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How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Oct 2, 2024 8:23 PM

Author:Bill Gates

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

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 toward 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.

Reviews

Gates' book is compulsively readable. His ambition was to 'cut through the noise' and give consumers better tools for understanding what works, an ambition he meets admirably. It more than that, however. Gates can get an audience with anyone, can marshal almost limitless resources, and is dogged in the detail. The result - particularly in the wake of the Trump presidency - is thrilling

—— Emma Brockes , The Guardian

Of the many books I have come across recently making the case that climate change will be a catastrophe, but we can do something about it, this is the best ... The relentless practicality of the book combined with Gates's firm faith in innovation do not promote despair. He exudes optimism; things will get better, not least because, as John Lennon once sang, they can't get no worse

—— Bryan Appleyard , Sunday Times

It is mostly concerned with solutions rather than problems. This already marks it out as something of an outlier within environmental literature... if you're after an approachable book about what needs to happen next, this is a great place to start

—— Ed Conway , The Times

Bold but well argued ... a compelling explanation of how the world can stop global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions effectively to zero... [Gates] is a serious and genuine force for good on climate change

—— Bob Ward , Observer

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is clear, concise on a colossal subject, and intelligently holistic in its approach to the problem.

—— Adam Vaughan , New Scientist

It all makes for a meaty manifesto which Gates hopes can offer sufficient variety to appeal across political divides and "shift the conversation" away from the polarisation and misinformation that has clouded discussion about climate change up until now.

—— Martin Bentham , Evening Standard

Books about the environment can induce a paralysing despair. The billionaire Bill Gates is a can-do, problem-solving chap, and his book is full of detailed, practical plans

—— The Times

Gates's carefully packaged nuggets of information are not only easy to understand, but they aim to provide the reader with practical tools to engage with the density of climate change information ... What Gates has achieved with his book is something rare in the swelling arena of popular climate literature. The Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist has compiled a solutions-based strategy that is as informed on the commercial realities of scaling new technologies as it is on the environmental consequences of not doing so.

—— Daniel Murray , The Business Post

The most refreshing aspect of this book is its bracing mix of cold-eyed realism and number-crunched optimism ... Ultimately [Gates's] 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.

—— Economist

Gates plots out, in patient, simple prose, a pathway that would allow us to reduce carbon emissions from the current 51 billion tonnes a year to zero by 2050.

—— Thomas Jones , London Review of Books

"System change not climate change!" cry the protesters, demanding that we choose between capitalism and a healthy planet. "Oh!" the less ascetically minded among us might pout. "Can't we have both?" Thankfully, according to Bill Gates, we can. In How to Avoid a Climate Disaster he outlines the new technologies we need to fight climate change, and how businesses can help to invent and deploy them. Capitalism is not only capable of stopping climate change, he says, it's also the only way to provide a decent standard of living to the world's poorest.

—— Ben Cooke , The Times Books of the Year

This is an optimistic account of how climate change might be solved without destroying the world's economies in the process.

—— The Times

A captivating read that contains everything from geopolitics and cybercrime to Hollywood and the idiosyncrasies of North Korea's over-the-top regime-none of which can be dull on any day

—— India Times

An easy-to-read book on cybersecurity. If you hold crypto, you need to know the basics of security

—— Changpeng Zhao , CEO of Binance

A powerful critique of the way we conceive of time in the modern, industrial world ... striking ... Odell calls for a way of living that is less extractive, less dependent on domination, and less about the human self

—— Guardian

The bestselling author of How to Do Nothing ... returns with another urgent examination of modern life

—— i-D

A moving and provocative game changer

—— Publishers Weekly

In a work both magisterial and elliptical, Odell takes on the concept of 'time' from every conceivable angle ... This is both an irresistible big-idea book an a guide to rethinking a burning world

—— LA Times

A penetrating, provocative investigation into the subject of time - how to understand and live with it - on both an individual and societal level ... impressive

—— Shelf Awareness

Temporal structure has its comforts, particularly following a tumultuous three years ... That yo-you effect [of the last few years] drew me to Saving Time, Jenny Odell's sharp book tracing the cultural forces that shape our conception of time

—— Laura Regensdorf, Vanity Fair

Odell fights to provide us with an alternative way to experience the time we have

—— i Paper

Ambitious ... a pleasure to read ... thought-provoking

—— New Scientist

A sweeping yet personal challenge to assumptions Western society makes about the relationships between individuals and the finite hours in a given day

—— Time Magazine

Odell argues convincingly that our daily experience is dominated by the corporate clock that so many of us contort ourselves to fit inside

—— Irish Independent

The best beach read of the year ... Read it, and then think deeply about how you are reading your own time

—— The Media Leader

Odell's latest book, Saving Time, is great at analysing where a lot of our notions about how to use our time came from (hint: capitalism).

—— RTE Ireland

One of President Barack Obama's 'Favourite books of 2019'

—— President Barack Obama on How To Do Nothing
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