Joining the Dots Between Bill Gates and the BBC
Two recent events in the last week, which might once have been classified as routine commentary, have turned into international incidents with apparently profound consequences. First, and just ahead of the COP30 climate conference in Brazil, Bill Gates seemed to pour water on the climate agenda. Second, a leaked BBC dossier revealed that the broadcaster’s senior staff were aware of but indifferent to news producers deliberately editing footage in misleading ways. Though these events might seem to be unconnected, they may well be much more related than appears at face value. The world is changing, but neither in the way that the climate movement (if there is such a thing) claims nor as the BBC has reported it.
Bill Gates’s comments have been seen as a volte-face, but they may be better understood as a reversion to type. Of the three main “truths” Gates states, the most devastating for alarmists was that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise”. I prefer his third “truth”, however: “Health and prosperity are the best defence against climate change.” And that is, as I have been arguing for the duration of my career in climate, exactly the point that ought to be emphasised, rather than squabbles over seemingly scientific claims. The data on human welfare show that climate change is in fact a trivial problem, given sufficient wealth: there is no climate crisis precisely because there is greater health and wealth. If Gates’s overlong prose has a shortcoming, it is that he fails to recognise that the green movement is, from its foundations, ideologically committed to degrowth. I make no defence of Gates here, as you will see, but I point out that he has always had an emphasis that sets him apart from the broader green tendency.
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Bill Gates first thing on a Sunday morning – what a horrible sight.
Just remember, charity begins at home – give directly to family and friends if they need it – and trust no one else these days.
Charity should be given voluntarily. The BBC and others like them favour the state forcing people to be “charitable”. It’s easy to be “charitable” with other people’s money.
If you can, support your local food bank. Organised nationally, delivered locally. Visit them, say hello. Get their site bank details, pay direct, well organised, overheads are kept low, supports your community, volunteers welcome, gimmee grifters are not. Don’t forget to Gift Aid.
Donations to charidees are just secondary taxation for the gullible.
“…the scale and character of the problem of decarbonisation…”
Had to stop reading there. There is NO problem regarding CO2. It’s not dirty, it’s not a poison, and it doesn’t cause temperature rise/climate change.
What is wrong with these journalists that they can’t do a bit of research on the fundamental issue?
Edit: I note that it was written by Ben Pile, who does question the CO2 ‘problem’. I just wish it were mentioned in every climate-related article.
I am assured that too much CO2* is harmful in very large concentrations. Many years back I worked in a computer room protected with a CO2 fire suppression system. There were dire warnings if the alarm went off to get out fast. That system was later replaced with a Halon system which we were initially told was OK to breathe if it went off – which it did once. Then we were told it was very much not safe and the fire suppression system was replaced with a water mist system.
*CO² Fire Suppression Systems
Just for the avoidance of doubt. If you’re measuring CO2 in parts per million it’s not poisonous – it’s essential. If you’re up at levels where it will extinguish combustion it will extinguish life too. Beyond a certain level CO2 becomes dangerous – the Apollo mission planners knew this well. So after a change of the LM cartridges to a fresh one the CO2 level dropped from 14.9 to 4.5 mm Hg. This drop would not have been possible when a rate problem existed.4.5 mm Hg partial pressure of CO2 is equivalent to 5900 ppm (part per million) of CO2 in air at sea level. 14.9 is 19,600 ppm. The mean CO2 content of fresh outdoor air is about 400 ppm, low quality room air may have more than 1400 ppm. Apollo 13 air pressure was below Earthly sea level pressure but (within limits) what matters is the relative abundance of CO2 and O2 in the air we breathe – not the absolute amount. Normal sea level air pressure is about 760 mm Hg so 4.5 mm Hg of CO2 is a concentration of about 0.59% (5920 ppm) or more than 13 times current Earth air concentrations. Mission controllers were… Read more »
Just found info that says Apollo cabin pressures were typically 5 PSI (that’s about 260 mm hg, 350 mbar) – much lower than I thought.
14.9 / 260 = 5.73% = 57,300 ppm
4.5 / 260 = 1.73% = 17,300 ppm
57,300 ppm of CO2 was worrying
17,300 ppm of CO2 was acceptable
I just want all the files back that one drive has deleted.
You mean you put all your eggs into someone else’s basket? And that someone was Bill Gates. Sorry, no sympathy.
And letting Bezos look after them via AWS was no better recently. Buy your own NAS – I use and recommend Synology – and set it up in RAID 1 mirroring.
…and monitor it. We had a system manager (not worthy of the title) who didn’t monitor a RAID array he was responsible for. He lost enough disks to need to restore tape backups to retrieve the data. He swore that he had multiple disk failures all at once. The tape backup included logs which said otherwise.
You have some sympathy from me. Not everyone who uses a computer expects to need to be a system manager. It’s supposed to Just Work but too often it doesn’t.
So has Gates been the “Good Comanche” the whole time?
Nah, imo, was and still is a greedy chameleon.
Those women in Kenya sterilised by his dodgy tetanus jab might disagree.
Please, don’t ever give up on Ben Pile. Imho, it reads ok. “Both approaches (stifling investment in Hydrocarbons with financial ‘Regulations’ and Governments undemocratically spaffing tax-payers’ $Bns subsidising ‘renewable’ technologies) miss entirely (don’t even begin to solve/compare with) the scale (wasting infinite $Tns) and character (e.g. despite wasting $Bns to date, still unproven at any significant scale and if ever taken to scale doh, would inevitably suffocate the Earth, see below) of the problem of (misnamed/known as/laughably called) decarbonisation, which, as we have seen, consequently turns into deindustrialisation.” (And no farming, no railways, no jobs, no shops, population immiseration, societal collapse, etc., etc. i.e low population, miserably poor preMedieval existence.) “Decarbonization is the process of reducing or eliminating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere to combat climate change. It involves both decreasing emissions from human activities and actively removing existing carbon (dioxide) from the air.” Answer to DuckDuckGo search, “What is decarbonisation?” downloaded 09.05hrs, 9 Nov 25. Of course, there is Carbon in coal and pencils but no Carbon in the atmosphere (unless there’s an active, ash emitting, volcano). CO2 is extracted from the air and Carbon is separated out, and after the astronomical consumption (i.e.… Read more »
I think you can tell that I meant this as an encouraging Reply to BevGee.
In the good old days, American philanthropists built art galleries, museums and libraries.
I wonder when and why the philanthropists and the legacy foundations all went to the Far Left and put their efforts into ruining the lives of ordinary people?
His move away from the Net Zero insanity comes just as in the US we are about to enjoy a complete clown show starting with New York state. Having enacted legislation on CO2 reduction to be achieved by 2030 it required regulations be issued on achieving this. Having done some can kicking the Green Blob took the state to court and NYS must either issue the regulations on achieving the impossible or repeal their virtue-signalling act by 6 February. And many other states have made the same virtue signalling Acts. The defence in court that issuing the regulations would entail massive costs for everyone in the state in the year of mid term elections cut no ice with the judge. Quite rightly he rules that if you make an idiotic law you have to suffer the consequences.
Why does gates keep,popping into #10? Same for Barry? Didn’t bill have something to do with Bovaer, fed to cows to stop them farting and burping. The 30 farms in the Uk, halted its use two days ago. Why cows and calves failing to thrive. Guess what the tainted cow milk does to humans. Denmark farmers now halting the use of Bovaer, same reason. When in hell will this attempt to kill people stop? The fda stated Bovaer is not fit for human consumption. Warning, it is still being used in the EU,
This argument that only CO2 causes climate change is reductionist and academics who promote this should hold their head in shame. The climate is highly complex and not fully understood. The CO2 argument is a theory, not a fact.
The “flat earthers” are the climate fanatics; this was once a theory, the fact turned out to be that the earth is round!
It’s great that someone with the financial clout of Bill Gates is finally smelling the coffee that most ordinary people drink on the daily basis. But this is just showing a bit of ankle not the full reveal. When Gates stops naively persuading, even more naive politicians to stop regulating small farms out of existence, and then coming in and slurping all that gravy for himself, we would know he has truly change his colours. Thanks to ridiculous tax and regulatory changes under Biden’s puppet masters, America has seen a reduction in farmland, particularly small farms not since ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ described the dustbowls blowing across the land. Who stepped in to purchase the foreclosed farms? Bill Gates himself, making him the biggest individual land owner in America, with China running hard to make second place. Days after the tragic reign of Starmer began, almost immediately Bill Gates was through the doors of Number 10 meeting the new PM and Reeves with other big ticket techno oligarchs. Weeks later the vindictive onslaught against small British farms began as a national scandal. If Gates and the rest of the ridiculously wealthy 1% want to stop interfering in something they don’t… Read more »
This is a very insightful article. Mega-scale philanthropy as described here is a serious problem. I don’t begrudge them their money, but using it to promote their twisted viewpoints is destroying our society, from both Left and Right.
This piece is over-written. Keep it simple, Ben. Every time Gates makes a philanthropic donation, it is tied to some government commitment to donate twice the amount, which goes through Gates’s hands. Since stepping down as Microsoft chairman to concentrate on giving away his fortune, he has doubled it.