Bill Gates CHANGES COURSE On CLIMATE CHANGE Views — RISING+

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Microsoft founder and former richest man in the world, Bill Gates, surprised many people with an essay that he published on Tuesday. Now, Gates has long been a vocal activist for fighting against climate change, donating billions of dollars to support climate research and [00:00:19] Speaker 2: investments. But in his essay, Gates writes that a strategic pivot is necessary in the fight against climate change and that some of the money spent on it should be redirected elsewhere. Gates says in part, quote, "Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world's poorest countries. Although climate change will hurt poor people more than anyone else, for the vast majority of them, it will not be the only or even the biggest threat to their lives and welfare. The biggest problems are poverty, disease, just as they always have been." He then listed his three tough truths about climate change. The first one says climate change is a serious problem, but will not be the end of civilization. The second says temperature is not the best way to measure our progress on climate. And lastly, health and prosperity are the best defense against [00:01:05] Speaker 1: climate change. Gates went on to say that he knows some people will call him a hypocrite for saying this. But he expanded on his thoughts in an interview with CNBC. [00:01:12] Speaker 3: Shouldn't we, in our awareness of how little generosity there is to help measure, you know, should we get them a measles vaccine or should we do some climate-related activity? And if we could take, if we stop putting all vaccines and that, you know, saved you 0.1 degree, would that be a smart trade-off? That's the kind of question we have to ask. So I'm a climate activist, but I'm also a child survival activist. [00:01:46] Speaker 1: Now, some people online viewed Gates' essay as him turning his back on his old beliefs. Maxwell Meyer, writing for Arena magazine, writes on X, "This is a white flag from someone who fought hard for an insane set of ideas and lost." Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham says, "Here's what I know. Stick to what you know to be true long enough and eventually the fever passes. Fashionable trends crumble and you can hold your head high knowing that you never bought into the consensus." Now, Gates' comments come ahead of [00:02:14] Speaker 2: the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The 30th annual meeting is held in Brazil from November 10th [00:02:20] Speaker 1: to November 21st. Well, I welcome Bill Gates to club reality, which is not that climate change is not happening or that it's made up or anything like that. Human activity—well, the climate has been changing for hundreds and hundreds of years for as long as there was climate on planet Earth, and human activity does contribute to it. That's not in contention, but the more apocalyptic predictions of climate, of people active on that issue did not come true, you know, from ridiculous things to, you know, there's going to be the extinction event. It's all—there's overcrowding, overpopulation, all that stuff. None of it happened, which is good. And just prioritizing fighting rises in temperature if that comes—if the trade-off is living miserably or starvation or the disease mitigation efforts thwarted in the third world, that would not be worthy trade-offs. So I agree with what he's saying here completely, that this was not his position prior, but he's landed in the correct place. I wonder if, you know, like liberal left climate activists, people with their hair is going to be on fire because of this, contributing to the hole in the ozone with their burning hair follicles. But this is what—this is what people I've listened to, Michael Schellenberger, who's, you know, been a guest on our program multiple times, what he's been saying for years. [00:03:50] Speaker 2: So welcome. Welcome to the team. Well, I am, for one, not a hysterical climate activist. I do think what Bill Gates was saying is that climate change does matter, but maybe the way that we talk about it is causing more harm than good, and even to the poorest people. I would look at it this way. Instead of the climate activists, who I believe have good intentions, feeling like Bill Gates is now undercutting [00:04:09] Speaker 1: them because— I'm not sure they do have good intentions. Well, I think that—I like to believe— Not the ones who throw soup at paintings. Fine. Those people— [00:04:15] Speaker 2: We can talk about the worst type of protest. Every time— And then we can talk about an overall movement. The temperature has got 10 degrees [00:04:20] Speaker 1: higher, okay? That's what it makes me want to do when they throw soup at paintings. [00:04:23] Speaker 2: Instead of climate activists feeling like he's trying to undercut them, since he did describe himself still as a climate activist, maybe this could finally be a bridge to have a conversation with people that are in power on both sides of the aisle, that think that maybe hysterics weren't necessary, but the conversation still is, to figure out a real way to have less dramatic conversations on about solutions. It doesn't have to be number one on the list. I think he's acknowledging that, but it needs to be on the list. And so that's where to start, instead of being like, "Oh my gosh, the roof is on fire. Do something right now. The world's going to end." Like, that was never a good starting point because some people were looking at today and right now and saying, "Yes, it's hysterical. I told you I'm not hysterical." I do think that he's trying to take a more of a pragmatic angle, which also will lead to hopefully future real solutions. We should be mindful of our environment. I don't think it's a bad thing. The hysterical part you could do away with. Well, we should all be mindful and treat our environment better, right? You talk about how the economy and the government and the money we spend will be a terrible situation for our kids. Well, guess what? If they don't have an earth to live in because we trash it, then that's also not going to be great for them too. So we could all do better with that, right? Stop littering. Stop doing those things. Maybe stop using the canned sprays. [00:05:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, stop littering. Yeah, we can all do better. We don't want to live in filth and squalor anyway. [00:05:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we can all just take care of our environment. Regardless of the impact. I don't think you can say it's a bad mission to say that people who cared about the climate and how that contributes to the deterioration of the world are bad people. That's not a bad intention. They're caring about the things out there. Now, the hysterical part, I'll agree with you, but I'll never bash a climate activist just because they want to make our world better. Oh, I'll bash them. [00:05:52] Speaker 1: But why? Why? I don't think Bill Gates is there. I like her a lot. When you were her age, [00:05:58] Speaker 2: what were you doing, Robbie? That's a noble young girl. I was in school. Exactly. What she's doing, something noble. She's fighting for what she believes in, okay? I don't think she needs to [00:06:05] Speaker 1: go back to school. I think she's doing- I think she's dumb, but that's fine. Dumb? [00:06:09] Speaker 2: That's like such a strong language for a young girl who's inspiring millions. I don't have to, [00:06:13] Speaker 1: I don't have to, oh, she's inspiring. I don't have to agree with her. For dumb? [00:06:17] Speaker 2: She's a young girl who's fighting for what she believes in. Why is that dumb? She doesn't know what she's [00:06:21] Speaker 1: talking about. She is exactly the kind of hysterical, anti-progress human being I'm describing because the best way- here's the policy. The best way to mitigate the harms of climate change is improved technological innovation, which requires energy use and requires- it requires capitalism to be unleashed. It requires us to free the inventive, productive sectors of the economy to find new and innovative ways to produce energy more efficiently and more cheaply. And that requires less government regulation, less subsidies for existing- for existing sources of energy. It just requires getting governments out of the way. And that's not the set of policies that progressive activist type people ever favor. [00:07:07] Speaker 2: Like Bill Gates? [00:07:08] Speaker 1: Like Greta Thunberg. [00:07:09] Speaker 2: Okay, but maybe Bill Gates is open to that conversation, which is a great thing. That- to me, that's a good thing. I also think, you know, he's calling for a little bit of balance. He's calling for innovation. I mean, this is one of the most innovative guys in our history. [00:07:20] Speaker 1: For instance, shutting down nuclear power plants was a huge mistake because nuclear power- I know we all- oh, Chernobyl, oh. Nuclear power is very- Chernobyl wasn't small. ...and clean compared to some of the- compared to fossil fuels. So you should move from fossil fuels to nuclear. And then- and then, when possible, when it's economically productive to do so, to wind and solar and whatever else, fine. But you can't force that. You can't just say, oh, we- we- we, you know, we- we banished- we banished coal. [00:07:51] Speaker 2: And especially- I agree with you. And especially if that money is- is taking away from helping some of the poorest in our world to accomplish missions of solar power in the U.S. or elsewhere to make our climate more- like, that's not- that's not effective, right? If the world's suffering on behalf of getting more solar panels, we got to figure out how to keep people alive. [00:08:06] Speaker 1: Also, people make ridiculous claims. Like, every time now there's a hurricane or an earthquake or whatever, people say, oh, see what- climate change is causing- [00:08:13] Speaker 2: Getting so warm out. Well, a hurricane is caused by the warmth, I believe. [00:08:16] Speaker 1: No. There has been- there's no statistical correlation- The water is warm. ...changing climate change and more severe weather events. Fewer people- but fewer people die in advanced countries from severe weather events than ever before. Because even though we've warmed the temperature ever so slightly, and warmed the waters ever so slightly, we've built more reinforced buildings because of the- [00:08:38] Speaker 2: So that's what Bill Gates- So what about the poor people then? [00:08:40] Speaker 1: Right. Well, so we need to make available to them the same kind of developments and that takes- That's maybe more- precedence over climate change. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So we can mitigate- [00:08:49] Speaker 2: Well, hopefully Bill Gates comes to the table and has more of these conversations. Now, former President Barack Obama reportedly was going off on Nancy Pelosi in a tense phone call last year. The new bombshell report from Jonathan Karl's new book, "Retribution" coming up. We'll be right back.