The purposeful misinterpretation of Bill Gate’s climate message to world leaders |
Last week, as world leaders prepared to attend the COP-30 climate talks, Bill Gates dropped a bomb, saying they are paying too much attention to reducing climate-altering pollution and too little attention to reducing human suffering.
Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise,” he wrote. “Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries.”
Gates’s message drew reactions from climate skeptics and activists alike. News outlets called it a “major climate change reversal,” and a “stunning claim.” Donald Trump claimed vindication. “I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax,” he posted on Truth Social. “Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue.”
No, he hasn’t. Gates did not downplay the importance of climate action; he downplayed the validity of climate alarmism. The problems with his missive are (1) a healthy amount of alarmism is justified, (2) he seemed to join Trump’s permission structure for backing away from climate action, and (3) he presented a false choice. We don’t have to choose between ending global warming and ending human suffering. The two issues coincide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) underscored this point a day after Gates issued his message. It warned that “continued overreliance on fossil fuels and failure to adapt to a heating world are already having a devastating toll on human health.”
“The climate crisis is a health crisis,” a WHO official said. “(C)limate inaction is killing people now........