How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need PDF Book

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need PDF, ePub eBook Kindle

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Author : Bill Gates
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible—plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.

Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal.

He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions—suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise.

As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

Book ID Asin: 0385546130
Book Title: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
Book Author: Bill Gates
Book Format and Price:
Book Format Name: Kindle
Book Format Price: $13.99
Book Format Name: Audiobook
Book Format Price: $0.00
Book Format Name: Hardcover
Book Format Price: $15.55
Book Format Name: Paperback
Book Format Price: $17.83
Book Price: $15.55
Book Category: Books, History, Americas and unknown
Book Rating: 8,804 ratings

Book Product Detail

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; 1st edition (February 16, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385546130
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385546133
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.36 x 1.03 x 9.58 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #8,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4 in Environmental Policy
- #9 in Environmental Engineering (Books)
- #14 in Environmental Economics (Books)

Customer Reviews:
8,804 ratings

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2021: Sad news: Electric cars won’t save the world. But Bill Gates has some pretty good ideas as to what will. Logical, compelling, and ultimately optimistic, this book is a rousing call from an innovator who believes we have the right stuff to change our fate, and his fresh way of thinking is desperately needed to clear away the overheated emotions this subject ignites. –Adrian Liang, Amazon Book Review

Review

“Gates gathers advice from experts while laying out his vision for technological innovations that could reduce greenhouse gases and stop the warming of the planet. If even some of his plans work, this might be the most important book of the year.” —CNN

“One of the most accessible, practical, and interesting books on the topic to emerge since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.” —Oprah Daily

“The most comprehensible explanation for what’s driving our warming planet; how to measure the impact of the myriad contributions to this staggering and seemingly incalculable problem; and ultimately how to go about finding more effective approaches to each of them. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to a how-to guide for addressing the climate crisis.” —Clinton Leaf, Fortune

“How to Avoid a Climate Disaster presents ideas with the methodical approach of a college textbook . . . Remarkably, given the state of the world, it is an optimistic, can-do sort of book, chock-full of solutions.” —Christina Binkley, The Wall Street Journal Magazine

“The most refreshing aspect of this book is its bracing mix of cold-eyed realism and number-crunched optimism . . . Ultimately his book is a primer on how to reorganise the global economy so that innovation focuses on the world’s gravest problems. It is a powerful reminder that if mankind is to get serious about tackling them, it must do more to harness the one natural resource available in infinite quantity—human ingenuity.” —The Economist

“The author’s enthusiasm and curiosity about the way things work is infectious. He walks us through not just the basic science of global warming, but all the ways that our modern lives contribute to it . . . Gates seems energized by the sheer size and complexity of the challenge. That’s one of the best things about the book—the can-do optimism and conviction that science in partnership with industry are up to the task.” —Richard Schiffman, The Christian Science Monitor

“In this wonklike and persuasive book, Gates takes his environmental activism a bridge further, laying out an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse emissions to zero by 2050. Drawing on data from researchers, policymakers, and engineers, Gates advocates for solutions both scientific (like developing alternative fuels) and personal (like increasing civic engagement in environmental justice issues). If you feel a radical shred of hope reading these galvanizing pages, dare to let in—without hope, we’ll get nowhere.” —Esquire
“With the help of experts in fields such as physics, engineering, chemistry, finance and politics, the technologist and philanthropist offers a practical and accessible plan for getting the world to zero greenhouse gas emissions and averting climate catastrophe.” —Barbara VanDenburgh, USA Today

“How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is clear, concise on a colossal subject, and intelligently holistic in its approach to the problem. Gates may not be the perfect messenger, but he has written a fine primer on how to get ourselves out of this mess.” —Adama Vaughan, New Scientist

“Bill Gates has a plan to save the world . . . While acknowledging that the challenge is daunting, and how we make things, grow things, move around, keep cool and stay warm will all need to fundamentally change, Gates argues that wholesale transformation is possible while maintaining lifestyles in high income countries and continuing to lift billions out of poverty.” —Greg Williams, Wired

“His expertise . . . is apparent in the book’s lucid explanations of the scientific aspects of climate change. The solutions he outlines are pragmatic and grounded in forward-thinking economic reasoning. Although he does not avoid the hard truths we must face as our climate changes, Gates remains optimistic and believes that we have the ability to avoid a total climate disaster.” —Miriam R. Aczel, Science

“Concise, straightforward . . . Gates has crafted a calm, reasoned, well-sourced explanation of the greatest challenge of our time and what we must change to avoid cooking our planet.” —Jeff Rowe,Associated Press

“A persuasive, optimistic strategy for reducing greenhouse emissions to zero by midcentury . . . Though Gates doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the daunting challenges ahead, his narrative contains enough confidence—and hard science and economics—to convince many readers that his blueprint is one of the most viable yet . . . supremely authoritative and accessible.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Those looking for an accessible review of how global warming can be countered will find this a handy—and maybe even hope-inspiring—guide.” —Publishers Weekly

“Gates has put his considerable wealth behind global health, educational, and economic initiatives and now turns his laser-like attention to this most existential of issues . . . He provides illuminating contexts for [his] perspectives and offers a treatise that is imperative, approachable, and useful.” —Booklist

About the Author

Bill Gates is cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and founder of Breakthrough Energy. Bill founded Microsoft in 1975 with Paul Allen and led the company to become the worldwide leader in business and personal software and services. In 2008, Bill transitioned to focus full-time on his foundation’s work to expand opportunity to the world’s most disadvantaged people. As cochair, he leads the foundation’s development of strategies and sets the overall direction of the organization. Through his private office, Gates Ventures, he pursues his work on innovation in clean energy, Alzheimer’s disease and other healthcare issues, interdisciplinary education, and technology. At Breakthrough Energy, he’s putting his experience as an innovator and problem-solver to work to address climate change by supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs, big thinkers, and clean technologies. Bill uses his experience partnering with global leaders across sectors to help drive the policy, market, and technological changes required for a clean-energy transition. In 2010, Bill, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett founded the Giving Pledge, an effort to encourage the wealthiest families and individuals to publicly commit more than half of their wealth to philanthropic causes and charitable organizations during their lifetime or in their will.

There are two numbers you need to know about climate change. The first is 51 billion. The other is zero.

Fifty-one billion is how many tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year. Although the figure may go up or down a bit from year to year, it’s generally increasing. This is where we are today.

Zero is what we need to aim for. To stop the warming and avoid the worst effects of climate change—and these effects will be very bad—humans need to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

This sounds difficult, because it will be. The world has never done anything quite this big. Every country will need to change its ways. Virtually every activity in modern life—growing things, making things, getting around from place to place—involves releasing greenhouse gases, and as time goes on, more people will be living this modern lifestyle. That’s good, because it means their lives are getting better. Yet if nothing else changes, the world will keep producing greenhouse gases, climate change will keep getting worse, and the impact on humans will in all likelihood be catastrophic.

But “if nothing else changes” is a big If. I believe that things can change. We already have some of the tools we need, and as for those we don’t yet have, everything I’ve learned about climate and technology makes me optimistic that we can invent them, deploy them, and, if we act fast enough, avoid a climate catastrophe.

This book is about what it will take and why I think we can do it.

Two decades ago, I would never have predicted that one day I would be talking in public about climate change, much less writing a book about it. My background is in software, not climate science, and these days my full-time job is working with my wife, Melinda, at the Gates Foundation, where we are super-focused on global health, development, and U.S. education.

I came to focus on climate change in an indirect way—through the problem of energy poverty.

In the early 2000s, when our foundation was just starting out, I began traveling to low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia so I could learn more about child mortality, HIV, and the other big problems we were working on. But my mind was not always on diseases. I would fly into major cities, look out the window, and think, Why is it so dark out there? Where are all the lights I’d see if this were New York, Paris, or Beijing?

In Lagos, Nigeria, I traveled down unlit streets where people were huddling around fires they had built in old oil barrels. In remote villages, Melinda and I met women and girls who spent hours every day collecting firewood so they could cook over an open flame in their homes. We met kids who did their homework by candlelight because their homes didn’t have electricity.

I learned that about a billion people didn’t have reliable access to electricity and that half of them lived in sub-Saharan Africa. (The picture has improved a bit since then; today roughly 860 million people don’t have electricity.) I thought about our foundation’s motto—“Everyone deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life”—and how it’s hard to stay healthy if your local medical clinic can’t keep vaccines cold because the refrigerators don’t work. It’s hard to be productive if you don’t have lights to read by. And it’s impossible to build an economy where everyone has job opportunities if you don’t have massive amounts of reliable, affordable electricity for offices, factories, and call centers.

As all this information sank in, I began to think about how the world could make energy affordable and reliable for the poor. It didn’t make sense for our foundation to take on this huge problem— we needed it to stay focused on its core mission—but I started kicking around ideas with some inventor friends of mine. I read more deeply on the subject, including several eye-opening books by the scientist and historian Vaclav Smil, who helped me understand just how critical energy is to modern civilization.

At the time, I didn’t understand that we needed to get to zero. The rich countries that are responsible for most emissions were starting to pay attention to climate change, and I thought that would be enough. My contribution, I believed, would be to advocate for making reliable energy affordable for the poor.

For one thing, they have the most to gain from it. Cheaper energy would mean not only lights at night but also cheaper fertilizer for their fields and cement for their homes. And when it comes to climate change, the poor have the most to lose. The majority of them are farmers who already live on the edge and can’t withstand more droughts and floods.

Things changed for me in late 2006 when I met with two former Microsoft colleagues who were starting nonprofits focused on energy and climate. They brought along two climate scientists who were well versed in the issues, and the four of them showed me the data connecting greenhouse gas emissions to climate change.

I knew that greenhouse gases were making the temperature rise, but I had assumed that there were cyclical variations or other fac- tors that would naturally prevent a true climate disaster. And it was hard to accept that as long as humans kept emitting any amount of greenhouse gases, temperatures would keep going up.

I went back to the group several times with follow-up questions. Eventually it sank in. The world needs to provide more energy so the poorest can thrive, but we need to provide that energy without releasing any more greenhouse gases.

Now the problem seemed even harder. It wasn’t enough to deliver cheap, reliable energy for the poor. It also had to be clean.

I kept learning everything I could about climate change. I met with experts on climate and energy, agriculture, oceans, sea levels, glaciers, power lines, and more. I read the reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN panel that establishes the scientific consensus on this subject. I watched Earth’s Changing Climate, a series of fantastic video lectures by Professor Richard Wolfson available through the Great Courses series. I read Weather for Dummies, still one of the best books on weather that I’ve found.

One thing that became clear to me was that our current sources of renewable energy—wind and solar, mostly—could make a big dent in the problem, but we weren’t doing enough to deploy them.

It also became clear why, on their own, they aren’t enough to get us all the way to zero. The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, and we don’t have affordable batteries that can store city-sized amounts of energy for long enough. Besides, making electricity accounts for only 27 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Even if we had a huge breakthrough in batteries, we would still need to get rid of the other 73 percent.

Within a few years, I had become convinced of three things:
1. To avoid a climate disaster, we have to get to zero.
2. We need to deploy the tools we already have, like solar and wind, faster and smarter.
3. And we need to create and roll out breakthrough technologies that can take us the rest of the way.

The case for zero was, and is, rock solid. Unless we stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the temperature will keep going up. Here’s an analogy that’s especially helpful: The climate is like a bathtub that’s slowly filling up with water. Even if we slow the flow of water to a trickle, the tub will eventually fill up and water will come spilling out onto the floor. That’s the disaster we have to prevent. Setting a goal to only reduce our emissions—but not eliminate them—won’t do it. The only sensible goal is zero

Book Review

Name: J. A May
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Bill Gates has not studied climate science
Date: Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2021
Review: Bill Gates is obviously a bright person, he built Microsoft and was a great innovator. But this book is disappointing. Gates has clearly not studied climate science, he just assumes the IPCC reports and models are correct. Then he accepts their health and economic projections, built with climate model output. He does no due diligence. If he ran his business like this, he would not have succeeded.

So after blindly accepting, the consensus position on climate science he then proceeds to tell us what we must do to combat his hypothesized scourge of climate change. Later he implores the governments of the world to unite in forcing us to do what he wants.

In my opinion, this is a very shallow look at a complex topic. It is more of a propaganda pamphlet than a serious book. Bill Gates should do his homework for his next book. Not recommended.

Name: Sophismother
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Unrealistic pie-in-the-sky nonsense
Date: Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2021
Review: Bill Gates' new book was very disappointing to me. He did not seem to be able to relate to the realities of life. He imagines that the federal government will fund all kinds of very expensive bits of technology. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated financial woes and increased the tendency of elected officials to be more tight-fisted. Doesn't he know this? Senators and Representatives from fossil-fuel-dependent states are not going to go along with Gates' idea of deliberately making fossil fuel products so much more expensive that people will want to buy carbon-free alternatives. Gates seems to imagine that there will be money available to upgrade the electric grids, the need for which was seen in the recent Texas power outages. He is giving some funding, but even billionaires cannot come up with trillions of dollars. Gates' true colors can be seen in what he did fairly recently - convincing Oxford University NOT to allow its Covid vaccine to be used for free by the entire world. (Jonas Salk gave his polio vaccine free to the world.) That example of Salk's apparently didn't sit well with Gates. He managed to convince Oxford University to partner up with AstraZeneca, so that Oxford's vaccine would enter the world of for-profit medicine. Meanwhile the Secretary-General of the UN reminds us that people in poor countries can't get Covid vaccines. Way to go, Gates. Morally bankrupt and a pie-in-the-sky billionaire who doesn't seem to see how close the world is to climate disaster. It is not going to be able to wait for his "wonderful" innovations. There was only one US plant to capture and sequester carbon emissions and it closed in early 2021. Let's have some reality checks.

Name: Rachel Lafontaine
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: No Mention of Regenerative Agriculture
Date: Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2021
Review: Bill Gates, with his vast supply of wealth and power surely has to have heard of the carbon-sequestration benefits of regenerative agriculture and no-till methods by now. However, instead of highlighting what will likely be one of the best solutions we have, he ignores it altogether, goes on a rant about cow farts and promotes the fake-meat companies he’s heavily invested in as our best solutions. Unfortunately, this thinking will still continue to kill the majority the planet’s soil and will also do nothing to stop the loss of carbon from the soil by tilling. Only regenerative agriculture can do this but Bill Gates doesn’t want you to know it exists because he’s got money to make off of turning people into fake-meat eating vegans, with zero long-term knowledge or consideration of the effects. Oh the joys of capitalism.

Very disappointed but not surprised. Automatic fail.

Name: linda galella
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Approachable, Readable and even includes a plan that’s
Date: Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2021
Review: pie in the sky, Gates totally ignores the single biggest issue that’s plaguing climate disaster in today’s world - POLITICS.

To his credit, Gates doesn’t get bogged down and techie in this book. There’s enough data and science to support his assertions to make them seem reasonable, providing everyone holds hands and plays nice; providing everyone involved in fossil fuels just rolls over and drinks the KoolAid, no job required anytime soon, anywhere close to home.

There are lots of examples for how things can improve rather quickly, what they will potentially cost, how rich countries can and should help poor countries; there are countless opportunities for involvement should readers find themselves motivated for service. Once again I’m struck by the complete absence of the need for political support and cooperation. Does he REALLY think that a change from red to blue will move this project forward so easily?

Gates continues fly around on his private jet while working on this issue. Incongruous? Oxymoronic? Perhaps it’s just plain entitlement, but it doesn’t make for good optics. There are other options and as he said repeatedly in the book, “hard choices need to be made”. Maybe not by everyone?

No doubt I’ll be in the minority on this one but I’m a fan of the reality bus. All the good writing and professional publishing in the world cannot sweep away the fact that what we truly need is cooperation from our elected officials at EVERY level. So far, the price of gas for cars in the NE, (I drive a hybrid), has risen 20% since January 20th; that hurts. It’s too soon to understand the impact this white, cold winter will have on my heating budget. According to my “green provider”, I’m running ahead of last year but more efficient than others in my area. It’s many degrees colder and we had ZERO snow last year. This should be way more fun than huddling under a blanket with my pup in relative darkness each night; yup - hard choices📚

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