How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

It's a great thing that this book was written and it's heartening that it became a best seller. I'm thankful to the Vancouver Public Library for having it for free.

A dense and ambitious read for anyone who wants to have informed discussions on effective climate solutions. The book aims to provide a foundation of knowledge and facts to make those discussions productive, and I'd say it's pretty successful at that if the reader's attention survives the firehose of information.

The framing is the usual positivism about market forces being a potential force of good, as expected from a book written by a billionaire. But surprisingly and very thankfully, Bill Gates does pose that in the end it's just policy all the way down, because Chapter 11 states unambiguously that the plan is to get government leaders and policymakers to steer the market and Chapter 12 is about how individuals can support that plan: activism.

Personally, after reading the book it's a bit frustrating that there isn't much I can do that I'm not already doing, so it was a long read with little payback. I'm already pressuring my representatives, voting with my wallet, reducing my emissions, and yet here we are. We can't even get protected bike lanes and more public transit without getting tangled in conservatives culture war and their love for SUVs.

Still, I'll take the win that at least pragmatically, this book can get more people informed and engaged.

I waffled between four and five stars, because this book is not as engagingly written as, say, something by Malcolm Gladwell. However, I think it achieves its aims admirably, without much fluff, and the world will be a better place if people read it and take it seriously.

The book had all the rigorous focus on data I'd expect from a nerd (I love nerds!) and the big-picture strategic focus that I'd expect from someone who's spent years dealing with overwhelming, systemic problems.

It also had a level of data-driven pragmatism and global perspective that's a refreshing shift from the usual virtue-signaling and egotism that tends to accompany discussions about "the environment."

Some reviewers seem annoyed that Gates doesn't have a long list of "personal application" suggestions; I'm grateful, because the truth is that the scale of the problem is not one that can be fixed by lifehacks, and I'd rather be honest about that so we can put our oomph where it actually CAN make a difference.

Similarly, I appreciate the reminder that the ultimate goal is not deprivation but empowerment. We WANT the whole world to have access to the goodness that is a ready supply of convenient energy! The challenge is figuring out how to give everyone that opportunity while also doing it in a way that will serve our long-term interests (you know, health, safety, survival, those kind of things).

Another point on which I differ from some other reviewers is that I did not have an education that covered all of the science well. Some of this is age (I'm getting old, y'all), some of this was my particular school, and some of this was me (I didn't seek out science). I found the overview helpful. If you already understand the science well, you might prefer to skim the early chapters.

One bit that I think is underappreciated: his argument about why we need to focus on "zero by 2050" and be wary of "decreased by 2030." Intuitively, I wouldn't have spotted the danger, but most of the book is essentially laying the groundwork for this one crucial point.

Gates is generally very optimistic (within reason; I do remember him being one of the few people in the early days of COVID-19 who predicted 18+ months of dramatic changes when so many others were saying "two weeks"). I'm a little more cynical, but I find this book encouraging. There are reasonable paths forward. I hope many people will seriously engage with the ideas and help us get on the right track.

This quote from the book says it best:

When we have a fact-based view of climate change, we can see that we have some of the things we need to avoid a climate disaster, but not all of them. We can see what stands in the way of deploying the solutions we have and developing the breakthroughs we need. And we can see all the work we must do to overcome these hurdles.

That's what the book is about. It is very good at that. Gates introduces the idea of "green premiums", the difference in price between the current way of doing a thing and the "clean" way of doing that thing. He uses that to quantify the gap from where we are to where we need to get, and to compare alternatives.

A large part of the book is exactly that: Comparing the status quo with a possible zero-carbon future. The rest of the book lays out what needs to happen for that future to arrive.

My main gripe with the book is that it goes into a lot of detail on things that I have no influence over. Lots of things need to happen in government agencies, for example.

He does give a few ideas for how individuals can indirectly influence companies, governments and agencies to do the right thing, as well as what individuals can do to directly affect change (in a very small way). However I really did not need all of the detail around how the government can do certain things.

An aspect that stuck out positively for me was his wholistic perspective. He highlights that we can't just "do less", because large swaths of the planet's population just don't have that option. Not everybody can just stop eating meat and dairy, for example. But even if they could, that would be a very hard sell. Rather, we can use economics to our advantage to make something that people will want to buy, produce or use, and will be able to afford. If it's obviously better, it will get wide adoption automatically, and companies will be interested in distributing it.

Overall, it is a great summary of where we're at and how we can possibly still avoid the worst of the looming disaster.