How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

Excellent summary of the climate challenge in plain layman’s language.

Comprehensive and reader friendly book. All important information regarding climate change and strategies to overcome it in one place in a very systematic presentation. I have been reading about climate change a lot (mostly articles and books from different scientists and different countries), but this book help me to put everything I knew in broader perspective acquire

Bill Gates is rich, but is he smart? Yes and yes. Is he driven to become richer? No, he and his wife Melinda plan to donate 95% of their wealth before they die. Since 2019 he’s been divesting from fossil fuels, and he’s investing in Beyond Meat because he knows cows belch methane.An advantage of being so rich is that he can hire anybody: scientists, editors, etc. to provide facts and clear, brief expression of facts. I’ve read many books on Climate Change, and this was the easiest to understand. Some of this book reads like a Dummies book, but there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, he seems to be aiming at readers who have never read a Climate Change book. That’s very useful when millions are ready to march, but don’t know exactly what they’re marching for. This book gives them clear answers, and therefore, reasons to hope realistically.Not that Gates has all the answers. The subtitle: “The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need” is slightly misleading. “Solutions” are often controversial and “Breakthroughs” are often yet-to-be-imagined. But Gates, and his teachers, are very good at breaking down big problems, describing why they are difficult, and focusing on the active business model for innovation to solve those problems.In spite of the humanizing anecdotes, Gates is a nerd, and proud of it. He has learned to absorb and test a vast amount of knowledge, not only from studies and colleagues, but also from experience. He is convincing about the need for lots of venture capital to be invested right now, in lots and lots of crazy ideas.But he is also convincing that we have no choice, civilization hangs in the balance. Without major breakthroughs in safe nuclear energy, for example, we could crash. He’s heavily invested in a particular nuclear innovation so his bias is clear, and he doesn’t pretend to be the objective outsider. He can afford to gamble. As an investor, he knows that high risk / high gain innovations must be funded by somebody.He has almost nothing to say about sacrifice. To Gates, the middle class white American life-style should be available to everyone in the world. He’s a business man, but politically he appears to be a Biden style Democrat. He is an engineer, and he thinks of himself as moral. He may disagree with Bernie Sanders, but he and Melinda have done more to reduce AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in Africa, than anyone.I didn’t agree with everything, but I enjoyed reading this very well informed attack on the biggest problem of our times.

Bel libro che si fa leggere facilmente anche da chi non conosce un inglese avanzato grazie anche all’utilizzo di un inglese non troppo complesso

Good

The book is easy to read.. probably too easy. Bill gates has covered quite some aspects in the book, however only in a shallow way.