Square Off: Debating Politics Square Off

We debate the new book from Bill Gates titled “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.”

Can we significantly reduce carbon in the next 10 to 30 years? Is it worth the cost? How many technological breakthroughs do we need to do it? Has the Texas Blackout shown us that intermittent solar and wind energy are too unreliable and potentially deadly? Will we soon be eating substitute synthetic meat?

From the Guardian: Ever the technologist, Gates sets out a spreadsheet for getting rid of those 51bn tonnes of greenhouse gases and achieving net carbon zero emissions by 2050. We would need to use more renewables and fewer fossil fuels (which would account for roughly 27% of the reduction needed in emissions), and change how we manufacture our goods (31%), grow our food (18%), travel (16%), and keep our buildings warm or cool (6%).

Highlights:

· There is no real plan to get to net zero other than investing in R&D and hoping for major technological breakthroughs. We need more than a dozen new technologies that don’t exist today to get anywhere close to zero.

· Solar and wind have a huge upfront carbon footprint based on the increased need for concrete, cement, steel, glass and other materials.

· Solar and wind power are intermittent and this relates to the crisis in Texas. All the power sources failed but wind failed the most and the earliest.

Bill Gates Links:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/17/how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster-by-bill-gates-review-why-science-isnt-enough

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/books/review/bill-gates-how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/14/bill-gates-on-his-carbon-footprint.html

Texas Links:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-spins-into-the-wind-11613605698

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/climate/united-states-infrastructure-storms.html

Ecological Disaster Prediction Links:

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/50-years-of-failed-doomsday-eco-pocalyptic-predictions-the-so-called-experts-are-0-50/

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/

#billgates

#climatechange

#globalwarming

#debate

#politics

#environmentalism

This is a comprehensive review of the Netflix movie called Capital in the Twenty-First Century.  It is based on the book Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty. Thomas Piketty appears in the film along with several other economists to discuss the history of capital and capitalism.

This review is a conservative counterweight to the liberal narrative in the film. My goal here is to highlight the benefits of economic progress that this film mostly ignores.

See the links below for the relevant facts discussed in the podcast.

Great Depression:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/11/30/the-great-depression-was-ended-by-the-end-of-world-war-ii-not-the-start-of-it/?sh=5196f9d657d3

https://www.heritage.org/trade/commentary/what-really-ended-the-great-depression

Life Expectancy:

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life-expectancy

Income Inequality:

https://taxfoundation.org/average-income-age/#:~:text=Income%20tends%20to%20exhibit%20an,over%20make%20above%20average%20incomes.&text=A%20snapshot%20of%20income%20data,life%20cycle%20story%20of%20income.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/explaining-us-income-inequality-by-household-demographics-2019-update/

https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/five-myths-about-economic-inequality-america

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/10/04/mckinseys-ridiculous-claim-that-this-generation-will-be-or-are-poorer-than-their-parents/?sh=61eddb804d50

Wealth Creation and Innovation:

https://www.nber.org/digest/oct04/who-gains-innovation

https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-serve-the-public-seek-profits-11602435735