Guest “climate hypocrisy?” post by David Middleton
CELEBRITY REAL ESTATE
Bill and Melinda Gates Purchase $43M Luxury Beach House in Del Mar, CA
By Becky Bracken | Apr 23, 2020The billionaire philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates have purchased an exquisite beach house outside San Diego—splashing out on $43 million for an oceanfront mansion in the coastal town of Del Mar, CA. The prodigious purchase price makes it one of the largest sales in the area’s history.
The luxurious six-bedroom, four-bathroom, 5,800-square-foot home was sold to the Gates family by Madeleine Pickens, a former wife of the billionaire oil baron T. Boone Pickens, according to the Wall Street Journal. The home originally landed on the market for $48 million in January 2019.
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Realtor.com
I don’t know which is more priceless:
- Climate change warrior Bill Gates dropping $43 million on a beachfront mansion.
- The fact that the mansion was built with oil money.
I’m actually somewhat (but not totally) inclined to give Mr. Gates a pass on the climate change hypocrisy bit. His preferred solution is to help poorer nations adapt to it. And I have to assume that Mr. Gates relied on this brilliant October 2019 WUWT post in making the decision to purchase the Del Mar property.
References
Ludka, B.C., Guza, R.T., O’Reilly, W.C. et al. Sixteen years of bathymetry and waves at San Diego beaches. Sci Data 6, 161 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0167-6 LINK
I didn’t actually refer to Ludka et al., 2019 in this post… I will have a follow up sciencey post on this subject in a few days, and I wanted to save the link and citation somewhere.
Oh… Just so you don’t think I’ve gone soft…
An earthquake and tsunami will literally have him dropping that 43 million-in to the ocean. Haven’t some of the doomsayers been claiming that earthquakes are caused by climate change? There is a conundrum here, isn’t there?
Conundrums seem to be part of Gates-on one hand, he has stated there are too many people on the planet, on the other hand he is demanding everyone be vaccinated with verification (microchipped) against COVID.
Glad that others have noticed Gates looks older than his years. You would think someone with that much money could have the best of skin care. If he only has 20 years left in him, sea level rise won’t be enough to cause problems to the mansion.
A tsunami would drop the ocean onto the house rather than Vice Versa? It’s at sea level already unlike houses in the area up on bluffs that look like they could get dropped into the ocean…
The percentage of Gates income that he spent on the Del Mar mansion is roughly equivalent to what a median income worker would spend on a cat calendar.
Gates can’t turn his MSFT shares into cash instantly, or their value would tank.
His disposable income thus isn’t anything like $102 billion. It’s still a lot, but $43 million out of pocket isn’t chump change for him. However, he and Melinda aren’t going to buy a new retirement home every year.
Their youngest of three kids graduates high school this year. Except that schools are all on line now. The oldest is entering med school, equestrienne daughter Stanford grad.
The guy’s a multibillionaire, $43M is loose change.
That property has a nice high sea wall so Bill won’t have to worry about sea level rise in his lifetime. It’s much smarter than buying bluff-top property a few miles south where people may actually lose their houses in the coming years as the bluffs continue to collapse into the sea as they’ve done for thousands of years.
I can’t wait until someone like Gates invests in fusion energy development. To me that would mean there’s some breakthrough on the horizon.
The patio features a 10-person spa, gas fire-pit, – I WONDER IF THEY’LL USE THE GAS FIRE PIT??
they can celebrate with gas while the waves roll in and engulf them
– lots of lighting featured for the sale = will he convert to solar cells made in China or the US?
– or just keep using fossil fuels to power all the mod cons
– or is this area of Yankee land powered by a nuclear reactor??
Bill can look that up!!
On Google Earth the complex is 12 – 15 feet above sea level on dry land – good for at least 100 years.
(unless there is a tsunami !).
– JPP
Unlike Oh Barmy’s house. 3-5 feet and on sand.
Good to see he doesn’t believe in accelerating sea level rise
43 million divided by 100 billion net worth? .00043 Does one begrudge a man with a $100k net worth investing $43 on a particular stock or just pissing it away on a few drinks at the bar? Did Kat Timpf write this article? How does Gates digging in the couch cushions for the downpayment and leveraging historically low interest rates qualifiy as hypocrisy? Ridiculous strawman attack.
Taytay says it, “You need to calm down”
I’m guessing that he hasn’t heard about the Rose Canyon Fault.
meh….chump change for Bill and Mel, they simply follow the old maxim ” only gamble with what you can afford to lose” So when apocalyptic , unprecedented , catastrophic, accelerating sea level rise engulfs the place they just move 100 yards upslope.
I haven’t bought or sold any real estate in California for many years. Going back 20+ years, the RE Agents commission was 6%. $2.88 M – not a bad days work.
That house will never be a home.
You know who else owns a house right on the beach in San Diego County? Mitt Romney.
“Bill Gates is backing the first high-altitude experiment of one radical approach called solar geoengineering. It’s meant to mimic the effects of a giant volcanic eruption. Thousands of planes would fly at high altitudes, spraying millions of tons of particles around the planet to create a massive chemical cloud that would cool the surface.
“Modeling studies have found that it could reduce the intensity of heat waves, for instance, apparently it could reduce the rate of sea level rise.” Search for “This Bill Gates-funded chemical cloud could help stop global warming”