The world of climate realism just won a massive victory thanks to Bill Gates, and the long-term results are likely to be seismic.
Gates isn’t just the founder of Microsoft, he’s one of the most influential philanthropists alive today. This past week, he firmly rejected the climate alarmism that’s been so pervasive on the Left.
To be clear, I’m not saying Gates has rejected the—largely fatuous—idea that there’s a grand “consensus” in science that carbon emissions are warming the planet. I’m also not saying that he’s going to announce a large contribution to the conservative Heartland Institute tomorrow. Gates still seems to drink some of the Kool Aid—he has just significantly diluted his dose.
This past week, he openly called for the Climate Industrial Complex to stop obsessing over global temperatures and start to focus on what matters far more: human welfare.
If others follow where he leads, this could transform philanthropy in a positive direction, away from alarmist fearmongering and toward actual solutions that improve lives.
It may also spell doom for the climate activist groups that long ago abandoned a healthy focus on preserving the earth’s beauty for people to enjoy and instead embraced a worldview that sees human beings as a plague on the earth.
What Did Bill Gates Say?
Gates published a long essay Tuesday ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP 30, next month, presenting “three tough truths about climate.”
He explicitly connected his essay to the problem of ensuring that charitable spending is “delivering the greatest possible impact for the most vulnerable people” and he claimed that the money designated for climate is not being “spent on the right things.”
In this context, he delivered a three-part message:
- “Climate change is a serious problem, but it will not be the end of civilization.”
- “Temperature is not the best way to measure our progress on climate.”
- “Health and prosperity are the best defense against climate change.”
In his essay, Gates urges the climate community “to make a strategic pivot: prioritize the things that have the greatest impact on human welfare.” He says charities should strive to “ensure that everyone gets a chance to live a healthy and productive life, no matter where they’re born, and no matter what kind of climate they’re born into.”
In other words, we should stop trying to play God and start using charitable funds where they can make a concrete positive impact for poor people today rather than worrying ourselves silly over decreasing the global temperature 100 years from now. The current agenda of the climate movement often drives policies that make life worse in the here and now and make it harder for the world’s poor to achieve the prosperity that would actually protect them from the threats of climate disaster.
Gates rightly mentions the case of Sri Lanka, a developing country in Southeast Asia that “set out to cut emissions by banning synthetic fertilizers.” This policy sparked a famine, and Gates said tragedy resulted because “the government valued reducing emissions above other important things.”
The Microsoft founder also notes that “in the past century, direct deaths from natural disasters, such as drowning during a flood, have fallen 90%, between 40,000 and 50,000 people a year, thanks mostly to better warning systems and more-resilient buildings.” He also rightly observes that “excessive cold is far deadlier” than excessively hot weather.
Gates does not question the assumption that climate change is a threat, but he suggests that increasing the prosperity of the developing world is a far better solution than obsessing over carbon emissions. He also notes that countries like the U.S. have decreased emissions in recent years, and he celebrates that “green” technologies are becoming less expensive.
He suggests that innovation and prosperity, not artificial limits on energy, pave the true path forward.
What Does This Mean for America?
Gates’ essay poses a fundamental challenge to the massive sector of climate nonprofits. Organizations that once actually focused on protecting nature for human enjoyment now spend the vast majority of their time demonizing fossil fuels and advocating policies that restrict prosperity, not enable it.
Thanks to Gates, the donor class that keeps these nonprofits afloat will start asking uncomfortable questions, like how much does advocating for the Green New Deal actually improve the lives of poor people in the U.S. and abroad?
Environmentalist groups played a large role in the influence campaign I expose in “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.” These groups fed staff and ideas into the Biden administration, weaponizing the administrative state to push climate alarmism on the American people and to fund their pet projects in the name of saving the earth.
Many activist groups will keep on spreading alarmism and advocating destructive policies, but Gates’ new direction will at least force these groups to reckon with the fact that your car isn’t causing the end of the world.
Earlier this year, the Gates Foundation distanced itself from one of the major arms of the Left’s dark money network, which funds climate activist groups. Now, Gates has launched a powerful salvo against the Climate Industrial Complex.
If his message resonates with donors, it may simultaneously weaken the Left’s climate activism and actually help people who need cheaper energy the most. Let’s hope America’s donors are listening.
