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Why Bill Gates Is Dumping Another $1 Billion Into Clean Energy

Posted by Soulskill on from the won't-somebody-think-of-the-oil-tycoons dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A little over a month ago, Bill Gates made headlines when he decided to double down on his investments in renewable energy. Now, he's written an article for Quartz explaining why: "I think this issue is especially important because, of all the people who will be affected by climate change, those in poor countries will suffer the most. Higher temperatures and less-predictable weather would hurt poor farmers, most of whom live on the edge and can be devastated by a single bad crop. Food supplies could decline. Hunger and malnutrition could rise. It would be a terrible injustice to let climate change undo any of the past half-century's progress against poverty and disease — and doubly unfair because the people who will be hurt the most are the ones doing the least to cause the problem." He also says government is not doing enough to fund such research, and that energy markets aren't doing a good enough job of factoring the negative effects of carbon emissions.

7 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. Does anyone remember... by Sigvatr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does anyone remember when Bill Gates was evil?

    1. Re:Does anyone remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That was before he was sufficiently rich that he could be noticeably philanthropic without effecting his quality of life.

    2. Re:Does anyone remember... by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That was when he was running a corporation in a competitive business world.

      (OK, he kept it up for a bit longer than strictly necessary after Microsoft had "won", but that's another story. Plenty of CEOs do worse things than that.)

      --
      No sig today...
    3. Re:Does anyone remember... by murdocj · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sort of like the rest of us.

  2. Re:efficiency... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In fairness to Bill Gates, he's talking about poor farmers in poor countries where there is no real electrical grid.

    He's not talking about whiny punks in rich countries and their damned cell phones. Or rich assholes with private yachts and jets.

    Oddly enough, people in poor and remote areas are the ones who would stand to benefit from solar power the most, and they aren't the people who would be looking at reducing their energy consumption ... they're the people who don't have lights and really basic things.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. Re:Fallacy of Climate Control by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's his own money. Who cares if it's a fallacy? The reality is, eventually we're going to need to switch to renewable energy. Non-renewable energy will run out by definition.

    So if he wants to put his money into that, it might make the world a better place. And if it ends up with cheaper energy for everybody, it will make the world a better place. The cheaper energy becomes, the better.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  4. +4 informative nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Weather changes naturally therefore human-caused weather change does not exist?

    Lightning causes fire naturally therefore humans do not "have enough power" to create fire.