is always hope and the human spirit though! This book comes from a man who is demonstrating his pure motive, humanitarian heart, and is among the greatest philanthropists the world has ever known. I bristle at the ones who take cheap shots accusing Bill of profit motives. He's working hard to give away one of the largest fortunes ever created, to help others. Enough said on that. Combine Bill's uncanny ability to solve complex problems with the desire to help in a genuine way, and you have what clearly seems to be our best hope to effectively deal with Climate Change. It's a great book, well written, and this information is presented in a way that's easy to take in. I do feel better for the educational value, and as they say, knowledge is power. Stopping the devastating effects of Climate Change is possible and our future is in our own hands. Time will tell what's going to happen. Meanwhile, enjoy your days because that's what this life is all about.

I wanted to better understand the background to Bill Gates' views after watching a CBS interview. Having retired from a lifetime of activity in the high temperature industrial combustion marketplace I have an intimate knowledge of many of the high-fuel-consumption and thus "high greenhouse gas potential" processes. I am concerned about the implications of legislation upon them. While I do expect that some, perhaps many, of the established process could be converted to electricity, the amount of process reengineering and equipment reconfiguration/replacement is huge, not to mention all the issues associated with the generation and distribution of that power (it's beyond my belief that wind, solar, wave and geothermal can produce what we need and I am convinced that we must have more nuclear power). I bought the book hoping to be able to crisp up my views and make me better able to verbalize and debate them. I feel satisfied that it has done so. It's also my springboard to further reading as its overall positions are closer to mine than I expected.

This book broke down the complexities of how to solve global warming and climate change. The components are many but each are broken down in a smilar manner making it easier to see the if/then results. The paths to address complex solutions are outlined. Making the right choices required world-wide cooperation with governments, R&D and industries. Choices of all people as well to help do their part to reduce emissions is also critical. Gates did a great job describing the problems, offering potential solutions and encouraging us all to work together because we have to NOW.

Love Bill's writing about his leadership in investing in direct air capture technologies and other air mining solutions. Carbon Engineering is one of his investments he mentions, they use direct air capture technology to pull carbon from the air and turn it into fuel. Really futuristic stuff! I appreciate how Bill frames climate solutions around doing more with the energy we have, rather than limiting or scarcity. Congrats Bill, and looking forward to more leadership from you in mining carbon from the air.

Bill Gates gives a level-headed, unbiased view of how to solve the climate crisis, or at least mitigate it. Most of the book is on existing engineering solutions to the problems and on the R&D that we still need. He focuses on what actions are most important, rather than just what is politically trendy. I was surprised that the manufacture of cement and steel was so crucial. I also learned that nuclear fission technology will be a key part of the answer, not only for power generation but also for propulsion of container ships. A lot of improvements have been made in nuclear over the last 50 years. Although nuclear waste is still an issue, it is preferable to the carbon dioxide waste which is now destroying our planet. Gates also describes the consequences of climate crisis for the poor all over the world and how we can help them. It is a brilliant book on the problem of our century and well worth reading.

Bill Gates tries, and I think successfully so, to educate the general reader as to the enormity of the energy problem as it contributes to global warming. He does a good job bringing home the deep, entwined, challenge of the grand question with all the ensuing economic, social, and political considerations involved. If nothing else this book is worth the effort --and it will take effort-- so as to allow a reader to stand back and realize that there is much work to do. To his credit he does not get too political in his diagnosis or prognosis of the matter. Any reader should consider taking the initial posture that this book is valuable as a primer as to the facts of the matter so as to become prepared to assess proposed remedies (and there will be many proposals of all persuasions in all directions) as they develop over time.

While I know how to say phrases like "Global Warming" and "Climate Disaster", I really knew very little about what causes the problems other than "carbons releasing into the atmosphere". Due this lack of basic understanding I didn't really have a way to determine if there was a problem and/or how bad it is. This book was a very good primer for me. I was able to see, very clearly, what the key causes of global warming were... and that alone was very surprising. The costs to overcome the problem of global warming, as you can imagine, will take a long time and will cost the US and the world plenty. The book was well written and laid out so that any of us can understand the enormity of the problem. As you might imagine there are no counter arguments presented in the book, although I didn't expect any. With that said, the book provided me with the data and science behind the argument for global warming and how the country needs to approach it. I would recommend the book to anyone that wants to better understand the issues and be able to talk somewhat intelligently about the subject. To further our knowledge, we'll still have to dig deeper to fully comprehend the issues and how to handle them.

Gates has produced a highly readable and down-to-earth book about what new tech we need to save us from ourselves. One thing I especially appreciated is that he doesn't overlook the role that our diets play. Gates makes clear how tech to reduce our reliance on raising/slaughtering animals for food is as needed as clean energy tech. I learned a lot from reading the book and recommend it to anyone who wants not just to lament what we're doing to the planet, but wants to actually solve the problem.

I agree with most of what Bill Gates has written. I appreciate how he breaks down the different contributing sources of global warming. However, I'm very frustrated that Bill Gates failed to mention anything about regenerative agriculture, permaculture, grass fed beef, and people such as Allan Savory, Joel Saladin, Paani Foundation...etc. These ideas and people have made significant improvement on people's lives in remote parts of the world, while fighting climate change at the same time. Please watch movies such as "Kiss the ground" or Allan Savory's TED talk and educate yourselves on these topics too. Fossil fuel to corn to cow fart is not the same as air to grass to cow fart.

A decent primer on potential "solutions" for global carbon emissions. However, flaws are apparent if viewed through the lens of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. I'm want to believe that Mr. Gates understands these laws. As a result, I consider him a hypocrite ("imperfect messenger", his words, is a gross understatement) for flying around the planet in a private jet. In addition, there's a bit of a shell game on subject of transportation as he switches "control volumes" between the US and the world.

Good read, well written. Every bit useless as Al Gore’s book. Number one problem is that we are in denial about climate change and it’s causes. Until we get over denial, nothing can happen that will help reverse green house effect.

Great guide for the average person to understand the enormity of the problem as well as the bold thinking that is needed to bring our planet back into chemical balance. Mother Nature can do a lot of the job, if we let her. Over the love of the human race, the earth could handle us. However as we humans developed and got "smarter", and were able to develop food supplies, transportation, electricity, engines, and dealt with all of the things that have enabled the earth to have more than 7 billion people, Nature is exhausted. The key is to be able to help Mother Nature along while still providing modern humans with the ability to live. This could be an impossible task, but Bill Gates is willing to state the bold moves that are needed.

I enjoyed Bill's book very much although there is no one panacea he can offer. This book provided a comprehensive understanding of different issues. It looks into not just environmental perspectives but also economic and social justice. Bill laid out all the issues and how they are interlinked and affect each other. This is not only a global issue needing great ideas in policy, technology, science, and many others but also, more importantly, each of us to be responsible and to do the right decision within our means. Avoiding climate disasters is a collective effort, each of us needs to be a hero in our own right. There is no group, government, company, or any other entity on earth that can single-handedly save humanity from it.

This book provides a basic but foundational understanding of the inputs that drive the world economy, and how we can scale to meet our rapidly growing needs. Whether you believe in human-created climate change or not (you probably should), these are the breakthroughs we need to take our civilization to the next level. We arent going to advance far by using legacy energy sources like coal and oil, and eating animal products only vs new food technologies that will -- over time -- will product better tasting and heathier options. People forget that we are so early in the product lifecycle for many of these categories- or they are are worried by what they don't understand. Let's use this book and other science to push our civilization forward.

I teach a class on climate change for the Osher Institute (continuing ed for the over-50 set) at my local university, and recommend this to my class as an excellent and non-threatening way to learn about how we as a society and individuals can deal with the realities of climate change. In general, the book is technically accurate and easy to understand. It also strikes a good balance between the severity of the problems existing and future of climate change, and cogent explanations of how we can mitigate or live with those problems. Kudos to both Gates and his writing assistants - they have produced an instant classic.

I did not expect this book to convey so much information. There is a wealth of history as well as useful information. It’s also written without politics or far leaning in any direction rhetoric. In fact it is thoughtfully written with ideas anybody can use to help with climate change. This book tells it like it is without seeming like a total doom and gloom essay. It also tells about some of the work the Gates Foundation is doing that you might not have heard about. A great book for anyone to read who wants more information about climate change presented in a reasonable manner with a lot of background information.

Gates has the knowledge, intelligence and moral will to summarize what our citizens and governments need to do to avert climate disaster. He poses the questions and suggests our options in a straightforward, digestible way. Any high school student can get the gist of his argument. You may disagree with some of his solutions, but you will be impressed by how he diagnoses what needs to be urgently addressed.

Bill does a nice job simplifying the complex landscape and breaking it down into a relatively simple way of thinking about the challenges of tackling climate change. A big part of the problem is that there isn’t just one winning solution or deployment, and it’s therefore difficult for people to know when and where to invest. The fact is, many of the solutions we need are already out there today and a lot of his suggestions are actionable now, but policy change needs to be accelerated. I hope this book can help guide us all to advocate for meaningful policy change.

This book could be read by high school kids - well organized and written to be understood by anyone new to these problems. He offers practical advice and honest opinions. As a quick overview of the most probable solutions this is a great place to start. (I can see that he is already being politicized here in these reviews by some climate deniers eager to draw attention to themselves and people just resentful of his wealth.) My only concern is that he may be overlooking some recent advances in hydrogen production and distribution. But this is a foot note.

Have tried reading books on Climate Change previously which have been more of doomsday notes rather than explaining to the reader what global warming is all about and what the impact is likely to be. Bill Gates has gone and step further and tried to provide solutions. Some might say that the solutions are a bridge too far and that the author is naïve. To me it is better to provide solutions to a problem rather than be the one who focuses on problems to a solution. Definitely a good read for those wanting to understand about this very critical issue and more so as we face the COVID-19 pandemic.

good, but strongly disagree with the part about geoengineering being a good idea. also, i think planting more trees for natural co2 capture has a bigger impact than the book wants to imply (time to recalculate, also taking into account adaptive thickening of leaves, etc.). also, i'm not so sure about thorium. also, efforts towards nuclear fusion need to be tripled. overall, nice companion to david mackay's book.

I didn't like his writing style, nor his optimistic view that we have until 2050 to correct the problem. Cimate Change is Now! We'll be lucky to avoid more severe cataclysms by 2030 if we act now! The book is overrated. Mister Gates is not versed enough in climatology to be expressive writer!

I recommend this book to all people who are interested in this subject and need hope for the future. He gives suggestions to individuals, businesses and governments to develop strategies and implement them. This is a must for our grandchildren’s future. I may not live long enough to see these changes but my grandchildren will.

If anyone has any doubt that climate change exists, Bill Gates will eliminate that doubt! We all must start working towards getting to a society where we stop spewing carbon & methane into the air & we develop enough new forms of sustainable green energy sources to totally eliminate fossil fuels!

The book is excellent, except that it doesn't discuss putting solar PV systems on your roof. Is there some problem with installing solar on your roof? I think that should certainly be one of the actions normal people can take to make to help stop global warming. It doesn't even take any extra space or additional transmission lines. We need more electric power so why not encourage people to put more clean power generation on their roofs. This is a glaring omission - home solar should either be promoted or if there is an issue with installing solar on your roof, it should be discussed.

Gates does a good job of explaining the critical issues and needs in the quest to carbon neutrality. I highly recommend this book to folks who are new to the space and curious to understand what it will take to get to net zero carbon emissions. I give this book 4/5 because I think Gates writing style is not especially compelling. While it is not the most beautifully written piece, it is sufficiently cohesive and a necessary title for anyone looking for a holistic understanding of the climate challenges of our generation. This is possibly the best overview you can find if you are seeking an introduction to climate issues with a modern, broad-based approach to solutions spanning from technology to policy.

This book not only presents the problem; more importantly, it presents numerous ideas on how to solve the problem. I already knew some of the material, but I learned a lot about the breadth of possible contributors to the solution. People interested in the environment and in learning more about how we might possibly avoid the climate crisis should read it!

What I liked: Gates’ book helps present what we need to do to tackle global warming. The book provides easily referenced information for anyone interested in getting involved and helps orient towards next steps. Gates’ voice in this conversation is very important. Especially on why we need to do more for energy poor countries. Or why decarbonizing “how we make things” is so important. What could help: much time is spent on Green Premiums and only later pricing externalities comes into play. Missed opportunity in my mind. Also I think that volume and price (reduction) considerations could help the pitch to do more quickly. Tony Seba argues, for example, that solar, storage, IT/energy management and electric vehicles will be mutually reinforcing to ensure rapid scale. Also, more attention could have been spent on how we need to design for continued use, like for plastics (cradle to cradle or circular design). Final take: would recommend reading this book. Strong and positive narrative.

Of all the books I've read about the climate change crisis, this is the clearest and most sensible of them all. The notion of the "green premium" will now become part of the climate change conversation in a way that it hasn't before, coupled with centrality of innovating our way toward avoiding the worst case climate change futures. One of Bill Gates' most important contributions to our world (of many).

Bill does a great job laying out all the sources, issues and alternatives, but I just don't think the 100's of countries and billions of people will ever be able to come together to accomplish such an overwhelming task. He writes that geoengineering is a "last resort" solution, but I'm afraid it is going to be the "only solution". I just hope we do the research necessary to make it a viable alternative.

Gates was ignored when he warned of the potential of a pandemic and the need to prepare for it. 550,000 Americans died. He said the climate crisis is much, much worse and harder to prevent. Bill Gates makes the climate crisis clear. He clearly spells out the the need to get to 0 green house gas emissions by 2050. He then describes what it will take to get there. This is the clearest exposition of the situation I have seen.

Bill gates does a great job of explaining why climate change is an issue and what steps we need to take as a society to get to carbon neutral by 2050. He intertwines the needs from the economic, political and scientific perspective. Very interesting how everything is connected. And he clearly is very worried about the poor who have so much to lose for climate change yet have caused the least. Climate change is a very comped problem that he breaks down very well. Hgihky recommend. We need more people informed on climate change.

Bill Gates gets a lot of criticism for speaking of climate change due to his expertise in software. Bill Gates is very knowledgeable about climate change. I had little knowledge before reading this book. After reading his book, I am more aware of climate change and am willing to do what I can to support my community, state, country and world to reduce carbons in our atmosphere.

The macro-economic overview was a great place to start. Gate's apparent ignorance of this topic for the past 50 years was surprising. His failure to explain the opposition forces to change, in any meaningful way, was very disappointing.

I like the easy to read style of this book, with clear objectives (51B to zero), useful numbers (e.g. making electricity contributes 27% to the emission) and practical plans across government, private sectors and individuals. He is clearly optimistic this can be done if we collaborate together at an unprecedented scale. Also supplemented with reference to COVID impact. Highly recommended.

A very well written account of our climate crisis and ways to resolve it. The goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 51 tons per year to zero by 2050 is ambitious but necessary. A must read for everyone who loves our planet and important information for climate deniers, some who still believe global warming and climate change are a Chinese hoax!! We have to reduce our carbon footprint and rely less on fossil fuels to make the world more livable for our children and grandchildren.

Bill Gates lacks the courage to suggest worldwide veganism to end animal CO2 and methane emissions. He also advocates nuclear power for its reliability, but ignores the problems of nuclear wastes disposal. On balance, a book worth reading, but as some critics point out, how can he preach when he lives so lavishly in a huge house and uses a private jet.

I was surprised how good of a job Bill Gates did in taking all of the technical issues and converting it to metrics that novices can understand. I felt like I learned a lot. If I had one complaint is that he often says, "I'll be covering that later or I'll be covering that in ...." So I wish he would just have some quick reference instead.

This book provides all the information that is needed not only to understand where we are but also to help understand how we might get to where we need to be in solving the climate crisis.

I agree with some of the other reviews that this book does not go into much detail on the overall issues, but I enjoyed reading it and definitely learned a lot about the state of climate change right now. Anyone who is looking to learn a bit about what causes the immense amount of carbon that goes into our atmosphere can read this book.

Great book, but leaves out a lot of messy details. By feeding the world, we lost substantial crop diversity. With COVID we see how propaganda undermines public policy. There are many who have short term interests that are trying to undermine climate policies- they must be dealt with to have a chance of success.

the knowledge available to Bill Gates about what we have and what we need to do to avoid climate catastrophe needs to be more generally AND continually made available to the general public. Many people are brainwashed by Trumps anti-scientific nonsense and his irresponsible claim that concerns about the climate are a hoax. This thoroughly incompetent man needs to be exposed to more and more Americans for what he is: A thorough danger to American democracy and its future. Dr. Gertrud Lenzer Professor Emerita, Sociology and Children's Studies The City University of New York

If one accepts the facts presented as valid (and I have no reason to think otherwise) it is impossible (for me at least) to argue against the position the author has taken. Who needs to read this book: every world leader. Every member of every nation's ministry, cabinet or politburo. Every member of the US Senate and House of Representatives and their legislative equivalents worldwide. Gates' thought process brings the reader (this one at any rate) to the inescapable conclusion that each of us needs to act. Each of us will have a different take away. Mine is that the world is going to have to get used to re-embracing nuclear energy as THE primary source of the world's future needs for electricity.

Excellent, quick read on areas contributing to global warming and some possible technology solutions. The policy recommendations seemed a bit naive but are still important to understand.

Unlike any other public figure, book or content about climate change, the book focuses on how WE CAN TRULY SOLVE the problem of climate change. Bill presents the big picture of the problem and offers solutions for every single part of the problem taking in consideration all the parties involved and realistic actions each person, community, country can do. Its terrifying to know that we have only been focusing on a small fraction of the problem which are cars and clean energy and have overlooked other parts that where we still have a long way to go. The way this book is written reminded me to David Mackay book Sustainable energy. Highly recommend this book, although Bill is biased to solutions where he is invested as plant based burgers and nuclear energy.

This book arrived with a sticker on the front cover. It won’t come off. Annoying when you treasure books as I do. The star selection has nothing to do with the content of the book.

Gates explains the inter-relatedness of our environmental challenge in clear, simple terms without ever becoming simplistic and avoiding the nerdiness he's known for. Great read. Recommend it anyone who lives on the Earth and would like to see the planet continue to be able to sustain life.

The book is well written in a comfortable, almost friendly style that affords the reader a good overview of a vital subject. For those with limited information about climate change, it’s causes, consequences and potential solutions it is a good place to start. For those already somewhat knowledgeable it probably adds little and can seem a bit repetitive.

Bill Gates is. An interesting man. I met him in 1965 when he came to umass to meet me. After forming Microsoft with Paul Allen he left the company to form the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. He wrote. This book to alert us about Climate Change and it is worth reading for all of us.

A timely & important topic for all to read. Gates is not a climate scientist but as a successful business person, he has searched and referenced factual information. Explains why all of as individuals must be involved to help with climate change and even provides ways one can do so.

I was disappointed he didn't emphasize the need for young people to flock en mass to get higher Green Technology education. Our children need to learn the technology we have and help to the create the technology we will need to lower our carbon emissions in the future. Our governments needs to create a "war-time" push to educate as many of our citizens as possible for free or very low cost so that we have the trained brain power to help solve this crisis. And what about calling for a massive effort to plant trees and protect what Rain Forests we have around the world. Yes it was a great book to start but his What We Can Do was too short I think.

Bill Gates sifts through all the noise surrounding the subject of climate change to present just the facts of physics and economics that have to be dealt with to solve the problem. Excellent presentation, concise and well organized. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Bill Gates broke down the changes that are needed for us to get to zero emissions in a simple understandable way. I now have a clear understanding of this complicated issue. He gives clear steps for us all to take. I feel hopeful. Thank you Bill for your contribution! 🙏💜

So Admire Bill Gates and his generous work. His book on climate could be strengthened with more focus on existing technology (wind and solar) and its growing promise (increasingly inexpensive and accessible); for example, Dr. Mark Jacobson at Stanford has outlined how every state and every country could relatively easily embrace renewable energy. Also, acknowledging the full cost of products (full cost accounting) would more fairly represent actual costs and his green premium analysis.

This book is a great resource for facts about the causes of greenhouse gases that are causing global warming. The information surprised me - the biggest causal factors are not what most people would think. This information is vital for everyone to understand if we are going to prevent a climate catastrophe on our planet.

The first problem the world has to be serious about today: Do we want to save the planet? stop pollution and all the disasters related to global warming ( fires in Australia, California, Floods in many counties and the huge migrations related to these floods. We need to stop using fossil fuels and go for renewable energies ( solar and wind), and according to Bill Gates nucleat power. We need to stop ALL EMISSIONS, including methane which is much worse than CO2, and nitrous oxyde. Bill Gates insists: It will be hard. We need international cooperation

Seems to assume the answer and ignors CO2 to and from the oceans, which dwarf what he was writing about.

Gate's book is, of course, well researched, but is very readable for the lay person. It is organized in a brilliant fashion that makes it very easy to calculate effects of various human activities giving off CO2 emissions. It is positive, optimistic and hopeful that we can achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. He doesn't say it but we can see that Canada's Carbon Tax isn't much help in this regard. One wonderful takeaway was if our submarines and aircraft carriers function safely using nuclear fuel, why cannot our huge freighters do also as they now use bunker diesel fuel at great cost to the environment?

Bill Gates has written a very articulate vision of the vast scope of this problem I felt he is too optimistic It is amazing how he has grasped all the various aspects of this huge and complex problem I wish there was more that we as individuals can do

Comprehensive look at the causes and solutions to global warming. Fact based and easily understandable for such a complex problem. Bill Gates has the capacity to take this difficult issue and simplify it as much as possible. He provides solutions that individuals and organizations can make. Highly recommended and could be made as a series on a major streaming service that would be must see viewing.

A brilliant, concise, positive, solution-oriented action plan that we all can do and achieve, together to get to Net Zero BEFORE 2050. I’ve witnessed the power of like-minded people working to achieve a common goal, and I believe and commit with my voice, vote and action.

Let’s get real. We need to save our planet as we know it, as we used to know it! It’s going to be painful. I love my gas logs! I love putting my foot into it and hearing the growl of those hydrocarbons exploding to propel me! But my grandkids may not know the world as I did, and that’s on me, you, all of us. It’s going to be painful, for sure. Will it be rewarding? I’ll tell you on 10 years.

This was a fantastic read. I thought it may be too academic but it was always approachable. It broke down the major climate problems into pieces that could be understood. There is still an overwhelming sense that we are too far gone but there were consumer level action items throughout the book. Highly recommend!

This book should be in every household on the planet. We are all in this together. Either we care about the planet or we don’t! Much is asked of us in this book. Most of us will not be able to make all the changes suggested but make the ones you can. Every effort helps. Good for Bill and Melinda Gates for making this critical issue a highest priority.

This is so easy to follow and straightforward it reads a little like a manual, but his reasoning is so logical, thorough, and message positive that it’s very enjoyable to read... however stressful at times, too. This book really makes climate change real and tells us a lot about who Bill Gates is, someone deeply engaged in this problem and certainly a leader in the next decade or further.

Takes the fog out of understanding climate change and the challenges facing us if we are going to deal with it effectively. A must read for everyone. Thank you Bill. I have recommended the book to my family and friends.

Climate change is both a simple and a complex topic depending on the level of detail covered. Gates has written a very thorough book with simple everyday language and examples that are easily relatable. It is extremely well organized, breaking down the supply chain impact and proposed solutions into perfectly proportionate reports - enough to give a good outline of each topic without getting too deep in technical details.

My only disagreement with this book is that, like many authors, he mentions that small reactors produce a small amount of nuclear waste. This is incomplete I feel. To complete this I would add something. I would say that little reactors produce little waste plus little electricity. The main advantage of small reactors is that they can be manufactured.

After reading this book, I haven't gone a day without referencing something I learned from it. My understanding of climate change, and how to tackle it has completely changed. Bill Gates does such a fantastic job taking this large and messy problem, breaking it down into sizable pieces we can all understand, and then discussing all the ways we can overcome it in the future. Nothing in this book is wishful thinking. It's a raw look at the world we live in, and it's a call to arms that we all have a part to play in driving the world's CO2 down to zero.

The book is not particularly enlightening. It just goes over some basic information that is commonly known. A better discussion on the subject is the book Drawdown, which is far more comprehensive, interesting and well documented.

If there is one book to inform yourself on all aspects of climate change and what you can do about it, then this is it. You may already have an EV heat your house and water with a heat pump and your country maybe rich in renewable low/no carbon electricity but this book will tell you what more you can do. Great thanks for this book.

Reducing our carbon imprint to net zero is a most challenging goal...but Bill Gates makes it sound possible. And in the process, by investing heavily in R&D to speed it along, we are creating new products, new industries, and creating many new jobs for our children. And extending the future habitable life of planet earth in the process. He writes very convincingly even if one doesn't fancy imitation meat!

Gates writes for the average man. He uses words we can understand and clarifies things as common as kilowatts, which most of us really don't understand. The topic is huge, but when you're done with the book it feels like you can get your arms around it.

While I am glad the Bill Gates wrote this book, it would be nice if there was an advanced version. It's a little simplistic for those with technical knowledge or already have a solid understanding of the issues.

Scientific concepts were described in ways that the average person could understand. Mr. Gates gave examples of initial changes that anyone could adopt immediately. Detailed plans for political and economic change and benchmarks were written. This book inspired our family to begin making changes now. Thank you Mr, Gates!

The most objective and honest book I have ever read. Bill paints a thoughtful picture of the challenges on many fronts the reality of having to conquer climate change on all fronts (zero carbon) is out of sight.

If you are looking for the truth about the worlds current climate crisis and the truth about what needs to happen in order for humanity to avoid a very dark future, this book is a great place to start. Gates covers the most pressing issues and issues that are commonly thought as important but actually are not. He depicts, in simple terms, how society must spur necessary changes through economic means. Great book for all types of readers and a very important topic.

This book makes a clear and compelling argument that at this critical time in our history we must begin cutting our carbon emissions down to zero. Cutting it in half or extending the timeline would not be enough to get to zero. It is imperative that we begin now to avoid a climate disaster.

Was not new as advertised. Arrived stained with bent corners and ripped. Disappointing.

This book is very easy to read and understand! The subject is so emergent, we can't change things soon enough! It is going to take everyone working together, the world over. As a major country, we need to stand tall and react NOW! Thank God for thoughtful people like the Gates!!!

Bill Gates brilliantly simplified the complex matter of climate change by human activities in the book. People who want to understand and people who do not understand will be greatly benefited by his narration. This is the road map to existential destiny for all of us members of animal and plant kingdom. We better take a look at this. Amar Dave,MD

The book provided me with the information to have a better understanding of the complexity of climate change and what needs to be our focus to move to zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Timely and well done!

Great book, reading this book felt like I was taking a science class. I learned a ton about climate change and the enormity of what we need to do to combat it. It was an eye opening experience reading this book.

I purchased this book after having just watched the "Inside Bill's Brain" show on Netflix. I'm generally super skeptical of any billionaire (I see the irony of writing this Amazon review, don't worry) but I was so impressed with Bill's knowledge and ability to make that information accessible that I purchased the book. I'm very glad I did! I learned something new and useful in each chapter. I've been recommending this book to all of my friends. You should give it a shot.

Great way to get up to speed fast. Concise writing! Gates, to me, avoided the big political stink and tendency of denial. It ain't gonna be easy but "we" need to become knowledgeable without emotion and take on the issues. I do think doing so can be a big source of economic growth. Time to get after it.

This is a great educational read with excellent research, but it kind of reads like a textbook. It reinforces your beliefs if you know about climate change and has some good nuggets, but I wouldn't call it inspiring.

It is written for all levels to read. The framing of the issues, the link to “follow the money” evidence that climate change is real, and a constant reminder to care for others that might be out of sight/out of mind make it worthy of a read.

Very good easy to understand factual approach to explaining the challenges and opportunities associated with reversing man made climate change.

Whether you are a believer, denier, or just confused, Mr Gates comprehensively reviews the climate change problems, solutions, and, most importantly, the problems with the solutions.

In very clear language Gates shares what he's learned about the components contributing to climate change and a plan he thinks can avert disaster. His vision is bold but realistic. He ends with a range of specific things individuals can do, whether they are ordinary consumers, corporate executives or policy makers.

Left me wishing he had imagined a realistic transition using petrochemicals to a more carbon free future. I also expected and wanted details on the obvious advantages of the Gen IV nuclear power that he has promoted in the past.

This provides a great accessible overview of the challenges and potential solutions for reaching net zero by 2050. As might be expected, it focuses heavily on how to enable technological solutions to the problem without giving up development. Makes you feel hopeful and determined after reading.

Well organized and thought out. Reasonable and useful. Explains the current situation and presents technical information. Gives explicit plans on how to deal with the future.

Very readable book that everyone should read. Gates drives home the need for everyone’s involvement to change the course of the environmental damage done.

Too much basic information that interested people would know. Good summaries of the components to zero emissions. Not enough detail on atomic energy development.

No one has yet proved that climate change is man made. Its the usual causation vs correlation. So far is all correlation. If the earth was heating up would the oceans not evaporate faster and make more clouds. Would more clouds not cool. The change so far is the reduction in ice which means a reduction in reflected sun rays back into space. So even if it were a normal earth warming period it would accelerate as the ice melted. We are one good super volcano or large meteor away from another ice age. So far its all scare tactics that support supposed science that gets money for proving there is an emergency. There is not money in climate science for scientists who don't come up with an emergency. So there is a huge incentive to make all publications say one thing and not another. Politicians get money from so called green energy companies because they stand to make mint. Politicians poor money into only places that prove their point and support their money making schemes. The carbon was always on earth. Not always buried in the ground. Something lived in a high carbon environment when that transition happened.

Dealing w/ climate change requires much more than most think. Thoughtful. Plain, easy-to-understand language. Appropriate for adults, high-schoolers & middle-schoolers.

Gates does an excellent job of condensing and explaining the looming climate disaster we face. Without being ponderous, he gives background information and solution proposals that can be easily understood. His positive attitude helps make his ideas more accessible.

The best book on climate change that I have read. The ideas in the book are informed and balanced, something that rarely happens with activist type commentary. The book not only describes clearly the sources of the global warming emissions but it also provides a practical roadmap out to a better future. Thank you Mr. Gates for writing about such a timely topic and writing it in an approchable way.

Bill Gates provides a comprehensive review of the difficult task of lowering CO2 to zero and why. He also provides pragmatic solutions to include investments in known technologies and energy sources and where innovation is needed and why investment is needed. It is pragmatic and informative.

I found the Gates book easy to read and quite realistic. More folks need to take the time to consume content explaining the climate crises and this book would be a reasonable way to start.

Very interesting read, Bill Gates has a mind that thinks outside of the box what will come true and what will not come true time will tell.

This book delineates in clear, concise language the considerations we as a society and world must be mindful of as we transition to zero net carbon emissions.

Bill takes an objective look at the facts surrounding the current climate condition without assessing blame or taking outwardly political positions. How did we get here? How do we get back on a sustainable path? He covers all the variables, potential solutions, and likely obstacles while describing terms in a conventional manner. This succinct discussion is timely and well done.

Bill Gates has done a lot of research on the subject and has done an excellent job at bringing many of the engineering and technical aspects of climate issues together in a very understandable way.

This seems to be a niece acceptance of part of the facts as the whole story. Lawyers, politicians, and biased news people are seldom correct. Nothing in the real world is ever as simple as they are trying to make it sound.

Lets make it easy. This is an important book for the future of our children and this earth. Get, read, and follow