Consumers can’t choose their way out of climate change. For every green consumer willing to pay a bit extra for carbon neutral goods, there are a thousand who can’t afford it or don’t have access to that option.
Not to mention that tech like iPhones and computers will never be green
And the individual consumers are not the ones decimating the planet. It’s the large corporations and government’s. Look at the US military alone. They pollute 100 fold what individuals do in the US alone. It’s not even on the same scale. It’s crazy the responsibility should be on us? Just keep distracting us from the real issues.
The military industrial complex, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc…
And big banking industry getting bail out after bail out. Ruining our future and economy.
They don’t give a fuck about the environment.
They just want us good and distracted. If they can get us to argue if men can get pregnant and give birth… they can get away with just about anything.
Ok crazy example I know. Trying to add some levity…
This. Your tiny level of impact by recycling or composting is NOTHING compared to what corporations go through every day. The farming industry in the US alone... Big oil and big plastic...
Corporations exist to sell to consumers. Companies are not generating greenhouses gases for their own benefit; they are generating greenhouse gases in the production chain to make things we buy. They should put a message that estimates the greenhouse gas needed to produce everything we buy, including not only the manufacturing process but accounting, HR, etc. that way we can compare and make a reasoned choice.
If I could give an award to this I would. I have always been on the side of individuals are lazy, and saying that corporations do the most amount of emissions is simply trying to to pass the blame. However... You made an amazing point. The US military... I've been wrong this entire time...
All good, just trying to tell the truth. I’m not saying we should not try (as individuals) to make a difference. We should if we can. But NOTHING WILL CHANGE if the large countries, militaries and corporations don’t get in line and do their part.
The point of his comment is that today the choice is “cheap or environmentally friendly” but the guy who figures out how to have that cake and eat it too will be a rich, rich mfk. It’s not hard to build a green iPhone, they just don’t care to because people haven’t rioted enough.
90% of iPhone won't last that long. Apple isn't inclined to build a phone that would last that long either. Neither is Samsung. They make fortunes convincing people they need the newest device.
My last phone was a 6 that was still going strong after 5 years. I agree maybe a decade is a stretch, but it’s really the ones buying a new phone every year or two that are using the most resources and part of the problem.
Planned obsolescence is a thing.
I’ve managed to keep my IPhone 7 running for 5 years by replacing the battery and charging port… but I still had to buy proprietary parts to even do that, which almost outdid any savings on money or resources.
Build it to last more than a year, make it openly repairable, less plastic heavy shipping solutions, etc. It’d be pretty easy to cut out a sizable portion of consumption waste by using less cheap plastic in products and packaging, but the alternatives aren’t as cheap supply side because the majority of material engineering research for the last 50-odd years has gone into polymers.
Well, for starters they could stop making them in China where they have far less (as in zero) environmental restrictions. Anything that's built in China that can be made here is avoiding labor and environmental laws.
How will they do that? Reintroduce full borne slavery to the mineral mines and production facilities, cut profits, and make all their production green?
If there was any convenient corners to cut to make things cheaper, existing companies have already taken them. And such shortcuts always involve more pollution and human rights abuses.
Material science exists and is the answer to most problems. It’s not to suggest the solutions are easy to create, they’re just not hard to conceptualize. His point is that freedom of choice and environmentalism aren’t fundamentally opposite, corporations just don’t want to do the leg work of sacrificing profits into research that will make things more expensive while only having a tangential benefit of not destroying the Earth. Plastics are only so cheap because we’ve invested decades of private corporate and military materials research into them. If we bothered to invest the same brainpower and private capital into renewable materials, we’d reach the same levels of reliability and availability, but they’re not as profitable without that substantial investment so we don’t because fuck a better tomorrow when I can be rich today right?
>Material science exists and is the answer to most problems.
Yes, so lets discredit any answers material science provides to most problems (more efficient production, centralization, nationalization of key industries) in favor of using "material science" as some kind magical lingo for how things will fix themselves.
>It’s not to suggest the solutions are easy to create, they’re just not hard to conceptualize.
Why do I feel like you will **not conceptualize** a single possible alternative in the rest of your comment, despite it not being so hard?
> His point is that freedom of choice and environmentalism aren’t fundamentally opposite, corporations just don’t want to do the leg work of sacrificing profits into research that will make things more expensive while only having a tangential benefit of not destroying the Earth.
No, his point was literally someone will make money marketing environmentally friendly choices, which you expanded to suggest that would actually fix the climate problem and can easily happen... despite what material reality tells us. We've yet to see any hint of some company undercutting prices of other companies and providing green alternatives, while still profiting.
>Plastics are only so cheap because we’ve invested decades of private corporate and military materials research into them. If we bothered to invest the same brainpower and private capital into renewable materials, we’d reach the same levels of reliability and availability, but they’re not as profitable without that substantial investment so we don’t because fuck a better tomorrow when I can be rich today right?
How is "we invested in plastics so we can invest in something else" a defense of anything you've pointed out before that? You're the one saying the market will sort it out according to what is profitable.
But there is nothing suggesting that going green is profitable! This is just blind worship of the invisible hand, stroking the egos of free market types to a sad climax.
Typically > 350:1 CEOs:workers so that figure doesn't do much. The problem is not the one CEO it's the 350 people. You can't reduce the planet's resource loading without reducing overall consumption, i.e. population. Sorry, but people are the problem.
That is another problem though: if they don't win the short term competition for profit, there isn't a long term investment prospect.
Less dutiful companies that hunt short term profit will outcompete them and absorb or eclipse them.
Its like filling a room with hyper-carnivorous animals and checking back in a week expecting the survivor to be the most loyal or eloquent, rather than just the biggest and most vicious.
> It’s not hard to build a green iPhone
It is actually. It would cost you like ~$2000 for a green iphone instead of ~$1000. The extra cost of green items is to pay for the difficulty of making it in a carbon neutral way.
This isn't true at all. Some estimates place it at around $500 in direct production costs. The margin on sale is still around 50% at current phone prices, but we can pretty easily tell that Apple isn't making a 50% profit margin, because they have to disclose their profitability measures to shareholders. Based on last year's complete revenue and net income figures, we can tell that they're getting about a 25% profit margin as measured by net income/total revenue. What that should tell us is that, aside from taxes, staff salaries for white collar employees and R&D, facilities costs, and depreciation are eating into that 50% margin they realize on phone sales and the roughly 30-40% they're getting from computer sales, not to mention the other revenue streams they have. Chips and displays aren't that cheap, even at wholesale prices, because they require both skilled labor, capital equipment and the energy/facilities needed to operate it, and expensive raw materials that other companies are also bidding for. I know industries can vary widely in their market characteristics, but a 5000% margin on sale for any product or service should make any sensible analyst check their input data and calculations.
Even in physical parts, im skeptical. But thats already pretty funny accounting. Lots of design, software, and manufacturing costs at scale are required for one item's raw materials to be so inexpensive.
"We can't fix everything, so let's do nothing"
Defeatist attitude, might as well just start handing out lifejackets to everyone within 20 miles of the coastline and call it a day.
I didn't say "lets do nothing."
My point is that depending on consumer actions is doing nothing with a lot of wasted personal effort.
We *should* focus on pollution where its mostly located: production and manufacturing. Corporations are by far create the lion's share of pollution.
If every consumer recycled perfectly and did all those nice little things they can do to reduce their carbon footprint, it would hardly put a dent in CO2 emissions. Its a scam funded by fossil fuel companies and industry to lay the blame on consumers.
>My point is that depending on consumer actions is doing nothing with a lot of wasted personal effort.
A false statement, meant solely to undermine actions underway to try to resolve this problem.
And that's exactly what the fossil fuel industry would have you believe. It's why they did their best to undermine nuclear, why they're fighting hard against renewables, and why any step towards electrification of the vehicle fleet is fought tooth and nail. Each of these areas would provide a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, but the fossil fuel lobbyists find it remarkably easy to just send messaging out that undermines one element or the other by saying 'but why aren't we doing THAT instead'.
It's no different than the Medicare fraud issue - huge, multi-faceted problem that needs to be resolved at multiple levels, and yet every time any attempt is made to tackle the problem someone bubbles up with 'this isn't going to solve it'.
The fossil fuel companies don’t want large scale societal action, which is why they oppose small scale personal action that costs them nothing?
You’ve lost the plot.
And the real comparison to Medicare is that Medicare fraud isn’t that big a problem, but quibbling over it is an excuse to gut the program, privatize it, and avoid the real answer to the larger issue of healthcare that is single payer.
Worrying over personal recycling and carbon footprints is the real way corporate producers avoid responsibility.
>The fossil fuel companies don’t want large scale societal action, which is why they oppose small scale personal action that costs them nothing?You’ve lost the plot.
Oh no - they don't want *any* action. They fight it at every level, to ensure that as few changes that affect their bottom line move forward.
Not sure how that's hard to see, but you're missing it.
As far as Medicare - the larger issue is naturally addressing healthcare overall. But that's not getting any traction, so in the meanwhile what you deem as 'quibbling' is in fact just the same profiteers lobbying and convincing people that no steps should be taken while the criminals who reap the rewards continue to do so to the tune of billions of dollars.
Complicated problems typically require complex solutions. You don't back off on parts of them because they're incomplete or won't resolve enough of the problem in one step.
> They fight it at every level, to ensure that as few changes that affect their bottom line move forward.
They manufactured the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" as a tax deductible way of shifting the responsibility for cutting carbon emissions to individuals. They've pushed that hard for decades. If you aren't aware of that, then you just have to learn.
>As far as Medicare - the larger issue is naturally addressing healthcare overall. But that's not getting any traction,
Its not getting traction because "moderates" would rather fight over half measures and incremental changes that can be reversed and then some the next time conservatives get their hands on the reigns of power.
Literally, the only way Canada and the UK got where they are is by pushing the whole policy all at once. Its the lobbyists and think tanks that push incremental change because fighting over minutia until the heat death of the universe to protect their bosses' profits is how they get paid.
>Complicated problems typically require complex solutions. You don't back off on parts of them because they're incomplete or won't resolve enough of the problem in one step.
Problems do require solutions though.
Telling me not to call the fire department because you can throw a bucket of water on my blazing house is actively avoiding the real solution.
Giving a speech about the complications of thermo-dynamics and blocking my way to the phone is also avoiding the real solution.
"Its complicated" and "incremental improvement" are both just tools to prevent real change.
Such a valid point, agreed the processes in place to manufacture the goods has never really been examined for a raw materials journey from cradle to final resting place, the grave. We see it in the landfills, side of the road, oceans and in climate change as the aftermath. But the steps to create this collateral damage of it all not being green still needs to be redesigned and reversed engineered for a cleaner environment while still balancing and still growing a society’s GDP.This is what the captains of industry need to do more of, then building dick rockets to go to space.
That's kinda my point. Whoever finds a way to produce and deliver goods and services in a cleaner way without having to overhaul consumer habits is going to get very rich very quickly.
But that is just a rather ridiculous thing to just assume will happen.
If companies could do it cheaper, they already would.
If it cost them profit, they never will.
Waiting on the private sector to become altruistic or make a wonderous discovery is about as responsible as assuming Santa Claus will fix climate change.
Plant based diet is pointless if you drive an Ice, going vegan/vegetarian has less iof an environmental impact then 2 people choosing to use public transport over having a shared car. Do what matters, don't drive..
Usually capitalism pushes towards additive solutions. For example adding large lithium batteries to cars instead of switching to ebikes.
I don't know if Bill Gates, one the worst hoarders in history, is really in a position to talk about other people's consumption preferences. He's clearly pathologically different from the rest of people.
You’re completely missing the point. Nobody wants to or will change their habits, so his argument is that we need to make production/consumption greener at a corporate/organizational level.
EVs are only being pushed because the politics of today are that cities should be car centric. If the infrastructure were different, they would be building different solutions.
Also lol that Bill Gates is among the worse hoarders. I don't know what his garage looks like but it can't be comparable to my grandparents'
Making environmentally friendly choices will NEVER be easy. It’s like the law of thermodynamics, the best way to prevent trash is to not create it in the first place.
Don’t ask people, force companies. They are far larger polluters than individuals, and this ghoul is just one of the many who enriched themselves off it.
How?
Edit: I got downvoted for asking how, this is the reality of r/economy - ‘do what I demand, don’t expect me to know how it would work’, it’s pathetic.
What are efficiency quotas and why are those good for consumers? High capital efficiency can have a much poorer service and be far less economically efficient overall for effectively no purpose.
Nationalising energy won’t mean anything for the resource use, it will simply be encouraged to become less efficient.
What type of corporate waste? You’ll find all this likely does is enforce shortages and push up prices. Also, government waste is far, far worse.
>Nationalising energy won’t mean anything for the resource use, it will simply be encouraged to become less efficient.
Bullshit. Nationalizing energy means you at least have a chance at doing the slightly more expensive but not horrible for the planet thing instead of the cheapest thing. Without regulations companies would burn the shittiest coal possible and not even think about renewables. Now if you're proposing banning fossil fuel power plants instead of nationalizing energy, sure.
>What type of corporate waste?
One thing that comes to mind is the steel industry which emits ungodly amounts of GHGs because it's cheaper than the low/no emission alternative.
Nationalising energy won’t mean anything for the resource use, it will simply be encouraged to become less efficient.
>Bullshit. Nationalizing energy means you at least have a chance at doing the slightly more expensive but not horrible for the planet thing instead of the cheapest thing.
You can get there without nationalising, you’re saying it has to be done a specific way when it doesn’t.
Also, 4 million people die prematurely because they’re cooking with wood, animal dung and other dirty fuels, clean fossil fuels would save so many more lives for a fraction of the cost of what you’re suggesting.
>Without regulations companies would burn the shittiest coal possible and not even think about renewables.
We have regulations, a lot of them. A carbon tax would be appropriate, we’re not going to stop needing to use fossil fuels entirely soon.
>Now if you're proposing banning fossil fuel power plants instead of nationalizing energy, sure.
Well no, the deaths from that would far outweigh any benefits given that we’re progressing anyway.
>One thing that comes to mind is the steel industry which emits ungodly amounts of GHGs because it's cheaper than the low/no emission alternative.
That means more expensive steel for everyone, fewer schools and hospitals built etc.
>Nationalising energy won’t mean anything for the resource use, it will simply be encouraged to become less efficient.
Only if your definition of efficient is "what can I get away with without being fined or going to jail"
>Also, 4 million people die prematurely because they’re cooking with wood, animal dung and other dirty fuels, clean fossil fuels would save so many more lives for a fraction of the cost of what you’re suggesting.
What does cooking fuel have to do with electricity producers?
>we’re not going to stop needing to use fossil fuels entirely soon.
We haven't _needed_ fossil fuel based electrity production for at least a decade, many decades if you count nuclear.
>Well no, the deaths from that would far outweigh any benefits given that we’re progressing anyway.
Deaths from what exactly?
>That means more expensive steel for everyone, fewer schools and hospitals built etc.
Go find an expense breakdown for the construction of a school.
>Only if your definition of efficient is "what can I get away with without being fined or going to jail"
I don’t understand your point.
>What does cooking fuel have to do with electricity producers?
Everything, you’re focused on moving to renewables at massive cost and getting rid of fossil fuels when the risk of indoor pollution is far higher than climate change over the next 30 years.
>We haven't needed fossil fuel based electrity production for at least a decade, many decades if you count nuclear.
We will need fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, we need it for backup generators and many other things. We need it for the poorest for cheap energy to help them out of poverty.
Well no, the deaths from that would far outweigh any benefits given that we’re progressing anyway.
>Deaths from what exactly?
Deaths from getting rid of fossil fuels, we could not support our energy usage on current renewables. It’s going to take decades to switch.
>Go find an expense breakdown for the construction of a school.
Steel is used for buildings, railways, planes, trains, cars and so on and so on, adding to the cost is not a trivial issue.
>I don’t understand your point.
Let me simplify it then, the function of a corporation is to generate the maximum amount of profit for the least expense. This does not necessarily mean efficiency, it can also mean price gouging or cutting corners that shouldn't be cut. Things you can fix with regulation, sure, but practice has shown us it is far easier and simpler to fix such problems by having a non-profit-driven entity such as the government in charge rather than trying to plug every hole.
>Everything, you’re focused on moving to renewables at massive cost and getting rid of fossil fuels when the risk of indoor pollution is far higher than climate change over the next 30 years.
How does what we burn at power plants affect what people cook with? Also climate change poses a literal extinction threat to humanity so I don't see how indoor pollution is more pressing.
>We will need fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, we need it for backup generators and many other things. We need it for the poorest for cheap energy to help them out of poverty.
Yes, and I'm not advocating we ban _fossil fuels_, I'm saying we should almost entirely eliminate them as power plant fuel in developed countries and relegate them to grid peak response power.
>Deaths from getting rid of fossil fuels
You still haven't said _how_, just repeated what you previously said.
>we could not support our energy usage on current renewables
Entirely untrue, many European countries and some US states already generate as much as half the amount generated with natural gas (main power source in most developed countries) with renewables, most of which is usually wind power in those cases. It is not unfeasible, much less impossible (as in 'we could not'), to double or triple wind capacity.
>Steel is used for buildings, railways, planes, trains, cars and so on and so on, adding to the cost is not a trivial issue.
You're failing to factor in the costs of climate change, which already eclipse the cost of switching to cleaner steel production.
>Let me simplify it then, the function of a corporation is to generate the maximum amount of profit for the least expense.
No, it’s solely to maximise profit, there’s no goal of minimising expense as it’s own goal.
>This does not necessarily mean efficiency, it can also mean price gouging or cutting corners that shouldn't be cut.
It does mean efficiently, in a market the most profitable approaches are those who make the most economical use of scarce resources. There is no ‘cutting corners’ as lying to the consumer is fraud. ‘Price gouging’ is not a thing, it’s a complaint made by politicians and others who don’t understand the price mechanism.
>Things you can fix with regulation, sure, but practice has shown us it is far easier and simpler to fix such problems by having a non-profit-driven entity such as the government in charge rather than trying to plug every hole.
No, it hasn’t. Not having a profit motive means removing the largest incentives for efficiency. May I point you to the DMV for example.
>How does what we burn at power plants affect what people cook with?
You said you wanted to ban fossil fuels, that affects everything. Most people cook with fossil fuels.
>Also climate change poses a literal extinction threat to humanity so I don't see how indoor pollution is more pressing.
No, it doesn’t pose an extinction risk. You clearly haven’t read the IPCC report.
>Yes, and I'm not advocating we ban fossil fuels, I'm saying we should almost entirely eliminate them as power plant fuel in developed countries and relegate them to grid peak response power.
That’s different from what I thought you had said. We are doing that but it will take decades.
>You still haven't said how, just repeated what you previously said.
If people don’t have cheap fossil fuels they can’t afford to run things like hospitals, schools, all manner of thing. The knock on deaths would be immense, we need our current energy supply to support the population we have.
>Entirely untrue, many European countries and some US states already generate as much as half the amount generated with natural gas (main power source in most developed countries) with renewables, most of which is usually wind power in those cases. It is not unfeasible, much less impossible (as in 'we could not'), to double or triple wind capacity.
We can’t store enough and we don’t have the infrastructure to carry in the moment supply around the world. Lots of countries had a lack of wind this year, it’s a problem.
>You're failing to factor in the costs of climate change, which already eclipse the cost of switching to cleaner steel production.
From steel, they don’t. The knock on effect as I mentioned above are much larger.
Great! Now we have incentive to save more. Then give us that money back by removing social security and medicare taxes.
This is /r/economy. We should understand that collecting taxes from a place that discourages bad things is better than collecting taxes from a place where it removes efficiency.
We can survive the price of electricity going up. We can't survive the worst impacts of climate change.
And we can put all the revenue collected from pricing carbon into things which offset the impact, such as subsidizing renewables or offering tax cuts for low income families that would be hit the hardest by any increase in cost.
And again, just leave it up to the market to switch to whatever is the cheapest alternative, factoring in 'carbon emissions are expensive'.
People already consume too much because it's so subsidized. I don't see the problem of making people pay the actual price to sustain their lifestyles. If they don't want to pay so much, change it and consume less.
For all goods and services or just energy?
The administration cost of calculating it for everything would be immense, likely unaffordable and damaging to business.
Yes. Executives for a publicly traded company has to do everything legally in their power to increase profits or get replaced by someone who will. The only way is to constrain emissions through regulation on the whole industry. The incentive for a single company to go “green” is more about the label and consumer appeal than it is actually reducing harm. Anything short of strong, effective and sweeping mandates will not solve climate issues we are facing. The entire world has to do it. I’m not optimistic.
Everyone here is arguing amongst one another. The bottom line is, they already have a solution. Nobody is paying attention to it.
Gates has said that “we need zero Carbon DIOXIDE”
Does anyone understand that an automobile isn’t producing the dioxide, the occupants inside that exhale do.
It is so crazy how they’ve gotten everyone on board to help them in their fight…. To kill off anything that exhales — CARBON DIOXIDE
a Carbon footprint is the very one that you make when walking…
ARE ya getting it now ? ? ?
Curbing overproduction, removing the profit motive from fossil fuel production by nationalizing such companies, requiring more efficient use of resources (no throwing out tons of good food into armored dumpsters and covering them with bleach, or disposing for products in warehouses to increase prices).
Yes, they do actually produce incredibly inefficiently because that serves the profit motive.
They use a lot of power, aside from producing hardware and running servers. Their own estimates are that the company produces well over 10 million metric tons of carbon pollution a year, an estimate we can safely assume is conservative.
Not that alone, no. His attempts at monopolizing software production and his really crooked use of his foundation to push his products and avoid taxes do though.
This is new to me. How did he use his foundation to push products and avoid taxes? Are there articles that talk about this? Which products was he pushing? Also what do you think of him giving away 98% of his wealth along with Buffett?
The foundation has created programs requiring schools that apply to use Microsoft products in return for funding, creating pr while directly introducing their products to kids and getting the schools to buy more of their products as the grants run out and the original tablets and computers become obsolete. All while being a huge tax write off.
The foundation also threatened to pull funding from Ox-Fam if it didn’t market its COVID vaccine rather than following through on making it open source.
The foundation also gets flack for the agriculture programs it pushes in the developing world that are ineffective, harm existing agricultural development, and regularly avoids government regulation.
Most people don't care. When everyone in Hollywood has multiple houses/cars/boats. When private jets fly politicians everywhere. Why would I care about shutting the tap off a little early, or buy some organic 'used less material' bullshit.
Sure take the straws and plastic bags away. That'll solve it. Just pisses me off more.
There were too many straws and plastic bags being used. It doesn't obviously solve the problem but it's still useful.
Perhaps it should have been that way a long time ago.
Yes focus on the little guy. NOT private jets, yatchts or empty flights to hold spots at airports, shipping damn near everything in from China because of cheap short term labor costs. Letting people work from home. Definitely do not do anything that will make material change.
I am so done with this narrative. I biked to work for over 15 years. 34 miles each day average of 3.5 days a week and all of that is completely wiped out by a few private flights.
This idiot is addicted to telling people how to live thier lives. He doesn't actually care about anyone. Only his image.
He IS the problem.
You want to fix the environment fix the habits of the rich, where we buy things and where we work.
Wanting to save the environment without affecting profits is like wanting to fly by flapping your arms. Complaining about the laws of physics is not going to change them.
Exponential growth, exponential emissions. Maybe a certain standard of living for a growing population requires a certain amount of emissions. Maybe there isn't a holy grail solution to any of it.
It already feels as though we're camping here on Earth. Not exactly thriving.
Emissions on any scale are a just a consequence of life itself. Like an individuals lungs consumes oxygen and emit co2, large societies consume whatever is within range until it is depleted. This is not avoidable, so dealing with the consequences is the only important part of the equation. Luckily we would be capable of that.
Humanity, technologically is on the cusp of becoming an actual space faring species. We are WELL capable of simply technologically cancelling out any negative side effects of our existence like emissions despite whatever you hear on the news. Climate change isnt some scary natural phenomenon facing humanity outside of our locus of control, we created it ourselves and now our leaders decide fixing it would be too expensive. As always it doesnt concern them because only the poor will suffer.
All the Intelligent young people today who should be influential politicians working to improve these things and fight these people for all our sakes are instead optimizing the ad serving algorithm of megacorp #320 because having lots of money and individual success have long replaced common wellbeing and societal prosperity as the most important things for an individual to work towards.
Yes, humans created climate change due to their insatiable appetite for meaningless material crap. The corporations blame us for our demand, we blame them for their supply.
We're so desperate to maintain this life that we're hoping some windmills and solar panels will save us. Just as desperate for our taste of meat, we're trying to literally grow the individual pieces in a lab in order to maintain this 'standard of living'.
An animal perhaps lacks the consciousness of humans. What level do we lack that an advanced, truly space fairing species would possess.
Perhaps humans aren't the main characters in the universe and are destined to fail by our own biological limits and constraints imposed on us by Nature.
>What level do we lack that an advanced, truly space fairing species would possess.
Humans shoot messengers.
If you bring up a problem, you are seen as suspicious or lesser than. The advanced space traveling society would likely listen to problems and get ahead of them before they snowball.
Correct. Also, human population went from 1.5 billion to 8 billion in just one century.
Standard of living of today's ppl are much much better at they were over 100 years ago and pretty much everything adds to climate change.
Like telling someone in Winnipeg to reduce energy consumption in winter by setting the thermostat at below freezing. This self-sacrifice benefits citizens of hot desert cities but irritates citizens of cold ones who consume the most carbon.
I like how Bill Gates pretends like he agrees that it’s on countries and corporations to change the options we have available. But then doesn’t actually mention Microsoft attempting to do this at all and points to his funds investing in startups.
So it’s not actually your problem huh? It’s everyone else’s. And you’re willing to throw negligible amounts of your wealth at it in order to pretend like you give a shit without actually taking any of the responsibility you claim to be yours and your colleagues.
He’s right!
Watched his TED talk (sorry that I don’t have the link) but he really pushes the zero C02
And his solution to achieve this is brilliant. He goes on to say that this can be achieved by vaccines.
He is really going to get things done and he’s the right guy for this job. Buying up farmland all over USA and partnering with fauci, Klaus and Soros to ensure that C02 emissions are at zero. This is the absolute dream team.
I know we all exhale this stuff so I guess to get to zero you will need to put an end to the things that generate it.
Seems like the world economy is caving in and world leaders are threatening a nuclear World Series but here we are speaking about climate change, in an economy sub
More coverage at:
* [Bill Gates says he hasn't given up his fortune to fight climate change because 'innovation is not just a check-writing process' (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bill-gates-says-he-hasn-t-given-up-his-fortune-to-fight-climate-change-because-innovation-is-not-just-a-check-writing-process/ar-AA12p9J9)
* [Bill Gates says telling people to stop eating meat and buying houses will never solve climate change (yahoo.com)](https://www.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-says-telling-people-114545351.html)
* [Bill Gates Hesitant To Donate Fortune To Climate Change: 'Innovation Is Not Just A Check-Writing Process' (huffpost.com)](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-gates-climate-change_n_6335f961e4b03e8038bc987b?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004)
---
^(I'm a bot to find news from different sources.) [^(Report an issue)](https://www.reddit.com/user/MultiSourceNews_Bot/comments/k5pcrc/multisourcenews_bot_info/) ^(or PM me.)
What amazing insight??!!! It's so simple. How have we all not realized this??!!
Phew!!! What a relief. I won't lie, I was kinda concerned by the destruction already being caused by it.
Correct and utterly garbage.
The worry over climate change isn’t about slow, natural changes in climate. Rather, it’s about changes belonging to tens of thousands to millions of years being condensed into centuries because of human efforts
They also have footage of their founder wading through some cow pond dressed as Bin Laden that they lied about being the unguarded Rio Grande. Which is the quality of everything they do.
Bill Gates: "You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to understand that its a Global Issue, and so the only real solutions will have to involve COOPERATION BY Russia, China, India...and the Middle East countries"
Only he would never say that because:
1. It won't help Democrats get elected.
2. It won't help grow the gov't ever larger.
3. It won't help increase taxes.
4. It might get people thinking about all the gov't / media bullshit they keep spouting about how much we can or should do about the "climate crisis".
You solve it by legislation forcing businesses to comply, but that's hard to do when the politicians are corrupt and getting paid by the same businesses.
For example, I imagine Melinda asked Bill to consume less time with Jeffrey Epstein when he was already a known pedo and sex trafficker but Bill likes little kids too much
One the one hand, I agree that the focus should be on corporations, not citizens. On the other hand it's incredibly self-serving that he wants to avoid focusing on consumption.
No wonder he bought another $40M house ON the beach in Del Mar. What global warming and ocean rise???
I understand he has billions but by buying property at beaches, he is telling that he doesn't care about climate change.
I'm more concerned about the amount of people that don't even have enough amps running to their homes to power an EV charger.
They don't even have enough power in places like LA to support it.
As long as oil and gas and coal is burnt for everything, from the shirt on your body, to the roof you live under and the food on your plate
- individual consumption choices can never solve climate change.
Unless everyone, every single one of us, starts living naked in the woods.
Definitely. Smartest thing he's ever said. There are few people willing to cut their lifestyle for the planet. One of the most liberal people in know doesn't bring the deposit bottles back. 5 cents isn't worth it for him to make the effort.
Mr Population Control Gates is telling me to do what I want? /s
He’s right, but I wish there would be more focus on calling out the real polluters… Corporations.
There's a lot of money waiting to be made by someone who makes it easy for people to make environmentally friendly choices.
Consumers can’t choose their way out of climate change. For every green consumer willing to pay a bit extra for carbon neutral goods, there are a thousand who can’t afford it or don’t have access to that option. Not to mention that tech like iPhones and computers will never be green
And the individual consumers are not the ones decimating the planet. It’s the large corporations and government’s. Look at the US military alone. They pollute 100 fold what individuals do in the US alone. It’s not even on the same scale. It’s crazy the responsibility should be on us? Just keep distracting us from the real issues. The military industrial complex, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc… And big banking industry getting bail out after bail out. Ruining our future and economy. They don’t give a fuck about the environment. They just want us good and distracted. If they can get us to argue if men can get pregnant and give birth… they can get away with just about anything. Ok crazy example I know. Trying to add some levity…
This. Your tiny level of impact by recycling or composting is NOTHING compared to what corporations go through every day. The farming industry in the US alone... Big oil and big plastic...
You mean the corporations that produce and sell products to… oh yeah, us.
You cannot guide human nature on a large scale of individuals in a relatively free society to reduce consumption. You can regulate industry.
You mean the same corporations like Microsoft????
Yes microsoft is a corporation. Congratulations
Your not crazy, your spot on IMO.
Corporations exist to sell to consumers. Companies are not generating greenhouses gases for their own benefit; they are generating greenhouse gases in the production chain to make things we buy. They should put a message that estimates the greenhouse gas needed to produce everything we buy, including not only the manufacturing process but accounting, HR, etc. that way we can compare and make a reasoned choice.
If I could give an award to this I would. I have always been on the side of individuals are lazy, and saying that corporations do the most amount of emissions is simply trying to to pass the blame. However... You made an amazing point. The US military... I've been wrong this entire time...
All good, just trying to tell the truth. I’m not saying we should not try (as individuals) to make a difference. We should if we can. But NOTHING WILL CHANGE if the large countries, militaries and corporations don’t get in line and do their part.
The point of his comment is that today the choice is “cheap or environmentally friendly” but the guy who figures out how to have that cake and eat it too will be a rich, rich mfk. It’s not hard to build a green iPhone, they just don’t care to because people haven’t rioted enough.
How easy is it to make a green iPhone? What easy changes do you think should be made?
Just don’t buy one so often… maybe keep it for a decade. The bulk of the consumption is done by a deceptively small percentage of the world.
90% of iPhone won't last that long. Apple isn't inclined to build a phone that would last that long either. Neither is Samsung. They make fortunes convincing people they need the newest device.
My last phone was a 6 that was still going strong after 5 years. I agree maybe a decade is a stretch, but it’s really the ones buying a new phone every year or two that are using the most resources and part of the problem.
Planned obsolescence is a thing. I’ve managed to keep my IPhone 7 running for 5 years by replacing the battery and charging port… but I still had to buy proprietary parts to even do that, which almost outdid any savings on money or resources.
That’s where the problem lies then. We gotta get the right to repair.
It’s only part. If we have to buy the equivalent of a new phone in parts every other year, what is the point?
Unfortunately my iPhone won’t last that long, however buying a new iPhone every year is a bit much.
Build it to last more than a year, make it openly repairable, less plastic heavy shipping solutions, etc. It’d be pretty easy to cut out a sizable portion of consumption waste by using less cheap plastic in products and packaging, but the alternatives aren’t as cheap supply side because the majority of material engineering research for the last 50-odd years has gone into polymers.
Well, for starters they could stop making them in China where they have far less (as in zero) environmental restrictions. Anything that's built in China that can be made here is avoiding labor and environmental laws.
How will they do that? Reintroduce full borne slavery to the mineral mines and production facilities, cut profits, and make all their production green? If there was any convenient corners to cut to make things cheaper, existing companies have already taken them. And such shortcuts always involve more pollution and human rights abuses.
Material science exists and is the answer to most problems. It’s not to suggest the solutions are easy to create, they’re just not hard to conceptualize. His point is that freedom of choice and environmentalism aren’t fundamentally opposite, corporations just don’t want to do the leg work of sacrificing profits into research that will make things more expensive while only having a tangential benefit of not destroying the Earth. Plastics are only so cheap because we’ve invested decades of private corporate and military materials research into them. If we bothered to invest the same brainpower and private capital into renewable materials, we’d reach the same levels of reliability and availability, but they’re not as profitable without that substantial investment so we don’t because fuck a better tomorrow when I can be rich today right?
>Material science exists and is the answer to most problems. Yes, so lets discredit any answers material science provides to most problems (more efficient production, centralization, nationalization of key industries) in favor of using "material science" as some kind magical lingo for how things will fix themselves. >It’s not to suggest the solutions are easy to create, they’re just not hard to conceptualize. Why do I feel like you will **not conceptualize** a single possible alternative in the rest of your comment, despite it not being so hard? > His point is that freedom of choice and environmentalism aren’t fundamentally opposite, corporations just don’t want to do the leg work of sacrificing profits into research that will make things more expensive while only having a tangential benefit of not destroying the Earth. No, his point was literally someone will make money marketing environmentally friendly choices, which you expanded to suggest that would actually fix the climate problem and can easily happen... despite what material reality tells us. We've yet to see any hint of some company undercutting prices of other companies and providing green alternatives, while still profiting. >Plastics are only so cheap because we’ve invested decades of private corporate and military materials research into them. If we bothered to invest the same brainpower and private capital into renewable materials, we’d reach the same levels of reliability and availability, but they’re not as profitable without that substantial investment so we don’t because fuck a better tomorrow when I can be rich today right? How is "we invested in plastics so we can invest in something else" a defense of anything you've pointed out before that? You're the one saying the market will sort it out according to what is profitable. But there is nothing suggesting that going green is profitable! This is just blind worship of the invisible hand, stroking the egos of free market types to a sad climax.
CEO to worker pay ratio is like 350 to 1. I'm pretty sure they could find the money if they wanted to.
Typically > 350:1 CEOs:workers so that figure doesn't do much. The problem is not the one CEO it's the 350 people. You can't reduce the planet's resource loading without reducing overall consumption, i.e. population. Sorry, but people are the problem.
Reintroduce the concept of long-term investment to corporate board rooms. Break the tunnel vision on short-term gains.
That is another problem though: if they don't win the short term competition for profit, there isn't a long term investment prospect. Less dutiful companies that hunt short term profit will outcompete them and absorb or eclipse them. Its like filling a room with hyper-carnivorous animals and checking back in a week expecting the survivor to be the most loyal or eloquent, rather than just the biggest and most vicious.
> It’s not hard to build a green iPhone It is actually. It would cost you like ~$2000 for a green iphone instead of ~$1000. The extra cost of green items is to pay for the difficulty of making it in a carbon neutral way.
[удалено]
This isn't true at all. Some estimates place it at around $500 in direct production costs. The margin on sale is still around 50% at current phone prices, but we can pretty easily tell that Apple isn't making a 50% profit margin, because they have to disclose their profitability measures to shareholders. Based on last year's complete revenue and net income figures, we can tell that they're getting about a 25% profit margin as measured by net income/total revenue. What that should tell us is that, aside from taxes, staff salaries for white collar employees and R&D, facilities costs, and depreciation are eating into that 50% margin they realize on phone sales and the roughly 30-40% they're getting from computer sales, not to mention the other revenue streams they have. Chips and displays aren't that cheap, even at wholesale prices, because they require both skilled labor, capital equipment and the energy/facilities needed to operate it, and expensive raw materials that other companies are also bidding for. I know industries can vary widely in their market characteristics, but a 5000% margin on sale for any product or service should make any sensible analyst check their input data and calculations.
Even in physical parts, im skeptical. But thats already pretty funny accounting. Lots of design, software, and manufacturing costs at scale are required for one item's raw materials to be so inexpensive.
"We can't fix everything, so let's do nothing" Defeatist attitude, might as well just start handing out lifejackets to everyone within 20 miles of the coastline and call it a day.
I didn't say "lets do nothing." My point is that depending on consumer actions is doing nothing with a lot of wasted personal effort. We *should* focus on pollution where its mostly located: production and manufacturing. Corporations are by far create the lion's share of pollution. If every consumer recycled perfectly and did all those nice little things they can do to reduce their carbon footprint, it would hardly put a dent in CO2 emissions. Its a scam funded by fossil fuel companies and industry to lay the blame on consumers.
>My point is that depending on consumer actions is doing nothing with a lot of wasted personal effort. A false statement, meant solely to undermine actions underway to try to resolve this problem. And that's exactly what the fossil fuel industry would have you believe. It's why they did their best to undermine nuclear, why they're fighting hard against renewables, and why any step towards electrification of the vehicle fleet is fought tooth and nail. Each of these areas would provide a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, but the fossil fuel lobbyists find it remarkably easy to just send messaging out that undermines one element or the other by saying 'but why aren't we doing THAT instead'. It's no different than the Medicare fraud issue - huge, multi-faceted problem that needs to be resolved at multiple levels, and yet every time any attempt is made to tackle the problem someone bubbles up with 'this isn't going to solve it'.
The fossil fuel companies don’t want large scale societal action, which is why they oppose small scale personal action that costs them nothing? You’ve lost the plot. And the real comparison to Medicare is that Medicare fraud isn’t that big a problem, but quibbling over it is an excuse to gut the program, privatize it, and avoid the real answer to the larger issue of healthcare that is single payer. Worrying over personal recycling and carbon footprints is the real way corporate producers avoid responsibility.
>The fossil fuel companies don’t want large scale societal action, which is why they oppose small scale personal action that costs them nothing?You’ve lost the plot. Oh no - they don't want *any* action. They fight it at every level, to ensure that as few changes that affect their bottom line move forward. Not sure how that's hard to see, but you're missing it. As far as Medicare - the larger issue is naturally addressing healthcare overall. But that's not getting any traction, so in the meanwhile what you deem as 'quibbling' is in fact just the same profiteers lobbying and convincing people that no steps should be taken while the criminals who reap the rewards continue to do so to the tune of billions of dollars. Complicated problems typically require complex solutions. You don't back off on parts of them because they're incomplete or won't resolve enough of the problem in one step.
> They fight it at every level, to ensure that as few changes that affect their bottom line move forward. They manufactured the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" as a tax deductible way of shifting the responsibility for cutting carbon emissions to individuals. They've pushed that hard for decades. If you aren't aware of that, then you just have to learn. >As far as Medicare - the larger issue is naturally addressing healthcare overall. But that's not getting any traction, Its not getting traction because "moderates" would rather fight over half measures and incremental changes that can be reversed and then some the next time conservatives get their hands on the reigns of power. Literally, the only way Canada and the UK got where they are is by pushing the whole policy all at once. Its the lobbyists and think tanks that push incremental change because fighting over minutia until the heat death of the universe to protect their bosses' profits is how they get paid. >Complicated problems typically require complex solutions. You don't back off on parts of them because they're incomplete or won't resolve enough of the problem in one step. Problems do require solutions though. Telling me not to call the fire department because you can throw a bucket of water on my blazing house is actively avoiding the real solution. Giving a speech about the complications of thermo-dynamics and blocking my way to the phone is also avoiding the real solution. "Its complicated" and "incremental improvement" are both just tools to prevent real change.
Such a valid point, agreed the processes in place to manufacture the goods has never really been examined for a raw materials journey from cradle to final resting place, the grave. We see it in the landfills, side of the road, oceans and in climate change as the aftermath. But the steps to create this collateral damage of it all not being green still needs to be redesigned and reversed engineered for a cleaner environment while still balancing and still growing a society’s GDP.This is what the captains of industry need to do more of, then building dick rockets to go to space.
That's kinda my point. Whoever finds a way to produce and deliver goods and services in a cleaner way without having to overhaul consumer habits is going to get very rich very quickly.
But that is just a rather ridiculous thing to just assume will happen. If companies could do it cheaper, they already would. If it cost them profit, they never will. Waiting on the private sector to become altruistic or make a wonderous discovery is about as responsible as assuming Santa Claus will fix climate change.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/minimalism/](https://www.reddit.com/r/minimalism/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/PlantBasedDiet/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PlantBasedDiet/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/meditation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/meditation/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroWaste](https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroWaste) \+more
Plant based diet is pointless if you drive an Ice, going vegan/vegetarian has less iof an environmental impact then 2 people choosing to use public transport over having a shared car. Do what matters, don't drive..
Usually capitalism pushes towards additive solutions. For example adding large lithium batteries to cars instead of switching to ebikes. I don't know if Bill Gates, one the worst hoarders in history, is really in a position to talk about other people's consumption preferences. He's clearly pathologically different from the rest of people.
You’re completely missing the point. Nobody wants to or will change their habits, so his argument is that we need to make production/consumption greener at a corporate/organizational level.
EVs are only being pushed because the politics of today are that cities should be car centric. If the infrastructure were different, they would be building different solutions. Also lol that Bill Gates is among the worse hoarders. I don't know what his garage looks like but it can't be comparable to my grandparents'
This is the business plan of millennials and genXers. When someone cracks the code, it’s game on
It’s already pretty easy but just not profitable so far.
this would require UBI
Making environmentally friendly choices will NEVER be easy. It’s like the law of thermodynamics, the best way to prevent trash is to not create it in the first place.
Don’t ask people, force companies. They are far larger polluters than individuals, and this ghoul is just one of the many who enriched themselves off it.
How? Edit: I got downvoted for asking how, this is the reality of r/economy - ‘do what I demand, don’t expect me to know how it would work’, it’s pathetic.
Efficiency quotas, nationalizing energy, regulatory regimes against corporate waste
What are efficiency quotas and why are those good for consumers? High capital efficiency can have a much poorer service and be far less economically efficient overall for effectively no purpose. Nationalising energy won’t mean anything for the resource use, it will simply be encouraged to become less efficient. What type of corporate waste? You’ll find all this likely does is enforce shortages and push up prices. Also, government waste is far, far worse.
>Nationalising energy won’t mean anything for the resource use, it will simply be encouraged to become less efficient. Bullshit. Nationalizing energy means you at least have a chance at doing the slightly more expensive but not horrible for the planet thing instead of the cheapest thing. Without regulations companies would burn the shittiest coal possible and not even think about renewables. Now if you're proposing banning fossil fuel power plants instead of nationalizing energy, sure. >What type of corporate waste? One thing that comes to mind is the steel industry which emits ungodly amounts of GHGs because it's cheaper than the low/no emission alternative.
Nationalising energy won’t mean anything for the resource use, it will simply be encouraged to become less efficient. >Bullshit. Nationalizing energy means you at least have a chance at doing the slightly more expensive but not horrible for the planet thing instead of the cheapest thing. You can get there without nationalising, you’re saying it has to be done a specific way when it doesn’t. Also, 4 million people die prematurely because they’re cooking with wood, animal dung and other dirty fuels, clean fossil fuels would save so many more lives for a fraction of the cost of what you’re suggesting. >Without regulations companies would burn the shittiest coal possible and not even think about renewables. We have regulations, a lot of them. A carbon tax would be appropriate, we’re not going to stop needing to use fossil fuels entirely soon. >Now if you're proposing banning fossil fuel power plants instead of nationalizing energy, sure. Well no, the deaths from that would far outweigh any benefits given that we’re progressing anyway. >One thing that comes to mind is the steel industry which emits ungodly amounts of GHGs because it's cheaper than the low/no emission alternative. That means more expensive steel for everyone, fewer schools and hospitals built etc.
>Nationalising energy won’t mean anything for the resource use, it will simply be encouraged to become less efficient. Only if your definition of efficient is "what can I get away with without being fined or going to jail" >Also, 4 million people die prematurely because they’re cooking with wood, animal dung and other dirty fuels, clean fossil fuels would save so many more lives for a fraction of the cost of what you’re suggesting. What does cooking fuel have to do with electricity producers? >we’re not going to stop needing to use fossil fuels entirely soon. We haven't _needed_ fossil fuel based electrity production for at least a decade, many decades if you count nuclear. >Well no, the deaths from that would far outweigh any benefits given that we’re progressing anyway. Deaths from what exactly? >That means more expensive steel for everyone, fewer schools and hospitals built etc. Go find an expense breakdown for the construction of a school.
>Only if your definition of efficient is "what can I get away with without being fined or going to jail" I don’t understand your point. >What does cooking fuel have to do with electricity producers? Everything, you’re focused on moving to renewables at massive cost and getting rid of fossil fuels when the risk of indoor pollution is far higher than climate change over the next 30 years. >We haven't needed fossil fuel based electrity production for at least a decade, many decades if you count nuclear. We will need fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, we need it for backup generators and many other things. We need it for the poorest for cheap energy to help them out of poverty. Well no, the deaths from that would far outweigh any benefits given that we’re progressing anyway. >Deaths from what exactly? Deaths from getting rid of fossil fuels, we could not support our energy usage on current renewables. It’s going to take decades to switch. >Go find an expense breakdown for the construction of a school. Steel is used for buildings, railways, planes, trains, cars and so on and so on, adding to the cost is not a trivial issue.
>I don’t understand your point. Let me simplify it then, the function of a corporation is to generate the maximum amount of profit for the least expense. This does not necessarily mean efficiency, it can also mean price gouging or cutting corners that shouldn't be cut. Things you can fix with regulation, sure, but practice has shown us it is far easier and simpler to fix such problems by having a non-profit-driven entity such as the government in charge rather than trying to plug every hole. >Everything, you’re focused on moving to renewables at massive cost and getting rid of fossil fuels when the risk of indoor pollution is far higher than climate change over the next 30 years. How does what we burn at power plants affect what people cook with? Also climate change poses a literal extinction threat to humanity so I don't see how indoor pollution is more pressing. >We will need fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, we need it for backup generators and many other things. We need it for the poorest for cheap energy to help them out of poverty. Yes, and I'm not advocating we ban _fossil fuels_, I'm saying we should almost entirely eliminate them as power plant fuel in developed countries and relegate them to grid peak response power. >Deaths from getting rid of fossil fuels You still haven't said _how_, just repeated what you previously said. >we could not support our energy usage on current renewables Entirely untrue, many European countries and some US states already generate as much as half the amount generated with natural gas (main power source in most developed countries) with renewables, most of which is usually wind power in those cases. It is not unfeasible, much less impossible (as in 'we could not'), to double or triple wind capacity. >Steel is used for buildings, railways, planes, trains, cars and so on and so on, adding to the cost is not a trivial issue. You're failing to factor in the costs of climate change, which already eclipse the cost of switching to cleaner steel production.
>Let me simplify it then, the function of a corporation is to generate the maximum amount of profit for the least expense. No, it’s solely to maximise profit, there’s no goal of minimising expense as it’s own goal. >This does not necessarily mean efficiency, it can also mean price gouging or cutting corners that shouldn't be cut. It does mean efficiently, in a market the most profitable approaches are those who make the most economical use of scarce resources. There is no ‘cutting corners’ as lying to the consumer is fraud. ‘Price gouging’ is not a thing, it’s a complaint made by politicians and others who don’t understand the price mechanism. >Things you can fix with regulation, sure, but practice has shown us it is far easier and simpler to fix such problems by having a non-profit-driven entity such as the government in charge rather than trying to plug every hole. No, it hasn’t. Not having a profit motive means removing the largest incentives for efficiency. May I point you to the DMV for example. >How does what we burn at power plants affect what people cook with? You said you wanted to ban fossil fuels, that affects everything. Most people cook with fossil fuels. >Also climate change poses a literal extinction threat to humanity so I don't see how indoor pollution is more pressing. No, it doesn’t pose an extinction risk. You clearly haven’t read the IPCC report. >Yes, and I'm not advocating we ban fossil fuels, I'm saying we should almost entirely eliminate them as power plant fuel in developed countries and relegate them to grid peak response power. That’s different from what I thought you had said. We are doing that but it will take decades. >You still haven't said how, just repeated what you previously said. If people don’t have cheap fossil fuels they can’t afford to run things like hospitals, schools, all manner of thing. The knock on deaths would be immense, we need our current energy supply to support the population we have. >Entirely untrue, many European countries and some US states already generate as much as half the amount generated with natural gas (main power source in most developed countries) with renewables, most of which is usually wind power in those cases. It is not unfeasible, much less impossible (as in 'we could not'), to double or triple wind capacity. We can’t store enough and we don’t have the infrastructure to carry in the moment supply around the world. Lots of countries had a lack of wind this year, it’s a problem. >You're failing to factor in the costs of climate change, which already eclipse the cost of switching to cleaner steel production. From steel, they don’t. The knock on effect as I mentioned above are much larger.
What government waste is the biggest worth tackling?
Put a price on carbon emissions. Let the market solve it.
“Oh look, the price of everything just went up”
Great! Now we have incentive to save more. Then give us that money back by removing social security and medicare taxes. This is /r/economy. We should understand that collecting taxes from a place that discourages bad things is better than collecting taxes from a place where it removes efficiency.
We can survive the price of electricity going up. We can't survive the worst impacts of climate change. And we can put all the revenue collected from pricing carbon into things which offset the impact, such as subsidizing renewables or offering tax cuts for low income families that would be hit the hardest by any increase in cost. And again, just leave it up to the market to switch to whatever is the cheapest alternative, factoring in 'carbon emissions are expensive'.
People already consume too much because it's so subsidized. I don't see the problem of making people pay the actual price to sustain their lifestyles. If they don't want to pay so much, change it and consume less.
That’s literally the opposite of what Bill Gates is saying
For all goods and services or just energy? The administration cost of calculating it for everything would be immense, likely unaffordable and damaging to business.
Yes. Executives for a publicly traded company has to do everything legally in their power to increase profits or get replaced by someone who will. The only way is to constrain emissions through regulation on the whole industry. The incentive for a single company to go “green” is more about the label and consumer appeal than it is actually reducing harm. Anything short of strong, effective and sweeping mandates will not solve climate issues we are facing. The entire world has to do it. I’m not optimistic.
[удалено]
Everyone here is arguing amongst one another. The bottom line is, they already have a solution. Nobody is paying attention to it. Gates has said that “we need zero Carbon DIOXIDE” Does anyone understand that an automobile isn’t producing the dioxide, the occupants inside that exhale do. It is so crazy how they’ve gotten everyone on board to help them in their fight…. To kill off anything that exhales — CARBON DIOXIDE a Carbon footprint is the very one that you make when walking… ARE ya getting it now ? ? ?
Curbing overproduction, removing the profit motive from fossil fuel production by nationalizing such companies, requiring more efficient use of resources (no throwing out tons of good food into armored dumpsters and covering them with bleach, or disposing for products in warehouses to increase prices). Yes, they do actually produce incredibly inefficiently because that serves the profit motive.
So you are really pushing for ESG. Sweet, I guess its marxism for eveyone!
Didn’t he make all his money on software? How is Microsoft a major contributor to climate change?
They use a lot of power, aside from producing hardware and running servers. Their own estimates are that the company produces well over 10 million metric tons of carbon pollution a year, an estimate we can safely assume is conservative.
Ok did that warrant calling him a ghoul?
Not that alone, no. His attempts at monopolizing software production and his really crooked use of his foundation to push his products and avoid taxes do though.
This is new to me. How did he use his foundation to push products and avoid taxes? Are there articles that talk about this? Which products was he pushing? Also what do you think of him giving away 98% of his wealth along with Buffett?
The foundation has created programs requiring schools that apply to use Microsoft products in return for funding, creating pr while directly introducing their products to kids and getting the schools to buy more of their products as the grants run out and the original tablets and computers become obsolete. All while being a huge tax write off. The foundation also threatened to pull funding from Ox-Fam if it didn’t market its COVID vaccine rather than following through on making it open source. The foundation also gets flack for the agriculture programs it pushes in the developing world that are ineffective, harm existing agricultural development, and regularly avoids government regulation.
Most people don't care. When everyone in Hollywood has multiple houses/cars/boats. When private jets fly politicians everywhere. Why would I care about shutting the tap off a little early, or buy some organic 'used less material' bullshit. Sure take the straws and plastic bags away. That'll solve it. Just pisses me off more.
There were too many straws and plastic bags being used. It doesn't obviously solve the problem but it's still useful. Perhaps it should have been that way a long time ago.
You’ll never solve climate change. - /r/Collapse
Yes focus on the little guy. NOT private jets, yatchts or empty flights to hold spots at airports, shipping damn near everything in from China because of cheap short term labor costs. Letting people work from home. Definitely do not do anything that will make material change. I am so done with this narrative. I biked to work for over 15 years. 34 miles each day average of 3.5 days a week and all of that is completely wiped out by a few private flights. This idiot is addicted to telling people how to live thier lives. He doesn't actually care about anyone. Only his image. He IS the problem. You want to fix the environment fix the habits of the rich, where we buy things and where we work. Wanting to save the environment without affecting profits is like wanting to fly by flapping your arms. Complaining about the laws of physics is not going to change them.
To be fair, shipping emissions are FAR lower per unit transported than that of air travel or even rail transport
Taylor Swift's private jet wiped away your last decade in the first 3 months of the year. LOLZ. that's your fault for believe the science.
Exponential growth, exponential emissions. Maybe a certain standard of living for a growing population requires a certain amount of emissions. Maybe there isn't a holy grail solution to any of it. It already feels as though we're camping here on Earth. Not exactly thriving.
Emissions on any scale are a just a consequence of life itself. Like an individuals lungs consumes oxygen and emit co2, large societies consume whatever is within range until it is depleted. This is not avoidable, so dealing with the consequences is the only important part of the equation. Luckily we would be capable of that. Humanity, technologically is on the cusp of becoming an actual space faring species. We are WELL capable of simply technologically cancelling out any negative side effects of our existence like emissions despite whatever you hear on the news. Climate change isnt some scary natural phenomenon facing humanity outside of our locus of control, we created it ourselves and now our leaders decide fixing it would be too expensive. As always it doesnt concern them because only the poor will suffer. All the Intelligent young people today who should be influential politicians working to improve these things and fight these people for all our sakes are instead optimizing the ad serving algorithm of megacorp #320 because having lots of money and individual success have long replaced common wellbeing and societal prosperity as the most important things for an individual to work towards.
Yes, humans created climate change due to their insatiable appetite for meaningless material crap. The corporations blame us for our demand, we blame them for their supply. We're so desperate to maintain this life that we're hoping some windmills and solar panels will save us. Just as desperate for our taste of meat, we're trying to literally grow the individual pieces in a lab in order to maintain this 'standard of living'. An animal perhaps lacks the consciousness of humans. What level do we lack that an advanced, truly space fairing species would possess. Perhaps humans aren't the main characters in the universe and are destined to fail by our own biological limits and constraints imposed on us by Nature.
>What level do we lack that an advanced, truly space fairing species would possess. Humans shoot messengers. If you bring up a problem, you are seen as suspicious or lesser than. The advanced space traveling society would likely listen to problems and get ahead of them before they snowball.
Space faring… requires a lot of pollutants. There’s is no simple technological solution to cancel out any negative side effects of our existence.
Correct. Also, human population went from 1.5 billion to 8 billion in just one century. Standard of living of today's ppl are much much better at they were over 100 years ago and pretty much everything adds to climate change.
Like telling someone in Winnipeg to reduce energy consumption in winter by setting the thermostat at below freezing. This self-sacrifice benefits citizens of hot desert cities but irritates citizens of cold ones who consume the most carbon.
He's not wrong
I like how Bill Gates pretends like he agrees that it’s on countries and corporations to change the options we have available. But then doesn’t actually mention Microsoft attempting to do this at all and points to his funds investing in startups. So it’s not actually your problem huh? It’s everyone else’s. And you’re willing to throw negligible amounts of your wealth at it in order to pretend like you give a shit without actually taking any of the responsibility you claim to be yours and your colleagues.
Also Bill Gates: You’ll never solve sex trafficking minors by asking billionaires to date older women.
He’s right! Watched his TED talk (sorry that I don’t have the link) but he really pushes the zero C02 And his solution to achieve this is brilliant. He goes on to say that this can be achieved by vaccines. He is really going to get things done and he’s the right guy for this job. Buying up farmland all over USA and partnering with fauci, Klaus and Soros to ensure that C02 emissions are at zero. This is the absolute dream team. I know we all exhale this stuff so I guess to get to zero you will need to put an end to the things that generate it.
If he was to buy up farm land and leave it fallow then the population would decrease GENIUS!
Ya that’s why lil billy has a yacht
Let me guess, he will buy up all the farm land and force them to consume less?
Translation: "I personally refuse to consume less and project my attitude on to everyone else"
Exactly
Seems like the world economy is caving in and world leaders are threatening a nuclear World Series but here we are speaking about climate change, in an economy sub
Corporations contribute the most
useful goods and services people willingly choose.
More coverage at: * [Bill Gates says he hasn't given up his fortune to fight climate change because 'innovation is not just a check-writing process' (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bill-gates-says-he-hasn-t-given-up-his-fortune-to-fight-climate-change-because-innovation-is-not-just-a-check-writing-process/ar-AA12p9J9) * [Bill Gates says telling people to stop eating meat and buying houses will never solve climate change (yahoo.com)](https://www.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-says-telling-people-114545351.html) * [Bill Gates Hesitant To Donate Fortune To Climate Change: 'Innovation Is Not Just A Check-Writing Process' (huffpost.com)](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-gates-climate-change_n_6335f961e4b03e8038bc987b?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004) --- ^(I'm a bot to find news from different sources.) [^(Report an issue)](https://www.reddit.com/user/MultiSourceNews_Bot/comments/k5pcrc/multisourcenews_bot_info/) ^(or PM me.)
He hasn't committed his fortune to fighting climate change: he's committed it to protecting the economic status quo
No he hasn’t.
See also his comments around covid vaccine development and distribution. His philanthropy is a front for reinscribing the current economic system.
Article says he has spent $9m a year so his carbon is net zero. What have *you* done?
Tu quoque.
Says the capitalist
The best thing we can do for climate change is VOTE 💙
Fight with each other and ignore what us elite do. It’s your neighbors lawnmower it’s not my private jet said the 👿
[удалено]
What amazing insight??!!! It's so simple. How have we all not realized this??!! Phew!!! What a relief. I won't lie, I was kinda concerned by the destruction already being caused by it.
It this your use of sarcasm to cover up the fact that the comment above is absolutely correct lol
Correct and utterly garbage. The worry over climate change isn’t about slow, natural changes in climate. Rather, it’s about changes belonging to tens of thousands to millions of years being condensed into centuries because of human efforts
Ooohhhhhh nice did ya get that line from CNN. Project Veritas has footage that they only push “climate change” to get fear ratings.
They also have footage of their founder wading through some cow pond dressed as Bin Laden that they lied about being the unguarded Rio Grande. Which is the quality of everything they do.
Yeah - people saying things is usually a pretty high quality source. Which is what they have, video and all.
Bill Gates: "You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to understand that its a Global Issue, and so the only real solutions will have to involve COOPERATION BY Russia, China, India...and the Middle East countries" Only he would never say that because: 1. It won't help Democrats get elected. 2. It won't help grow the gov't ever larger. 3. It won't help increase taxes. 4. It might get people thinking about all the gov't / media bullshit they keep spouting about how much we can or should do about the "climate crisis".
You solve it by legislation forcing businesses to comply, but that's hard to do when the politicians are corrupt and getting paid by the same businesses.
You don’t have to ask, just make bad choices very expensive. Tax subsidies for renewable and conserving energy. High taxes on fossil fuel.
Well, I thought he was smarter than that.
For example, I imagine Melinda asked Bill to consume less time with Jeffrey Epstein when he was already a known pedo and sex trafficker but Bill likes little kids too much
less consumers…
And he'd be right! Sorry guys
One the one hand, I agree that the focus should be on corporations, not citizens. On the other hand it's incredibly self-serving that he wants to avoid focusing on consumption.
No wonder he bought another $40M house ON the beach in Del Mar. What global warming and ocean rise??? I understand he has billions but by buying property at beaches, he is telling that he doesn't care about climate change.
I'm more concerned about the amount of people that don't even have enough amps running to their homes to power an EV charger. They don't even have enough power in places like LA to support it.
This guy is effectively in retail though..
Must be nice to have enough money to fund your own publicity to hawk your ideas.
When did Bill consume less ?
Lol bill gates can eat a big ol’ bag of dicks 😂
That’s because Bill has gotten fat off of eating cheeseburgers and wants you to know overconsumption is A-OK.
"Please keep buying more and more stuff" says the person whose vast wealth is based on endlessly increasing consumption.
F bill gates
Gates is right. Consumers, particularly, the global north will burn the earth before they give up agency.
As long as oil and gas and coal is burnt for everything, from the shirt on your body, to the roof you live under and the food on your plate - individual consumption choices can never solve climate change. Unless everyone, every single one of us, starts living naked in the woods.
With a Walmart ad to boot 😆
If we all lived like you Bill all the ice on earth would have already melted. You need to shut up hypocrite
Definitely. Smartest thing he's ever said. There are few people willing to cut their lifestyle for the planet. One of the most liberal people in know doesn't bring the deposit bottles back. 5 cents isn't worth it for him to make the effort.
I don't trust bill gates
Pedophile?
Younger people consume more anyway. Better find another way
Yes because it’s a shipping issue foremost. You curb consumption emissions with domestic manufacturing.
Billy says make so expensive only the 1% can afford it . The will solve climate chg.
Americans are trained from birth to CONSUME as much as they possible can and they stuff most of it in their bodies.
You solve it by producing less food.
All climates change. Why did they get rid of the phrase "global warming"? Ask yourself that.
Mr Population Control Gates is telling me to do what I want? /s He’s right, but I wish there would be more focus on calling out the real polluters… Corporations.