not exactly but its not that far off a possibility as you might assume. as far as GHGs go, everyone talks about CO2, it's certainly the star of the show when it comes to media. But there's very little of it (we are measuring it in ppm after all). the major GHG in our atmosphere almost never gets talked about - water vapor. As an analogy for climate change I think of carbon as the rudder steering the ship but the ship is water vapor. Earth has, not sure if you've noticed, alot of water on its surface. As CO2 rises and makes a "little" warming, it increases the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere which kicks in the real deal. It isn't a stretch to imagine enough tipping points are tipped to start a period of runaway boiling of the oceans off entirely. We'd be wet Venus. And life would be over on the only place in the universe it's confirmed to exist. Yay us.
That is very true, however what we’ve done.. is kind of nothing in comparison to what Mother Nature does to itself. We are at risk, this planet is billions of years away from being at risk.
> We could easily make this planet too hot to sustain any sort of existence.
No, we couldn't. The carbon we are releasing into the atmosphere was put in the ground since the early carboniferous by biological processes. That is to say, we have a bunch of fossil fuels to burn because of, you know, fossils. Fossils come from living things, aka life.
I don't think we could end all life on this planet (if you include microorganisms) if we tried. Even if we fully irradiated the surface by detonating all of are nuclear arsenal, there'd still be living organisms clustered around volcanic vents happily chugging along miles beneath the surface of the ocean.
People underestimate the pervasiveness and tenacity of life on earth.
We have multicellular life living in rock miles beneath the surface.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_biosphere
The climate crisis discourse is often very revealing of the anthropocentric perspectives that got us in this position in the first place.
Biosphere is reliant on the function of all other climate spheres. This is the complexity of the problem. Right now the deep biosphere hasn't been interrupted but it absolutely can become interrupted by the collapse of other spheres.
All climate spheres are changing. The lithosphere is changing, as is the biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. Climate change is all encompassing. Nobody can say what the impacts will be in a thousand years, a million years, etc. There are far too many unknown variables, especially with the added bonus of the feedback loops which when activated will continue for decades and centuries.
I'm not saying the world *will* become uninhabitable, I am only saying that clinging to the opposite belief isn't any more realistic.
I think you underestimate how much we know from past mass extinctions and how major shifts in sphere interactions play out on long time scales. Earth has seen unimaginably terrible geochemical and mechanical crises before, but life, uh, finds a way.
It'd really be a shame if the only life left are small little mites and shit. A real shame if human consciousness were to die out... after all we've been through, all we've created, all the music and art and wonderful wonderful human things
> A real shame if human consciousness were to die out... after all we've been through, all we've created, all the music and art and wonderful wonderful human things
[In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems,](https://www.austincc.edu/adechene/Nietzsche%20on%20truth%20and%20lies.pdf)
*there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge.*
That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history" -- yet only a minute.
After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature.
**There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.**
Golden age, baby. Enjoy it while it lasts. We are on an evolutionary peak where we have captured lighting in a bottle and casually wield magical technology. Of the past 30.000 years of homosapien and the millions of years to be conscious, we are born into the time of Smartphones, Music, Intercontinental relationships, clean and hot water, delicious food, and much more. Be mindful of the present
Temps spiked at around 9° above current levels in the Eocene - yet all but a few of the orders of mammals alive previous to that time are still with us.
The biospehere will be greatly interrupted by climate, but it will not be destroyed.
What will be destroyed is our way of life currently. The greatest fall in living standards in human history is the major concern for me.
As much as it's a shame about the mass extinction occuring right now, that isn't something the biospehere hasn't had to deal with before.
Yes there is literature out there to support the idea that it is not only the amount of GHGs that humans are adding to the atmosphere that is important but also the rate at which GHGs are being added, and yes humans may be turning Earth into a hothouse planet where there could be little life left on it if any.
Venus by Tuesday.
Without nuclear war I doubt.that?
How exactly?
Significantly impacted, altered like crazy but is there really a pathway to humans ending all.life on earth?
I’d doubt even nuclear war would strip the Earth of its ability to host life. Chernobyl is still too dangerous for humans to live in, but there’s a LOT of animal life there.
It is highly believed by the scientists at NASA that Venus suffered from the exact same problem we are (runaway greenhouse gases). The emissions did not stop and eventually the planet turned into a fiery wasteland too hot to sustain any sort of existence.
A larger difference that causes those cycles is the carbon cycle. Even if all life were wiped out, the tectonic processes on the earth would eventually sink enough CO2 to prevent Venus-like conditions.
It's theorized that part of the issue Venus has is its low and unusual geological activity.
There are differences to be sure. There are similarities as well. There are so many unknowns that it’s easy to let speculation look like facts. The biggest unknown for me personally are the vast, unmeasured quantities of methane clathrates frozen at the bottom of the oceans. If they ever unfreeze, well, there’s an example of a possible runaway cycle that would make life as we know it impossible.
We don’t really know, and I don’t want to be alarmist — but I also don’t want to bet the future of the planet on it either.
thank you... a little humility, a little caution and a little compassion for all the other life that had to slog through 4 billion years of evolution to get here.
That and it’s day is longer than it’s year, it rotates in the wrong direction, IIRC lacks a magnetic field, and it’s volcanism is far beyond anything on earth since multicellular life got going. Also lacks a significant moon that would help life with tidal pull and catch some life-killing asteroids and comets
If we're talking about the cooling during the Ordovician, volcanic activity actually helped the earth cool down. Volcanic rocks were weathered by ash and formation of new mountains by colliding continents, so there were more silicate which reacts with carbon dioxide. IIRC lower solar output and the positioning of the continents helped cooling too. Then came plants which weathered more rock and took even more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so it ended with a glaciation that caused a mass extinction.
In a couple decades, there will be no more significant anthropogenic carbon emissions because civilization will have collapsed.
Higher temperatures will enhance the weathering rate and much of the extra carbon will be sequestered over tens of millennia.
Upvoted. To have a runaway greenhouse effect, the oceans would have to start evaporating so the atmosphere gets loaded with water vapor (a GHG) until a tipping point is reached.
It happened about 250 million years ago. Largest ever mass extinction, 95% of life just erased from the fossil record. Caused by the oceans acidifying due to excess co2 and then the algae that could survive produced huge amounts of sulphur dioxide? as excretions that turned into acid rain and destroyed the ozone layer.
Right, but the *planet* will still be there. See how doom and gloom is exaggerated? Planet will be fine. We’ll be fucked, but fuck us.
— Bill Gates, probably
I, honestly, don't think it is within human capability to wipe out all life on the Earth. However, I think we could set things back to several billion years ago where there's only simplistic life forms.
Whatever happens, even if humans persist, will still be a big and theoretically avoidable collapse. Hence this subreddit.
If the end Permian extinction, where global temperatures got so hot due to co2 released by super volcanoes that the equator was literally a dead zone and 98% of life in the oceans died, didn’t sterilise the planet then were not going to.
No, that won’t happen. There are “extremophiles” occupying all sorts of ecological niches you might not expect to see hosting life. We already know of organisms that can survive without oxygen, without light, at high pressure at the bottom of the ocean, inside rocks, deep in the crust, inside volcanoes and thermal vents, that can tolerate extremely high salts, can “breathe” sulfur, etc. Optimal conditions for some types of organisms - for example mammals - may decline. But one species detriment is another’s opportunity, and life forms will expand to take advantage of the new conditions. Life will continue.
The planet was fine before we got here and it will be fine after we are gone.
Venus is theorized to have been a water/rock planet just like Earth once. Then it had a runaway greenhouse effect. Now look at it. Hottest planet in the Solar System and it's atmosphere is basically acid.
Earth in general doesn't have "long" time to live. Sun is getting hotter and hotter. In about billion years it will become Venus like and unlivable because of the sun heat. Considering earth have already been here for 5 billion years on cosmic scale, billion year is not that long. And if we cause 6th great extinction, don't think new life forms will have a lot of time to evolve before it gets cooked by the sun.
Life has hundreds of millions of years left to evolve. If the Anthropocene extinction is near total for multicellular life, it will be followed by a period of rapid evolution as the survivors radiate into unoccupied niches.
The planet will still be there, just maybe without some of the nasty bugs that roamed over it’s thin crust. Is a problem of resolution, how closely you will look at it.
Bill and his ilk will all be living on space stations and other artificial domes on Mars while the rest of us choke to death on the polluted air that they've left behind.
Whatever, it'll be the death of them anyway. They aren't getting off easy even if they actually manage to do that.
Space stations can be breached by a pebble or a stray screw at any time. Microgravity makes you go blind, among other things. Lunar regolith is jagged at a small scale and gets in everything, especially your suit seals, and it's bad for your lungs. A Mars base is beyond the reach of quick resupply. Only the space station gets access to a magnetosphere so you're probably living underground. Hard and constant labor will be the norm and there's no working class to dump it on.
>Hard and constant labor will be the norm and there's no working class to dump it on.
This would be the nail in the coffin, they'd program robots to put bullets in their own brains so that they didn't have to be bothered to actually lift the gun themselves
What if Bill goes to bed every night screaming internally that he, with the ability of modern tech and almost the most money on earth, knows even that can't fix the Problem of Humanity?
How do you cope with knowing that despite what you have, it won't be enough?
Must feel pretty shitty.
Sure it does, but it can't be much worse than the dread the average one of us might feel, knowing that we are also powerless to stop the inexorable march of humanity toward climate disaster. At least he doesn't have to also worry about making rent on time. Fuck him.
There's definitely a worse feeling in knowing you *are* at the peak and there's nowhere else to go, though. I'm not sympathizing with him, just saying he has to know a sense of things we can't because he's seen all the ability he has on paper.
No matter how bad it gets on Earth it will still be the most habitable planet in the solar system. The only reason I see for them to go to Mars is to escape from all the pissed off people whose lives they screwed up in the name of profit.
Really it is the current civilization that is totally fucked.
And that civilization happens to produce and distribute all of that 80% of us eat.
And the other 20% of people will struggle against devastating extreme weather to grow much of anything.
Good times.
Subsistence farming continues today in large parts of rural Africa,\[6\] and parts of Asia and Latin America. In 2015, about 2 billion people (slightly more than 25% of the world's population) in 500 million households living in rural areas of developing nations survive as "smallholder" farmers, working less than 2 hectares (5 acres) of land.\[7\] Around 98% of China's farmers work on small farms, and China accounts for around half of the total world farms.\[7\] In India, 80% of the total farmers are smallholder farmers; Ethiopia and Asia have almost 90% being small; while Mexico and Brazil recorded having 50% and 20% being small.\[7\]
Naw that was still over oil and nat gas. Ukraine was in talks to develop those fields in that sea near their shores before Russia got involved. The grain fields are just a bonus.
Just watch the crop failures trends over the next few decades. It's going to get bad.
Remember last summer when half the rivers in Europe ran dry. Spoiler, that's a bad sign for crops.
The rivers running dry, lack of retained meltwater, all speaks of a difficult time ahead. Food and water security is going to spark a lot of future conflict.
Anybody downstream expecting current water rights is going to suffer a hard next few years.
Subsistence farmers never do well, but they can subsist until they can't, maybe it will get too hot and dry around the equator where most of that is. Who knows.
Torrential rainfall and hail just destroyed a significant fraction of the yearly crops in Southern Europe. Droughts become worse because the hot air sucks more water out of the ground, the flip side is that all that water accumulates and is likely to unload in catastrophic events.
This is why arguments like this headline seem so stupid to me. So what? The planet will be fine until the sun dies. I’m just concerned about the life on it. Specifically humans but also all the other Holocene species.
I really think humanity will survive. We are smart enough to solve almost every issue that we face today. The problem is, we get in our own way. If the entire world managed to come together to achieve some seemingly impossible task, we could do it. Our entire species is just so confused and angry right now and no one can agree on where we went wrong or how to proceed. A collapse is almost guaranteed, we just don’t know what kind of collapse or how severe. At this point, the only way out is through.
Listen the Aquarian tank is going to be here long after all the fish have died from ammonia poisoning and starvation, no need to panic about "maintenance" and "feeding" the fish.
Many have accurately pointed out that it is a tax dodge (reinvesting profits from one business into ag-infra) but I see no reason why Mr. Gates wouldn't *also* build a nice little bunker there somewhere. I certainly would.
The amusing part will be when climate change renders those areas unlivable, the soil dead, the farms silent.
> I see no reason why Mr. Gates wouldn't also build a nice little bunker there somewhere. I certainly would.
Ignoring climate change for a moment, it would be handy to always have a shelter nearby in case your jet plane (aka ride back to Medina) has engine failure or whatever and you gotta wait for alternate transport.
I'm not sure where he is buying farmland, but a good chunk of it is in hurricane/tornado areas in the US.
Sometimes rich dudes do that kinda thing; they have a backup house or bunker or car, and people are pretty quick to ring the alarm bells, but you gotta be in the mindset of ultra-convenience. Owning duplicate stuff is just another form of a panic room for them.
The wealthy are also always chasing trends, so one of them doing it in a collapse-aware context could mean another dozen do it just to be posers. Just something to consider.
Can you imagine what would happen if the three of them stood in front of the cameras and gave us the unvarnished truth?
"Hmm, actually we're wrong. We've completely fucked the planet getting mind-bogglingly rich, and you're all going to die before we do. The last one to the bunker gets locked out! Race ya!!"
Or "reform" the climate with charter school climate. Then move on to something else when it shits out, such as buying all the farmland (which he has actually done)! Now that's climate realism!
Exactly we are not trying to save the Earth, as the Earth will continue no matter what we do, we are trying to save us and every other living thing that lives on the planet.
Random story, but I went to see George Carlin in Seattle back in the early oughts with my girlfriend at the time, and we had some seats in the upper balcony area. We were two seats in from the isle, and those seats to my left were empty. Just as the lights to down fire the start of the performance a couple swoops in quote quickly and fills the two empty seats, a woman to my immediate left, and a man next to her. After my eyes adjusted for a moment I realized it was Bill and Melinda Gates now sitting next to me. I looked over at my girlfriend and she looked at me with wide eyes, then we both sat back to enjoy the show. I remeber Bill's laugh was a stereotypical Poindexter laugh that was pretty entertaining.
And, he's clearly Out of Touch. If you don't follow Global Warming damage in the news, you won't see it.
Like Alberta and Kansas crop destroyed. Plus heat waves and heat domes, in China, India, Spain, the EU...
Yeah, you can't see anything with your eyes closed.
He would have never been able to get Microsoft started if his mom wasn't so well connected and he didn't get special, low-cost, high-quality legal services from his dad.
He was around 20 years old, had no industry experience, was a university dropout, was not a good programmer, etc. yet his mom was able to convince some of the wealthiest businessmen in Seattle to fund his software company at a time when most of them were sure to not know what software is. They had probably heard of computers but never used one themselves. They would have never funded me if I was a university dropout with no industry experience.
What's so frustrating about Bill Gates for me is he's the ultimate example of a horrendously successful terrible person who has left scars on the world,
who people make up absolute nonsense about and call him evil based on that instead of the overwhelming abundance of [real shit](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-ballad-of-bill-83715310/) to point to.
SS: this is related to collapse because it is discussing all the climate tech available for saving us! The problem is that everything being discussed is still in theory phase, trial phase, or magical unicorn fantasy phase.
Best quote from the article?
"The world will not be able to meet its agreed-upon goal to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures, but it won’t hit the 3-degree Celsius mark either, said Gates, who is not a climate scientist."
Happy Friday, doomsters! Congratulations on keeping it under 3C! We're saved!
Actual climate scientists will tell you that we really can't make that 3 degrees statement with any certainty. But don't worry everybody, a billionaire says we'll be alright!
Seriously- once it heats up to 3 degrees, why would we assume that it would suddenly just stop? Isn’t that well past the point of feedback loops being triggered? It’s not like the methane in the permafrost or in the ocean is just going to stop being released.
I don’t understand his logic at all.
It’s amazing to think that all our projections involve us suddenly finding a way to meet all our energy needs in a carbon neutral way by 2040 when the technology hasn’t even been invented yet. That’s…17 years away. Which is not that much time in the grand scheme of things, and I’m not sure the technology is even possible to begin with. I realized the situation was hopeless when I saw my states climate reduction effort, and the only thing that made any impact on the upwards graph was when we had the recession in 2008 and industry ground to a halt. Only economic catastrophe and us not doing anything will turn this around, and I don’t see it happening any time soon.
Many people who are well-known for being geniuses, innovators, experts -- what have your -- in a certain field often prove themselves to be out of their depth at the very least and total idiots at the very worst when they insist on pontificating in other areas of inquiry in which they have scant experience or knowledge.
Idiot Savant = perhaps a *savant* in computer science but a comparative *idiot* in climate science.
I was gunna say see Elon as an example but im not sure if he comes up with any of hid deas or if he just pays other people to do it cause he was born rich.
Weil, the *Great Man* revisionist lens of history was never very accurate to begin with considering the immense amount of cooperation, recording and education necessary for even the smallest of inventions.
Most contemporary *leaders* were never geniuses in their fields either. The real geniuses work for them. They were just ruthless, privileged and lucky enough to make their way to the top.
He also has spent hundreds of millions on bribes errrr donations to various media corporations. Almost covered his tracks about his connection to Epstein. Almost.
“The planet will be fine. 99.999% of life on Earth won’t be fine but that doesn’t matter because I will be able to die of natural causes in old age without lowering my standard of living”
The planet will be fine. 99.999% of life on Earth won’t be fine but that doesn’t matter because ~~I~~ most humans will be able to die of natural causes in old age without lowering ~~my~~ their standard of living much
>Days after protesters in the street, many of them under 30, talked of robbed futures, speakers at the Earthshot summit – named because it was inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s moonshot effort in the 1960s – saw a different world developing, mainly because of changes in technology.
>“There’s a lot of climate exaggeration,” said Gates, who founded Microsoft and is now a philanthropist. “The climate is not the end of the planet. So the planet is going to be fine.”
>The world will not be able to meet its agreed-upon goal to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures, but it won’t hit the 3-degree Celsius mark either, said Gates, who is not a climate scientist.
It's good they pointed out that Gates is not a climate scientist but not even hitting 3C? C'mon Bill, I know you're smarter than that.
You cut off the remaining interesting tidbit for his reasoning based on lab level techno hopium:
> Gates cited a reason for thinking it won’t be as bad as it once looked: Since 2015, until last year, the world went on a “gigantic” innovation binge in efforts that could help curb climate change.
> Gates promoted a winner from last year who tries to use rock-like resources to safely store carbon dioxide sucked from the atmosphere, speeding up a natural process by 100,000 times. If that company can get the price of storing carbon dioxide down to $50 a ton it “brings in this additional tool that reduces the temperature rise.”
He’s right though.
The planet is damaged, but with time, hopefully it’ll heal. The planet will be fine!
You know who ***won’t be fine though?*** take a guess…
He's just the biggest owner of farmland in the US because he really likes chickens, not because he's about to make bank when he owns all the food. This is fine.
The concept of ownership will go out the window entirely during a breadbasket failure.
It's less about what you "own" and more about what you can actively defend.
"Uh, i'm gonna need you to put in a few extra hours at the Soylent yellow plant . You can turn it down but those extra rations will be going to someone else."
More like, "we're running low on soylent again and your human protein identifier came up in the *random and fair* lotto, sorry"
"what do you mean poorer Zeta Class citizens come up in the lottery more often? Statistical anomaly? Nonsense. Hey, I think your number just came up :)"
These days I find Bill Gates to be a good barometer of things generally.
For example, if he says something is true, it's probably not.
And if he thinks something's a good idea, it's probably not.
So looking into my reverse-Gates crystal ball, I can confidently say, The climate is worse than most people think, and it will probably end the whole planet.
Good catch. If he *really* believes that the future will be all fine and dandy, peaches and cream, and rainbows, then how come he's parting with a substantial portion of his billions to buy up all these assets?
Did he buy these up in areas resistant to drought and extreme weather? Could be he invested in dust bowls. But for a while at least might be a good investment.
Not the planet but the viability of life for millions of people existing now and for the next couple generations.
Of course folks like Gates and the next king of the Empire will be fine
Yes the big rock orbiting the Sun we live on will still be a big rock orbiting the Sun a million years from now, whether or not that big rock still has any life left on it, let alone human life, is the point of contention here.
If they are alive and we are, I can't wait for his bunker to be ripped to pieces and then he can be tied to a pole under the surface heat for the rest of his days.
Religion used to be the opiate of the masses.
Now, social media, id say, is the current opiate of the masses.
Myself? I’d like some actual opiates to calm me down. Would be nice.
Though he and his family/entourage of the 'chosen' might wind up suffering the fate of Prince Prospero and the guests at his celebration in Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death". Despite Prospero & Co. being all holed up in some kind of medieval castle or fortress -- read "bunker" -- the Grim Reaper still finds a way to crash the party as it were.
*"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death* \[worst consequences of climate change\] *held illimitable dominion over all."*
And 'all' includes you Bill Gates.
If the world's gotta go down in flames, that's actually a pretty cool way to go.
9/10 would mount a feeble resistance against our mechanomaniacal overlord.
He can say whatever. At this point it could all be "Goo goo, ga ga" for all I care, realistically. People like him are beyond our reach anyway. They not only own the means of production, they own all the means of bare survival. There will be no revolution, we've been played and the game is done.
Well sure the planet will not self destruct into a trillion pieces because of climate change ….this rock will still continue to exist. But the life support conditions for humans will continue to decline
Who the fuck gives a shit what he thinks? He's not a climate scientist. He's not a scholar at all. He, what, made some computer software and got rich. If we ever have a question about an OS or scaling a business he might have something worth sharing. Otherwise, his opinion is as irrelevant as any other non-specialist's.
So much of what is wrong in our society comes from this, “appeal to false authority.” People form their own opinions based on the opinions of others who are famous, rather than those who are knowledgeable and experienced. From, the example in the OP to voting based on what the Kardashians said, if we could eliminate this behavior and people could start thinking critically instead of accepting what some popular person says, we would be much better off.
What's the difference?? No climate, no people. If there's nobody around to observe the planet, it might as well not even exist.
Sorry, is it me, or is his statement really dumb?
Bill Gates is a lying sack of shit who only cares about his stock portfolio. see this: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74xwd/bill-gates-investments-in-oil-and-gas-climate-change
I mean, he is a 70(?)-something year old billionaire that hasn’t needed to work or have any kind of “real” obligation for probably 40 years now. so it’s entirely possible he’s dedicated his free time to educating himself on these topics. it’s not impossible for someone to do all those things given his privilege.
unfortunately, it seems all of that education has been in the service of answering the question of how to consolidate more power and wealth into the hands of his and his coterie of billionaire oligarch friends
You can educate yourself on latest findings, but it’s not the same as expertise and ability to scrutinize data earned by actually being involved in the process of hands-on science for decades. This isn’t my opinion; it’s for this reason no scientific journal would all him to peer review original research.
Therefore, all his opinions are essentially received wisdom from the scientists whose company he keeps.
yea, you're right. that was a dumb comment. im certain he's more *educated* than most people on the topics he talks about but education is in no way the same thing as *expertise*. one is acquired by reading, the other is acquired by a lifetime of reading *and* doing
On one hand I tend to think the leaders of industry and governments know more about this than any of us; the have access to actual data, before it's politicized and propagandized.
On the other hand, I don't think anything they say to us through their media mouthpieces can be taken at face value.
I think it's naive to assume they aren't susceptible to running with their own conclusions and superstitions in the face of evidence like a lot of people. Especially since regular people aren't typically surrounded by yes-men who depend on you for their livelihood.
I think it's rude to call someone naive when you misread their post. I said they start out with clearer information than we do, I didn't say they don't suffer from human pitfalls.
Maybe, but your platform consists of a post drowned out to obscurity in the volume of every other opinion posted to the same place. Bill gets articles posted because that money is what moves things to visibility, or invisibility, much like the significantly shifted opinion of kurzsegat productions after the 'partnership'. His expertise is in shifting opinions from a business perspective and that's what he's going to keep doing.
Yup, that and an infectious disease expert.
I don’t begrudge his funding of the field, to the contrary. But he’s literally referred to himself as an expert when he doesn’t even have an associates degree in the life sciences.
I can stand behind rich people funding good causes, no matter if they're doing it greedily.
But they need to stfu and let the scientists do the talking.
Good old Billy should just say “I wont live to see the repercussions of inaction, but it doesnt affect me anyway in my ivory tower” and be done with it
Fuck him, Elon, Bezos, and all the other billionaires
He's got children and they'll probably marry and have children of their own and so on so I guess he doesn't really give a f\*\*k about his descendants either.
It highlights how implicitly Wealth Enabled people view the problem: they don't even assume whether "them and theirs" will survive the climate catastrophe as it unfolds. Which is true and not true.
Cleopatra was the last of several hundred years of Ptolemaic Egyptian Pharaohs, but they themselves were not even connected with the last Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs who weren't connected ... well ... you get the point.
In the short term; wealth benefits anyone's chances of anything. In the long run it doesn't matter.
But, I think it also highlights how Gates' speaks with a very large point of view - which is the prerogative of insightful and clever people. We see it on reddit all the time - both sarcastically and not - that "life will survive". Because it will.
Gates' isn't saying "the planet is going to be fine, therefore climate change isn't going to impact humanity/life" ... he's saying "Climate change impact is man made and we'll incrementally increase our efforts and mitigation until humanity isn't existentially at risk". Because he has complete faith in the "Capitalism Problem Solving Myth" ... which he should: it brought him his billions.
> "We'll Scientifically Capitalism our survival" -Gates, hypothetically.
So, he's seeing it from two points of view which 99 percent of reddit do not. Profound wealth, and intellectual acuteness and an engineering problem solving mind-set (I didn't digress explaining that above, hence "two" but you get three).
I get it, he's a bazzillionaire, has self-interest, party interest, class interest first and foremost. G.E.D.; part of the problem.
But, he's still a thinker worth intellectual acknowledgement and understanding.
I’ve never understood why people place so much faith in wealthy individuals, especially one whose technology development was largely based on the ideas of others. So we ignore scientists and doctors but believe people who have more money?
Yeah I mean not everyone is going to die, just most people, come on stop freaking out already. Only the poors are being for the profits of a few, not everybody.
He won't live long enough to see the full force of climate change, so he is doing anything he can to keep his lifestyle viable for as long as he can.
He doesn't want his private jet banned.
there is change afoot and with that change, I want all those bastards to go away and sit on their wealth. Go live like a king far, far away. Go to fucking space for all I care. Just disappear
Unfortunately after they disappear, give it a couple of generations and whatever wealth is created again gets concentrated into the hands of the few. Human history over and over again. Until we can figure out somehow to live together where that doesn’t happen.
Ok. As a planet, in its simplest terms, he’s not wrong. A rock orbiting the sun. No matter what we do we won’t be affecting that aspect. But still. He has the resources to make a difference. He should focus on that.
Fuck anything Bill Gates says the guy was a thief and salesman that's it he knows fuck all about the climate or the planet just another rich fucking parasite asshole 🤮🖕🔪🩸🍽💀
He's right you know. The planet will eventually recover. It'll be here for the next few billion years. It's us that will end. It's humanity that'll go extinct.
Fuck that sweater vest wearing sex predator. The guy who fucked up the US education system with a completely unvetted program that conveniently assisted Betsy Devos' objective of destroying public education. After the whole No Child Left Behind was understood to be a complete shitshow, Old Billy Gates just said oops and bounced off to his next bullshit philanthropy nonsense.
Well, shit. Sure as rich people have too loud of a mouthpiece, everyone and their equally bigoted neighbor are gonna be spouting this guy's take on how it won't be that bad, over and over, until the windstorm knocks out power for a month, and then it'll suddenly be "why didn't anyone warn us? Like, properly want us? For really real? I wasn't ready, I didn't know!"
And then the same energy of ignorance will be pointed anew towards hating the "weak-ass political scientists who didn't know how to explain it better."
Although now that I think on it, I wonder who the assholes are in other countries pulling the same bullshit shenanigans on their countryfolk.
I fucking hate this argument. Yes, technically the earth will continue to be a ball of rock orbitting the sun. But we are killing ourselves and taking a shit-ton of other lifeforms with us and that is NOT FINE.
> "...said Gates, who is not a climate scientist."
"...said Gates, who is briefed regularly by his staff that includes many of the world's best climate scientists."
There, fixed that for ya.
> “We’ve got to hang onto optimism and hope because it is the biggest driver of change, the biggest driver of innovation,” William told the crowd of movers and shakers, after mentioning that he’d slipped away for a morning jog in New York’s Central Park.
The facts suggest that the biggest driver is profits.
> “There’s a lot of climate exaggeration,” said Gates, who founded Microsoft and is now a philanthropist. “The climate is not the end of the planet. So the planet is going to be fine.”
Spoken like a sociopath.
We couldn't destroy the earth if we wanted to. The deep ocean, under the earth and in caves, the extremophiles in their toxic pools, all would have holdouts even if we wiped out every terrestrial plant and animal along with just about everything in the seas.
So, he's *technically* correct. He's also not going to die of climate change the way billions of other earthlings. His privilege will likely insulate him and his ilk will be the last to fall.
Yes, the planet will be fine. It just won't be hospitable to humans. But the planet will be fine. It will be around well after we all die off from starvation and resource depletion.
Billionaires will be fine with climate catastrophe because they can just move to where it is comfortable. Bill Gates has even been hoarding farmland, so any areas that experience climate related food shortages will not affect Gates. He knows exactly what he is doing.
Says the guy who looks like he should have been dead weeks ago. Old guys like us have little to worry about personally. We've had our fun. The next generation is truly screwed over.
and he will be right. The planet is going to be just fine and wouldn't give a f\*\*k about what is happening on its surface.
Life on the surface, however, will not be so lucky. Or .. and by "life", i mean "current life". Give it another 20M years, I am sure new life will emerge and adapt.
Wait, isn’t he one of the climate change activists that continues to buy property on the coast of soon to be flooded land? If insurance companies believed this bullshit they wouldn’t provide insurance to homes on the coast. Especially ones these assholes are snatching up for millions.
Unsurprisingly, Bill gates doesn't know shit that hasn't been scripted for him.
The physical ball of chemicals will be fine, but life will either not recover or take millions of years. Millions of slimy, toxic years.
Does he think we’re fucking stupid? No one says the PLANET itself is at risk. It’s the god damned current ecosystem that we exist in that’s dying. Fuck.
The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily.
> The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily.
venus is built to last as well and i have no problem with it
Hi, Inside-Palpitation25. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/16phfck/-/k1s1j47/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
> Rule 1: In addition to enforcing [Reddit's content policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy), we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.
Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information.
You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.
Yeah no one says that the planet will be finished,We’ll be dead but I guess that Prick with all his farmland thinks that His bloodline will survive the coming wars over resources and shelter.We just need to get rid of all these billionaires,they’re really just dragging everyone else down continuing to support a system that is outdated and fucks over anyone that isn’t rich or born into wealth
He is right. The climate is not the end of the planet, is the end of humanity. Planet will heal and continue long before we are gone. But like dinasours, humans will be a thing of the past.
Hi, LetItRaine386. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/16phfck/-/k1rmo6y/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
> Rule 1: In addition to enforcing [Reddit's content policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy), we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.
Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information.
You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.
>"everything's fine, don't worry"
>continues to exchange IOUs for more farmland
>continues to exchange IOUs for more disaster bunker upgrades & supplies
Uh huh
Oh man I'm so relieved the planet won't literally cease to exist when all life on it does thanks to becoming Venus 2: Carbon Boogaloo, thanks Bill.
​
Worm.
He’s correct, the planet will be fine. We, however will not.
Earth will shrug off these destructive primates and give another species a shot at the crown.
The planet will have eons to come back to stable after we’re gone , so yes. It will be fine once we’re gone.
I mean, as a ball of rock hurtling through space, yes I suppose the planet will be
Not sure about all the life and civilisation it’s got on it right now though, seems like “climate” might affect that a fair bit
Oh, thank goodness he has said this. Maybe now the conpiracy theorists will have a reverse psychological moment and start giving a crap about the environment because Gates said to not worry, so that means they should.
Bingo! As well as buying time for himself and his fellow billionaires by pacifying the masses with regular tranquilizing doses of such hopium/copium so they won't rise up and grab some of the One Percent's assets for themselves -- or French/Russian Revolution Redux.
I like how he conveniently leaves out mass extinctions and billions of humans dying. But yeah the rocks and sand should be okay. Great. Billionaire thinking at it's finest.
I fucking hate how these billionaires use their platform to misrepresent the situation all while buying property in places like Tasmania to save themselves.
Well that's quite the change of message from his climate book and I know a lot of you don't care about billionaires but in the book he is still hopeful that the worst can be stopped but this now sounds like he has accepted it's not possible.
What a dimwit. Of course the planet will be fine. Please shut up and do something useful with your billions of dollars so that LIFE can remain on earth.
like most of people cant afford a house and food and will not have kids, streets will have fentanil for the people that want a last trip away from problems, so yea, population problem solved, now the people that survived can repopulate earth
bill gates can’t have us plebs thinking there is no future. his future profits depend on gaslighting us until most humans are dead or suffering immensely!!
The following submission statement was provided by /u/WanderInTheTrees:
---
SS: this is related to collapse because it is discussing all the climate tech available for saving us! The problem is that everything being discussed is still in theory phase, trial phase, or magical unicorn fantasy phase.
Best quote from the article?
"The world will not be able to meet its agreed-upon goal to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures, but it won’t hit the 3-degree Celsius mark either, said Gates, who is not a climate scientist."
Happy Friday, doomsters! Congratulations on keeping it under 3C! We're saved!
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/16phfck/bill_gates_sees_a_lot_of_climate_exaggeration_out/k1qx59b/
391 Comments
hammeroztron@reddit
Alternative-Cod-7630@reddit
gmuslera@reddit
GuiltyScourge@reddit
ProcedureTop9754@reddit
hobokenbob@reddit
cannaeinvictus@reddit
Mikerk@reddit
Meshd@reddit
Mikerk@reddit
Guilty-Condition282@reddit
some_random_kaluna@reddit
Guilty-Condition282@reddit
martian2070@reddit
OnwardsBackwards@reddit
joogabah@reddit
get_while_true@reddit
frostandtheboughs@reddit
brendan87na@reddit
maningarden@reddit
mrbittykat@reddit
Maxfunky@reddit
lightningfries@reddit
GuiltyScourge@reddit
lightningfries@reddit
fuzzyshorts@reddit
RogueVert@reddit
systemofaderp@reddit
get_while_true@reddit
HeyMrKelly@reddit
ORigel2@reddit
Sandrawg@reddit
wallagrargh@reddit
Sandrawg@reddit
toxicshocktaco@reddit
Ancient-Being-3227@reddit
ditchdiggergirl@reddit
Ancient-Being-3227@reddit
Beep_Boop_Bort@reddit
mrpickles@reddit
Maxfunky@reddit
oO0-__-0Oo@reddit
pippopozzato@reddit
snakejakemonkey@reddit
ball_fondlers@reddit
GuiltyScourge@reddit
BrookieCookie199@reddit
I_AM_FERROUS_MAN@reddit
HeathersZen@reddit
fuzzyshorts@reddit
HulkSmashHulkRegret@reddit
Devastate89@reddit
Womec@reddit
NancyPelosisRedCoat@reddit
ORigel2@reddit
GuiltyScourge@reddit
Devastate89@reddit
Suicideisforever@reddit
ORigel2@reddit
ORigel2@reddit
5enseofimpendingdoom@reddit
ORigel2@reddit
cannaeinvictus@reddit
Randolpho@reddit
I_AM_FERROUS_MAN@reddit
VictorianDelorean@reddit
LordTuranian@reddit
ditchdiggergirl@reddit
knoegel@reddit
Inside-Palpitation25@reddit
BrookieCookie199@reddit
RoboProletariat@reddit
Spare_Tax6250@reddit
ORigel2@reddit
gmuslera@reddit
maningarden@reddit
calderbloke@reddit
SpicyDragoon93@reddit
screech_owl_kachina@reddit
dontusethisforwork@reddit
Rasalom@reddit
intergalactictactoe@reddit
Rasalom@reddit
Beep_Boop_Bort@reddit
Kootenay4@reddit
JackOCat@reddit
fuzzyshorts@reddit
i-hear-banjos@reddit
xNaquada@reddit
FunkyBongoMan@reddit
Tearakan@reddit
JackOCat@reddit
Lint_baby_uvulla@reddit
rainydays052020@reddit
goldenbeans@reddit
MokumLouie@reddit
wallagrargh@reddit
pharmamess@reddit
wallagrargh@reddit
BrockDiggles@reddit
JackOCat@reddit
dislocate_scrambled7@reddit
EyesofaJackal@reddit
HoolaPooba@reddit
Professional-Cut-490@reddit
Fruhmann@reddit
fuzzyshorts@reddit
Fruhmann@reddit
cassowary_245@reddit
Sovos@reddit
cassowary_245@reddit
zzzcrumbsclub@reddit
amazingsandwiches@reddit
invaidusername@reddit
HoosierPaul@reddit
Tigre-Geant1@reddit
KerouacsGirlfriend@reddit
imminentjogger5@reddit
maningarden@reddit
DustBunnicula@reddit
feedmeyourknowledge@reddit
06210311200805012006@reddit
Vic_from_fallout_2@reddit
Sengmand@reddit
BTRCguy@reddit
nandor73@reddit
maningarden@reddit
KeyBanger@reddit
xyzone@reddit
Nightshade_Ranch@reddit
han-t@reddit
ad_reg@reddit
Masterventure@reddit
ianishomer@reddit
Natiak@reddit
turquoiseblues@reddit
Spankh0us3@reddit
NoWayNotThisAgain@reddit
LakeSun@reddit
bcoss@reddit
CowBoyDanIndie@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
DetroitsGoingToWin@reddit
potankeramaSquare@reddit
AppearanceHeavy6724@reddit
potankeramaSquare@reddit
Idle_Redditing@reddit
AppearanceHeavy6724@reddit
breaducate@reddit
TrumpdUP@reddit
WanderInTheTrees@reddit (OP)
Serious-Wallaby3449@reddit
CardiologistNo8333@reddit
counterboud@reddit
knoegel@reddit
Anxious-Audience9403@reddit
SeriousAboutShwarma@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
rch5050@reddit
Arachno-Communism@reddit
Midithir@reddit
RestartTheSystem@reddit
NanatsuDIO@reddit
Beep_Boop_Bort@reddit
donaldhobson@reddit
AstralVenture@reddit
Coffee_Break_Hero@reddit
Imnot_your_buddy_guy@reddit
DarkXplore@reddit
GhostofGrimalkin@reddit
TrenchTiller@reddit
Mr_Lonesome@reddit
T-hina@reddit
slowclapcitizenkane@reddit
Supernova_Soldier@reddit
SchizoForLife@reddit
Eros_Addictus@reddit
SigaVa@reddit
NoWayNotThisAgain@reddit
RadioMelon@reddit
Bills_On_Parade82@reddit
TinyDogsRule@reddit
5t3fan0@reddit
regular_joe_can@reddit
Smooth-Question-3069@reddit
SaltyPeasant@reddit
no_spoon@reddit
fuzzyshorts@reddit
ORANGE_J_SIMPSON@reddit
Vic_from_fallout_2@reddit
Sarquandingo@reddit
ProfessionalMcUseful@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
Kacodaemoniacal@reddit
goronmask@reddit
D0lan_says@reddit
Europhilos@reddit
tbk007@reddit
Professional-Cut-490@reddit
DrInequality@reddit
Connect_Fee1256@reddit
NanatsuDIO@reddit
_PurpleSweetz@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
iforgotmymittens@reddit
HardlyDecent@reddit
RandomCentipede387@reddit
AutarchOfReddit@reddit
ripplespindle@reddit
watarimono@reddit
Inside-Associate-729@reddit
YYZYYC@reddit
YYZYYC@reddit
jazz-pier@reddit
Prof_Acorn@reddit
It-s_Not_Important@reddit
set-271@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
set-271@reddit
monito29@reddit
toesinbloom@reddit
schfifty--five@reddit
selectivejudgement@reddit
generic90sdude@reddit
Hella4nia@reddit
culezz@reddit
nertynertt@reddit
overtoke@reddit
joshistaken@reddit
False_Sentence8239@reddit
Branson175186@reddit
eyupjudd@reddit
Correctthecorrectors@reddit
BadAsBroccoli@reddit
anti-censorshipX@reddit
SolfCKimbley@reddit
spongy-sphinx@reddit
eieio2021@reddit
spongy-sphinx@reddit
eieio2021@reddit
rainydays052020@reddit
BigJobsBigJobs@reddit
06210311200805012006@reddit
Emergency-Bad-262@reddit
06210311200805012006@reddit
E_G_Never@reddit
Indigo_Sunset@reddit
eieio2021@reddit
knoegel@reddit
eieio2021@reddit
symedia@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
eieio2021@reddit
3848585838282@reddit
wunderweaponisay@reddit
MarioKartastrophe@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
Correctthecorrectors@reddit
argyleshu@reddit
cassowary_245@reddit
I_am_BrokenCog@reddit
DelcoPAMan@reddit
I_am_BrokenCog@reddit
DelcoPAMan@reddit
t-h-e-chief@reddit
Dark_DoubleD@reddit
TheHistorian2@reddit
gorbal@reddit
Essembie@reddit
Chart-Ordinary@reddit
TheGreatNemoNobody@reddit
mirandawillowe@reddit
Glittering-Paper-789@reddit
phinity_@reddit
AkaGurGor@reddit
4BigData@reddit
breaducate@reddit
JoeInNh@reddit
PicklesrnoturFriend@reddit
FactoryPl@reddit
fuzzyshorts@reddit
kiwijim@reddit
tc_cad@reddit
BennyBlanco76@reddit
Deafpundit@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
Lindls@reddit
mandiblesofdoom@reddit
KingreX32@reddit
blackmagiest@reddit
redditmodsRrussians@reddit
WhenImTryingToHide@reddit
BraveOmeter@reddit
Luc-@reddit
Spanish_Galleon@reddit
Mostest_Importantest@reddit
alloyed39@reddit
DustBunnicula@reddit
dangercluck@reddit
shaikuri@reddit
seabirdsong@reddit
JacquesDeMolay13@reddit
eieio2021@reddit
merRedditor@reddit
Puzzleheaded-Cry9783@reddit
Icelandic_Invasion@reddit
AluminiumAwning@reddit
-no-ragrets-@reddit
Jason_Batemans_Hair@reddit
Financial-Tiger-5687@reddit
D00mfl0w3r@reddit
like_forgotten_words@reddit
MatthewKeithPhillips@reddit
fartboxsixtynine@reddit
No_Introduction7307@reddit
okcphil@reddit
urstillatroll@reddit
iloveFjords@reddit
NyriasNeo@reddit
thechilecowboy@reddit
HoosierPaul@reddit
kiwijim@reddit
spurious_effect@reddit
YoushaTheRose@reddit
PervyNonsense@reddit
Tigre-Geant1@reddit
oryus21@reddit
Toyake@reddit
Me-Shell94@reddit
sophist_in_tram@reddit
extrasecular@reddit
milksteakman@reddit
Inside-Palpitation25@reddit
collapse-ModTeam@reddit
TinfoilTobaggan@reddit
Plexus_39@reddit
CAHTA92@reddit
cursedonidemon@reddit
lutavsc@reddit
PBRstreetgang_@reddit
Oo_mr_mann_oO@reddit
DP4Canada@reddit
Genomixx@reddit
mzarra@reddit
rp_whybother@reddit
rustle_spbrouts@reddit
____cire4____@reddit
RickySal@reddit
joseph_joestar___@reddit
Crimson_Kang@reddit
Bigginge61@reddit
extrasecular@reddit
TSM_forlife@reddit
LetItRaine386@reddit
collapse-ModTeam@reddit
Shuteye_491@reddit
HuskerYT@reddit
paddy_dub_85@reddit
lobsterdog666@reddit
The_WolfieOne@reddit
sephulchrave@reddit
nullzeroerror@reddit
sonofeither@reddit
jedrider@reddit
NoodlesrTuff1256@reddit
elsadistico@reddit
hoffman44@reddit
Ed-Saltus@reddit
Johundhar@reddit
breinbanaan@reddit
TiddyTwoShoes@reddit
MidnightMarmot@reddit
tsyhanka@reddit
lessquiet@reddit
helpnxt@reddit
Blueskies777@reddit
devadander23@reddit
Kishiloh@reddit
Agent_23D@reddit
J-Posadas@reddit
pat890b@reddit
RestartTheSystem@reddit
Puzzled_Lack3660@reddit
ComonomoC@reddit
curiousnotworse@reddit
queefaqueefer@reddit
Ok-Bookkeeper6926@reddit
UncleBaguette@reddit
WorldsLargestAmoeba@reddit
StatementBot@reddit
ApplicationMassive71@reddit