We spoke to @BillGates about his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” the limits of his optimism, and how his thinking on climate change has evolved. This is a thread about that conversation.

Question: In the past, it seemed you would distance yourself from the policy side of climate change. Was there a shift in your thinking, or was it a deliberate choice to lay out the policy side in your book?
Q: How do you feel about our chances of making real political progress, particularly in the US, in the moment we find ourselves in?
Q: You’ve said a couple of times you’re optimistic, and that’s sort of famously your position on these things. But of course, optimism is a relative term. Do you think we can realistically hold warming to or below a 2 °C increase at this point?
Q: In the book you cover a broad array of hard-to-solve sectors. The one I still have the hardest time with, in terms of fully addressing it, is food. How hopeful are you about agriculture and climate emissions?
Q: Do you think plant-based and lab-grown meats could be the solution to the protein problem globally, even in poor nations? Or will it be some fraction because of the cultural love of a hamburger and the way livestock is so central to economies around the world?
Q: What’s your reaction to things like the Trillion Trees Initiative and the large number of corporations announcing plans to achieve negative emissions at least in part through reforestation and offsets? https://t.co/Wt4iIhtfPf
Q: What’s your reaction to things like the Trillion Trees Initiative and the large number of corporations announcing plans to achieve negative emissions at least in part through reforestation and offsets? https://t.co/jAFIwkaBqk
Microsoft is in the process of trying to eliminate its entire historic emissions. The company apparently wants to do it at $20 a ton? Do you think we can achieve reliable permanent carbon removal for $20 a ton eventually? https://t.co/B4cLaqSN0E
These quotes are excerpts from @jtemple's interview with @BillGates in December. Read the full Q&A here: https://t.co/A72BMVpSCr
Want more news like this? Sign up for The Download newsletter, sent to your email inbox each weekday morning: https://t.co/67uq5gXBrk

You May Also Like

Great article from @AsheSchow. I lived thru the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980's/early 1990's asking myself "Has eveyrbody lost their GODDAMN MINDS?!"


The 3 big things that made the 1980's/early 1990's surreal for me.

1) Satanic Panic - satanism in the day cares ahhhh!

2) "Repressed memory" syndrome

3) Facilitated Communication [FC]

All 3 led to massive abuse.

"Therapists" -and I use the term to describe these quacks loosely - would hypnotize people & convince they they were 'reliving' past memories of Mom & Dad killing babies in Satanic rituals in the basement while they were growing up.

Other 'therapists' would badger kids until they invented stories about watching alligators eat babies dropped into a lake from a hot air balloon. Kids would deny anything happened for hours until the therapist 'broke through' and 'found' the 'truth'.

FC was a movement that started with the claim severely handicapped individuals were able to 'type' legible sentences & communicate if a 'helper' guided their hands over a keyboard.