Mini book review: How to avoid a climate disaster by Bill Gates

Oh hey – quick post today – just here to give you a 4 bullet point review of Bill Gates’ new-ish book How To Avoid a Climate Disaster:

• It’s super accessible. Written with extremely readable prose and in a delightfully geeky tone, Gates breaks down this complex topic into clearly defined and digestible chapters. I also appreciated that he offers plenty of contexts and “explanatory commas”: when was the last time someone who uses terms like “Co2 equivalent” bothered explaining what they mean?
• He gets into some of what he calls “the hard stuff”, which doesn’t get enough attention in our climate conversations precisely because well, it’s hard and we haven’t figured them out yet: things like how to electrify freight transport or how to make low-carbon cement (the latter accounts for 7% of global emissions).
• This is a book almost entirely about technology, and very little is said about politics, climate justice, much needed changes in consumption patterns (especially in rich countries), or the for-profit business models. You can think of this as a critique or simply a matter of perspective: everything looks like a nail to a hammer, and every problem is a tech problem to a technocrat. Gates acknowledges this as much!
• I can’t decide whether you can seperate the message from the messenger. As he frequently jets around the globe on private planes (albeit using biofuels), Gates is perfectly aware that he is the “imperfect messenger.” Yet when he speaks, people pay attention, and I’m glad climate is one of the issues he chooses to invest his energy and money in. (As we know, there are worse ways the uber rich can and have pissed away their wealth.) On the flip flip side, Microsoft spent $200K funding climate-denying lawmakers in the 2020 election cycle, so idk  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bottom line: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is an accessible primer on the climate crisis and a technology-driven look at how to achieve net zero emissions within a market and capitalist frame. Nothing less, but nothing more.

Will you be reading this book? And if you already have, what are your thoughts?

(Header image by ASTERISK KWON via Unsplash)