The news that Bill Gates is stepping down from Microsoft to spend more time on his foundation, and that mega-financier Warren Buffet will be giving up to $31 billion of his personal fortune to said foundation, reminded me of something I saw in an interview with Gates last week, namely:
I know you're concerned about global warming. Will the foundation become involved with that?
I'm already reading some books on energy and the environment, but I will read a lot more two years from now and think whether there's something the foundation should do in those areas. The angle I'll have when I'll look at most things is, What about the 4 billion poorest people? What about energy and environmental issues for them?
I know his focus is going to remain on health and education, but even a fraction of the foundation's resources could help immeasurably with the development of clean energy and leapfrogging strategies for developing nations. Here's hoping.
Comments View as Flat
dobermanmacleod Posted 4:33 pm
25 Jun 2006
Nothing is more important than runaway global warm
Methane from melting permafrost will soon flood the air
* There is an estimated 400 billion tons of methane trapped in permafrost ice.
* An estimated 50% of surface permafrost will melt by 2050, and 90% by 2100.
* Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2-the sudden release of just 35 billion tons of methane would be like doubling the CO2 in the air.
Massive amounts of methane from melting permafrost ice will soon flood the air-far outpacing human greenhouse gas pollution.
* The effect of methane flooding the air is runaway global warming-this disastrous positive feedback loop has occurred before.
* Ocean bottom ice will start to melt-releasing some of the estimated 10,000 billion tons of methane trapped in it.
* A potential bottleneck for mankind-an existential threat to nations.
* The only solution is biological sequestration-removing the CO2 from the air after it is emitted.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1215-24.htm
http://planetsave.com/ps_mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6724&Itemid=69
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2003/07/04/2003057994
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece
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amazingdrx Posted 8:07 pm
25 Jun 2006
Subaru electric car
Could this new Subaru electric car charged up with renewable electric power stop the CO 2 buildup and methane release in time?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/6/26/2056441.html
With enough wind, wave, and solar power I think it could. By starting a rush of competition and mass production by Toyota, Gomda, and maybe even GM?
But to really reverse the effect of CO 2 more carbon sequestration is needed. In the form of more conservation land, wetlands, coral reefs, maybe even a new national park on the prairie.
Present conservation reserve cropland stores 15 to 30% of US CO 2 emmissions. With CO 2 emmissions lowered by renewable electric cars, and an expansion of the carbon sink effect of conservation land by a factor of 4 to 6 times it is possible within the next 10 years.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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sunflower Posted 11:59 pm
25 Jun 2006
The Window
Are you starting to panic? I know I am. The world needs the science and the engineering of massive global warming mitigation. Where is the money to hire these professionals? The professionals will not come to the party until the money keg is tapped, so we are on our own, amateurs.
What do the stock owners of Peabody Coal think about making money destroying the Earth and humanity? What do we do when murder is legal? What do the wealthy do when political corruption is the lay of the land?
Bill Gates is such a good mommy's boy. His mother gave to world health concerns in her day. Would she ignore global warming today? Global warming will cause massive disease, especially from the spread of mosquitoes. I can understand ordinary people slipping into comfortable denial when feeling disempowered. But the wealthy have the power. Why do they not respond to this emergency?
Somebody with ability needs to talk to Bill. Billions of poor people will die from thirst, starvation, and disease due to global warming from industrial fossil CO2 emissions. So they get inoculations. Important? Yes. But also irresponsible. Why don't the wealthy do something real for the planet?
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bookerly Posted 9:11 am
26 Jun 2006
Add Warren Buffets Money
And Warren Buffet is going to give most of his money to the Gates Foundation. So, it will be even richer.
Most wealthy people seem to believe they can survive global warming okay, so why do anything about it? (My guess).
I am pleased Bill will be looking at this from the point of view of the 4 billion poorest.
As for the rest of the world, we have the money to solve the problem. For the developed world, it's not about money (we just spent 400 billion cr*pping all over Iraq), it's about will.
It's not up to Bill to solve this problem, it's up to us, organized, and demanding change from government and industry. Individual responses won't do.
patrick
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sunflower Posted 10:42 am
26 Jun 2006
Diffusion of Responsibility
That's the problem. Everybody thinks someone else will work to solve the problem. The wealthy are lazy, to wit Warren, not invulnerable.
I could use $20 million very effectively. If I had a couple Billion Gates dollars I would tie up Al Gore and throw him into the White House.
Do the wealthy not care for their children? Or are they simply ignorant of the climate science setting off alarm bells? I just don't get the disconnect from those that can do the most.
Demanding change from a government corrupted by industry is quite pointless. (Been there, done that.) I, for one, have declared independence from this illegitimate cabal that defends the corporation from the individual, a government that protects the right of the corporation to profit from the total destruction of Earth and humanity. I will not stand for those cowards in Congress. If that makes me the Enemy of the State then so be it. I will go down fighting with all that I have. I will not go quietly into the night.
Mr President, if you do not tear down those coal power plants then civilization on your planet will be destroyed. RSVP.
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bookerly Posted 5:58 pm
26 Jun 2006
Change from Government
Demanding change from government is the only way to make change happen. It will require massive coordination well beyond the well-meaning ability of any individual to make the neccessary changes in time.
Been there done that? You give up too soon. Government is, for better or worse, the way in which human society organizes some of our more vital functions.
I agree the current government is corrupt, but the answer is to organize people in such large numbers that the government must move. Lobbying won't work.
As Mother Jones said "Don't Mourn, Organize."
Waiting for Gates is like waiting for Godot.
patrick
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caniscandida Posted 7:34 pm
26 Jun 2006
"most urgent needs"
I think that is what Melinda Gates said, when the three of them (she, Bill and Warren) were being interviewed by the (thank God!) recovered Charlie Rose, and when Charlie asked how they decided which causes the Fund was going to commit itself to.
I love Charlie Rose, and am glad to see him back on his black table. But really, he has never been a very tough interviewer. And he was not good with these billionaires last night.
Well, that said, Bill and Melinda and Warren can do what they want with their money, I guess, and God bless them, I am sure they will be helping lots of people. And I believe them when they say that providing inexpensive medical treatment to people in the poor countries, who would otherwise not get such treatment, will save millions of lives. Still, I am sure a modest donation, if they can spare it, to the Sunflower collective, would also do tremendous good.
Actually, Bill and Melinda and Warren ought not to matter. We ought not to depend on the philanthropy of rich capitalists to get done what all humanity should understand goes without question as necessary.
Meanwhile, right now, there is the terrificly important ethical question that we ethicists are having a puzzlingly hard time answering: Should we not do all we can to allow the world's underprivileged to escape hunger and sickness? Of course, if the question is asked like that.
But then, what do we do with questioners, many of them anti-environmentalist, who ask follow-up things like, "Should not poor hungry people be allowed to kill the wildlife near where they live?"; "Is not imposing an international regimen of caps on carbon emissions equivalent to condemning the poor in the developing countries to eternal poverty?"; "Are not environmentalists a bunch of rich white elitists in Northern countries, with no real sympathy for any who are not of their class?"
Such questions as these can also be answered. They must be answered. But we must be able to do that well; and we must be able to confirm words with deeds.
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sunflower Posted 2:24 am
27 Jun 2006
Paradox Box
Canis, your writing has more clarity and depth than my thinking.
There is a third answer to your paradox: Unlimited carbon-free energy that costs less than fossil fuels.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientists have research and tested zero carbon energy sources and some, not all but a few, are much less expensive than historical industrial energy sources. This message endangers the messenger, more so than the message delivered by Al Gore and James Hansen.
The poor and the wealthy can continue their merry ways using energy more local, more sustainable, and less expensive than the Earth killing poison pimped by the Robber Barons.
The very convenient truth is that global warming abatement saves money and makes money, creates jobs for the poor and profits for the wealthy. The cost of global warming abatement is less than zero.
Global warming is smoking gun of intense corruption.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:09 am
27 Jun 2006
True
"The very convenient truth is that global warming abatement saves money and makes money, creates jobs for the poor and profits for the wealthy. The cost of global warming abatement is less than zero."
All true sunflower. But since energy and auto corporations that own politicians would be temporarily inconvenienced by renewable solutions it isn't happening.
Apparently someone has to go into corporate boardrooms, hold the moron's hands, and provide them with hankerchiefs to cry in while they express their fears about change. And then create new subsidies that insure their profits long into the future.
Maybe that would help? Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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sunflower Posted 3:20 am
27 Jun 2006
Bored Rooms
I have been in those boardrooms. Gross profits are very corrupting of the soul. I am still poking a stick at this problem because of the emergency. The best method to penetrate the balance sheets is to tax carbon. That requires an honest government. So we get a twofer, the end of global warming with new energy, and a clean government.
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bookerly Posted 9:19 am
27 Jun 2006
Honest Carbon Taxes
I don't have a personal opinion yet on carbon taxes (I am suspicious of anything that becomes a regressive tax, and most of the tax changes in the last thirty years have been regressive).
But before we think that it will promote clean government, consider what will happen. In order to pass, the vote of Congressperson WWWW from ZZ will be needed, and he/she wants a small exemption for local medical industrial waster burners under 600 square meters in size.
And so on.
Meanwhile, special tax credits are slipped in during the negotiations on the final bill between the house and senate, so that no one actually knows what they are voting on.
Turns out, coal power plants and auto producers who control less than 30% of the American market are exempt.
And so it goes....
Beware, beware!
patrick
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bookerly Posted 9:27 am
27 Jun 2006
Questions
Caniscandida asks ""Should not poor hungry people be allowed to kill the wildlife near where they live?"; "Is not imposing an international regimen of caps on carbon emissions equivalent to condemning the poor in the developing countries to eternal poverty?"; "Are not environmentalists a bunch of rich white elitists in Northern countries, with no real sympathy for any who are not of their class?""
The answer to the first question, is that it is not a matter of "allowing" or "disallowing". If people are poor and hungry, they WILL kill the wildlife near where they live. If we wish them to do otherwise, we need to provide them with alternatives to being poor and hungry that do not involve killing said wildlife. This is what most of the responsible international environmental groups work towards.
Question Two. The whole point of the Kyoto treaty was to on the one hand exempt developing countries, and on the other allow developed countries to use the treaty to purchase offsets by investing in clean technology in developing countries. Any treaty that would condemn developing countries to poverty isn't going to be signed by them. So, this is a non-started.
Question Three. American environmentalists mostly are. This is one of the reasons the American environmental movement is not making any real progress towards promoting change. In the rest of the world, environmentalists are not all rich, white or male.
The American environmentalist movement (MEM) needs to deal with this. The signs of progress so far are about like most American plans for dealing with global warming, insufficient and not happening quickly enough.
patrick
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caniscandida Posted 5:18 pm
27 Jun 2006
just to be clear ...
Thank you, Patrick. You realize, of course, that these three rhetorical questions are not at all my own. They are the sorts of ethical considerations that people impatient with green activists of one kind or another have brought. Your answers are a fine start.
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bookerly Posted 1:27 pm
28 Jun 2006
Clarity appreciated, not required
Dear CanisCandida,
I never thought they were your personal questions! And I appreciate your postings for the purpose of starting a discussion.
Nor should my answers be considered definitive, the only possible answers. If they are food for thought, that is enough!
patrick
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Solution King Posted 4:33 am
28 Mar 2007
Global Warming-Mr.W Gates
I have a solution for the Global Warming problem that would put levels back to the early 1960's, (imagine NO SMOG in Los Angeles), Like Mr. Gates I feel for the poor, the Carbon trading scheme could pay for the setup of my method after setup I believe the method will pay for itself, if the powers that be start today the poor in our world will not suffer as much and the Methane release from perma frost would not be.
Thank you.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:18 am
28 Mar 2007
Sounds like
Sounds like Bill got taken hook line and sinker by Michael Crichton.
Apparently his/their favorite approach on deflecting GW money is now currently
"OMG think of the poor childen"
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