If you have been living under a stone for the last fortnight, or have in some other manner, [and with good reason] been protecting yourself from all the world wishes to throw at you, then you may not already be aware that Bill Gates has recently published a book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.

In weighing up the matter of whether to buy a copy, I read a few reviews, and found them, without exception, [though somewhat grudgingly in a number of cases], positive.

The main source of grievance raised against Gates, apart from his self-evident smartness, seems to be his love of the private jets he uses to get from A to B in his mission to give away his vast wealth in the name of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. Despite his very frank and disarming admission that this does not sit comfortably with his concerns regarding the climate crisis,at least some reviewers felt the need to pause and consider whether this foible makes him liable to the charge of rank hypocrisy; the verdict in general was that regardless, his book is a stark but nevertheless clearly argued assessment of our climate plight.

For myself, I have never really quite forgiven Bill Gates for the Windows operating system, and those agonising hours spent in front of the circle of death wondering whether to press ctrl-alt-delete, or to cut my losses and just do a complete physical shut-down and a restart. Yet Bill Gates’s more recent record on the pandemic, where he was a source of early warnings to which we should all have been paying attention, and where he has continued to be a voice of common sense and reason, has encouraged me to look upon him with more favour. I was rather pleased therefore to find that How to Avoid Climate Disaster had been abridged for BBC Radio’s book of the week, in five parts, each under 15 minutes in length, the first extract being broadcast on 15th February.

Now quite a chunk must have been excised from the 272 pages of the original text, but I think the abridgement rather successfully covers many of the key issues picked up in the reviews, in particular his attention to the generally overlooked climate villains of concrete and steel production, and farming, where, in each case, the need for technological breakthroughs is most urgent; my only disappointment was that Bill Gates himself didn’t do the reading, as I have come to enjoy his slightly Kermit the frog like tone of authority. I dare say though, he has other things to attend to.

The book does not underestimate the scale of the challenges we face, and presents its arguments with simple clarity and without hysterical overdramitisation. I would encourage anyone with a grain of interest in the subject, who lives in the UK and who has access to BBC iPlayer, to take a listen – as I write, it’s still available for 21 days to download. If you live outside the UK, then I regret to say you’ll probably have to pay the full price for the book, though why not try the link? Their guard may be down.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates [Available from BBC iPlayer]

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster Hard Back edition £14.08

Kindle edition: £9.99

Featured Image