Bill gates annual letter, note his point about climate change. – Anthony
By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse. The belief that the world can’t solve extreme poverty and disease isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful. That’s why in this year’s letter we take apart some of the myths that slow down the work. The next time you hear these myths, we hope you will do the same.
…I am optimistic enough about this that I am willing to make a prediction. By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world. (I mean by our current definition of poor.)2 Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer. Countries will learn from their most productive neighbors and benefit from innovations like new vaccines, better seeds, and the digital revolution. Their labor forces, buoyed by expanded education, will attract new investments.
A few countries will be held back by war, politics (North Korea, barring a big change there), or geography (landlocked nations in central Africa). And inequality will still be a problem: There will be poor people in every region.But most of them will live in countries that are self-sufficient. Every nation in South America, Asia, and Central America (with the possible exception of Haiti), and most in coastal Africa, will have joined the ranks of today’s middle-income nations. More than 70 percent of countries will have a higher per-person income than China does today. Nearly 90 percent will have a higher income than India does today.
It will be a remarkable achievement. When I was born, most countries in the world were poor. In the next two decades, desperately poor countries will become the exception rather than the rule. Billions of people will have been lifted out of extreme poverty. The idea that this will happen within my lifetime is simply amazing to me.
Some people will say that helping almost every country develop to middle-income status will not solve all the world’s problems and will even exacerbate some. It is true that we’ll need to develop cheaper, cleaner sources of energy to keep all this growth from making the climate and environment worse. We will also need to solve the problems that come with affluence, like higher rates of diabetes. However, as more people are educated, they will contribute to solving these problems. Bringing the development agenda near to completion will do more to improve human lives than anything else we do.
Read the entire letter here:
http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/?cid=bg_pt_ll0_012122/
h/t to Barry Woods
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Mr. Gates admits the key to his optimism is cheap energy.
Yet governments world-wide have colluded with the UN to make energy scarce and expensive by supporting the absolutely evil notion that CO2, aka “plant food”, is destroying the world.
Ironic how the UN is accusing a colorless, odorless, beneficial trace gas of doing their dirty work.
Until governments stop marching in lockstep with the UN and their brand of shadow totalitarianism, this world will not progress.
Why Gates selects 2035 as a mile marker for unprecedented progress in the world is anybody’s guess.
Today live ammunition was approved for “handling” dissenters in Kiev, Ukraine, where for several days a bloody street battle has been waged between EU-leaning citizens and the police of a hard-line government that is forging closer ties with Putin.
Putin’s energy policies are largely to blame, and when dictators like Putin use energy policies to political advantage, the UN cheers—what Putin is doing in his sphere is what the UN states they will do world-wide.
What’s going to transform the UN from an assemblage of capitalist-hating power-mongers into a flock of benevolent care givers?
I have no clue.
And neither, from what I’ve read, does Mr. Gates.
Kcrucible,
When you correct someone, you ought to be in better command of the facts and subject matter.
You might re-read both references and rethink what you said, what you meant to say, and the underlying motive.
Well I have mixed feelings about BG.
First off, I don’t begrudge Bill Gates, one brass razoo. I believe he is one of the very few people one can point to, and say; this person has made the opportunity for a better living, for nearly every person on this planet. Can you imagine the world we have today, without the PC, and M$ Windows ? Now to me, an Apple is just a PC; maybe it preceded the IBM PC; but it is just a PC. And I think of Steve Wozniak, as its creator; not Jobs. I will acknowledge that Jobs made a business success of that Company. I wonder what Apple might be today, if the Woz’s open architecture had prevailed over Jobs’ closed shop.
But I digress; thanx Bill Gates for this gizmo.
But I’m not even going to stick around till 2035, to see your prediction fail to materialize. You put too much faith in the willingness of people to give up their freedom, in favor of a managed utopia.
Of course I believe the world is going to get better; but only because there will always be plenty of people who believe in freedom, for its own sake.
I haven’t read your full letter Bill, but I will.
Speaking of those new energies; I noticed, that you didn’t mention thermo-nuclear fusion; the energy of the future; it always will be, the energy of the future.
The reason is two-fold; (a), gravity sucks ! and (b), Earnshaw’s theorem .
Earnshaw’s theorem says no stable static configuration of electric charges exists. It is inherently impossible to use static electric fields, to compress matter to a high enough density, at a high enough temperature, for long enough to get continuous fusion. It is an inherently unstable situation. Numerous fusion experiments that simply blew up, spectacularly, demonstrate that.
Mother Gaia, has shown us, about how big a thermo-nuclear reactor needs to be, and also what is a safe distance from human habitation to build one. And that design only works, because gravity sucks.
Anything that get in the vicinity of a large enough mass, is automatically attracted, to the center of mass, completely without human intervention. The pile (pun intended) just keeps on getting bigger, until it eventually lights up, all by itself. Gravitational thermo-nukes, just happen all by themselves.
So nyet, on the fusion dream.
But thanx again Bill for what you and yours, have created. The world is a better place now.
“Mike Jonas says:
January 22, 2014 at 4:52 pm”
While there is significant waste in aid programs, in particular in Africa, it’s corruption that pevents most of the aid from doing what it was intended to do by being siphoned off.
Gates is still a firm believer in CO2 driven CAGW, so take what he says about energy costs with a pinch of salt.
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But that will never happen by dumping today’s cheap energy because the Hansenites have decreed that CO2 is “dirty”.
Does Gates really think that Hansen is right and someday we’ll be able to buy fresh boiled lobster right off the boat?
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Well, it was before Vista and Windows 8. 😎
“””””…..Patrick says:
January 22, 2014 at 6:55 pm
“Mike Jonas says:
January 22, 2014 at 4:52 pm”
While there is significant waste in aid programs, in particular in Africa, it’s corruption that pevents most of the aid from doing what it was intended to do by being siphoned off…….”””
So it’s just the same as in the USA ??
Well I really liked M$ DO$ 3.20; that worked gud.
=======================================================
But it didn’t have a spell checker to make us look smarter than we really are. 😎
Just over one month ago, Bill wrote the following, which appears to strongly support the IPCC position.
Has he moderated his view to a somewhat more neutral or even skeptical stance?
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Books/Personal/The-Bet?WT.mc_id=12_13_2013_TheBet
Matt Ridley’s book The Rational Optimist (2010) is probably the best statement today of the Simon case, and Ridley was more careful than Simon was in his claims. Even though I agree with a lot of the book, it too easily dismisses the need to address problems of the poorest, climate change, and the oceans.
The recent Economist special report on biodiversity makes a strong case that economic growth allows us to make environmental concerns a priority. It contrasts the environmental record of the rich countries with that of poor countries to say that economic growth is the best hope for environment protection. All of this suggests to me that we should be wary of broad attacks on economic growth. (The authors of the special report admit that it’s not focused on climate change and mostly leaves aside the mismanagement of the oceans, which is tragic problem that deserves more focus.)
I recommend The Bet to anyone wanting to understand the history of the divisive discussions we have today, especially the stalemate over climate change. Sabin makes a strong case that Ehrlich’s brand of science made it easy for conservative critics to caricature environmentalists as doom merchants and fear mongers who peddle dubious science as a means of advancing their big-government agenda.
And Simon is far from blameless. “Julian Simon and other critics of environmentalism … have taken far too much comfort from extravagant and flawed predictions of scarcity and doom,” writes Sabin. “By focusing solely and relentlessly on positive trends, Julian Simon made it more difficult to solve environmental problems.”
It’s a shame that extreme views get more attention and more of a following than nuanced views. We see this dynamic clearly when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does its best to be clear and impartial in conveying what is known on the key issues, but both liberals and conservatives make it hard for the public to understand the panel’s nuanced conclusions.
Gunga Din said @ur momisugly @ur momisugly January 22, 2014 at 7:07 pm;
I can’t find anything in the Letter about C02 … greenhouse, warming, carbon, dioxide.
He might be hedging on that toxic CO2 thing.
Yes, Bill Gates is yet another elitist totalitarian harboring the belief that if only those darkies would accept our birth control pills, everything would work out well. We have been pushing the pill on the darkie nations since the 1960s. How has this fared?
Re Gates’ list of new energy sources that are cheaper than today. Yes, research is already being done, and progress is being made. He listed specifically fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage. A few companies are working on this and have some promising technologies. As more plants are built and experience gained, costs will likely be reduced. One such technology is IGCC, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle where coal is gasified, the CO2 captured and stored, and hydrogen is burned cleanly in a gas turbine to produce power. Another is mineralization of CO2, which is basically chemically converting the CO2 into dry sodium bicarbonate. With CO2 mineralization, there is no need to liquefy the CO2, and no need to pump the CO2 underground.
He also listed nuclear fission. Costs there are extremely high and are unlikely to come down. He also mentioned drawbacks to nuclear fission: operating safety, proliferation of weapons, and long-term toxic waste disposition.
He next listed wind power, where costs are steadily declining. The decline is primarily due to economy of scale with larger and larger wind turbines. The major issue remains intermittency, which Gates mentioned. This can be solved with the discovery of economic storage. Research is done on several types of storage systems, but nothing is yet economic.
Next he listed solar photovoltaic energy, which has had dramatic decreases in cost in the past decade or so. It suffers from the same intermittency problem as does wind.
Finally, he listed solar thermal, which can have a built-in storage system to produce power after the sun sets each night. Costs for this also can be reduced by economy of scale.
Gates did not say this, but there is nothing that can compete with natural gas burned in modern combined cycle gas turbine plants for low cost, reliability, safety, and zero pollution. There is promising research that converts organic matter from sewage sludge into methane. I can provide details if there is any interest.
Cheaper energy = Thorium
William Henry Gates III
Born October 28 1955 to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell.
At 13 Master Gates enters Lakewood School and expensive Preparatory School where his enrollment was payed for by Senior Gates, a very well-to-do Seattle resident, i.e. his father.
In eight grade, the “Mothers Club” used “proceeds” of the Lakewood School to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school’s students!
Oh, so computational the “Mothers Club!” And so well “Financed”, dear dear.
After the Mothers Club “donation” was “exhausted,” [oh my, not good] he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.
Ah Ha! Exploiting Bugs!
Well well.
In time, Master Gates would be expelled from Harvard on a certain disagreement of Master Gates and a … err … Professor, where upon the Professor gave Master Gates a grade of FAIL, and Master Gates Famously retorted that his father would cut the balls off the Professor should he proceed. The Harvard Professor proceeded!
Some months later Senior Gates bought a small software company in Albuquerque New Mexico for his son, so his son would be the “President” there of. After all, Senior Gate must save face amongst his “Lakewood” rivals, and his son “must” be a master of industry and commerce after all he is bread for no other roll in his life on this Earth!
So now. Master Gates, having out lived Senior Gates and all … must still demonstrate his “born abilities” his “bread excellence” his “born to rule the masses” in spite of his … physical deformities.
Ah! The “Deformed Dwarf King” William Henry Gates III, and now no other. Good riddance Dwarf King. May your body rot at 2x the “normal” rotting rate for the latitude of … Seattle.
Ha ha
Cleaner energy = Thorium
Ted Clayton says:
January 22, 2014 at 8:00 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/22/bill-gates-3-myths-that-block-progress-for-the-poor/#comment-1545878
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True. But what does “clean energy” and the need for it mean nowadays?
I don’t think anyone would say that Bill Gates is behind the times.
Now, full confession: there are many things I want to punch Gates for, Microsoft and all the lies spread against competitors, for example, yes, I’m one of those people that goes around swapping all the computers of my friends and family to linux whenever possible…
There are things which I would gladly shake his hand for though, and he has been doing good work as a humanitarian, so kudos there.
Oh, forgot to add that I appreciate this being shared so more people can see the results of vaccination, and hopefully we can prevent mouthy morons like Jenny McCarthy from convincing anyone else that Polio and Smallpox are better than living babies and a working society.
Bill Gates ?
I know the name…is it running at Santa Anita.
Never mind, I figured it out, THAT Bill Gates.
Gunga Din said @ur momisugly January 22, 2014 at 7:07 pm;
At this point, it’s still a hedge, and the cards have to stay close.
But coal will burn with nothing but water vapor & CO2. It’s the garish lurid-red urban horizons that need “cleaned”, and we have the technology for that. Have, for a long time.
Once CO2 turns out not to be an ogre, the now-elevated prices of energy & fuels could make coal very tempting. Clean energy means using scrubber etc systems … so you can drink the water condensed from the stack-exhaust.
Chem-Eng had a long-running ad-series of a white-hatted Manager tipping back the glass, back when it was worth saving.
Whether pro business or not, how arrogant, naive and passively megalomaniacal to think we can make the world the way we want it.
Indeed, who would know better about problems of humanity, who would have more experience of poverty and persecution than Bill Gates (and especially Melinda)?
Besides cheap, plentiful energy and better governance, progress depends on capital. Bill Gates apparently is unaware that Obama (and Bush before him), together with the Federal Reserve, have squandered a good half of our country’s capital. I suspect that the next socialist President will continue the same disastrous policies.
At some point during the next few years, it’s quite possible that the National Debt, plus the $240 Trillion in unfunded liabilities, plus the FED quickening its money printing, will push the US into a major (or even a Hyper) inflation. Regardless, at some point the spending of our capital by the idiots in DC will become apparent as we enter Depression conditions (yes, worse than now).
It’s very difficult for the world to grow richer when the richest country (and likely Europe as well) become poverty stricken. (Yes, I hope I’m wrong.)
I was never a great fan of Bill Gates, but on these three points I can agree with him.