Microsoft founder Bill Gates is pushing drastic and ‘fundamental’ changes to the economy in order to immediately halt the release of greenhouse gasses – primarily carbon dioxide – and ‘go to zero’ in order to save the planet from long-prognosticated (and consistently wrong) environmental disaster.
Changes we’ll need to make in order to realize Gates’ vision include:
- Allocating $35 billion per year on climate and clean energy research.
- Electric everything.
- Widespread consumption of fake meat, since cows account for ‘4% of all greenhouse gases.’
- Retooling the steel and cement industries, which Gates says account for 16% of all carbon dioxide emissions, to inject up to 30% of captured C02 into concrete, and create a different type of steel.
- Widespread adoption of next generation nuclear energy to supplement wind and solar.
And since producing plants to make fake meat emits gases as well, Gates has backed a company which uses fungus to make sausage and yogurt, which the billionaire calls “pretty amazing.”
“When you say fungi, do you mean like mushroom or a microbe?” asked Anderson Cooper in a recent “60 Minutes” interview to promote Gates’ new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”
“It’s a microbe,” replied Gates, adding “The microbe was discovered in the ground in a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. Without soil or fertilizer it can be grown to produce this nutritional protein — that can then be turned into a variety of foods with a small carbon footprint.”
(Speaking of which, it appears that we’re already rounding the corner on C02 emissions)
More via CBS News:
Gates isn’t just looking to cut future carbon emissions, he is also investing in direct air capture, an experimental process to remove existing CO2 from the atmosphere. Some companies are now using these giant fans to capture CO2 directly out of the air, Gates has become one of the world’s largest funders of this kind of technology.
But of all his green investments, Gates has spent the most time and money pursuing a breakthrough in nuclear energy — arguing it’s key to a zero carbon future.
He says he’s a big believer in wind and solar and thinks it can one day provide up to 80% of the country’s electricity, but Gates insists unless we discover an effective way to store and ship wind and solar energy, nuclear power will likely have to do the rest. Energy from nuclear plants can be stored so it’s available when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
Gates also admits he’s a hypocrite – telling Cooper “I probably have one of the highest greenhouse gas footprints of anyone on the planet,” adding “my personal flying alone is gigantic.”
He’s atoning for his climate sins by purchasing plant-based aviation fuel, switching to an electric car, using solar panels, and buying carbon credits to the tune of $7 million per year.
Gates’ climate pivot is getting a full-court media press. As Paul Joseph Watson of Summit News writes:
Bill Gates has been lauded as the man to “save the world” and help the planet reach zero carbon emissions in a new report by Wired Magazine, despite such standards not being reflected in the billionaire philanthropist’s own lifestyle.
The article investigates how Gates plans to achieve a “zero carbon” world and promotes his new book which argues “it’s time we make real societal, economic and logistic changes to our way of life to avoid disaster.”
According to Gates, the planet needs to reach zero carbon emissions in order to “avoid catastrophe.”
Gates’ efforts to reduce CO2 emissions may have an environmentalist sheen, but that goal also risks reducing living standards in the West, something that Gates isn’t likely to embrace for himself.
As we previously highlighted, while Americans are being told that the dream of owning private property is over under a future ‘Great Reset’, Gates and other billionaires have been buying up huge amounts of farmland.
Gates is now the biggest owner of farmland in America, according to a Forbes report.
While the mainstream media continues to champion Gates’ influence, he has received harsh criticism elsewhere.
As we highlighted last week, Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, wrote a comprehensive report accusing Gates of engaging in neo-feudalism.
Kennedy warns that, “To cloak his dystopian plans for humanity in benign intentions, Gates has expropriated the rhetoric of “sustainability,” “biodiversity,” “good stewardship” and “climate.”
Synthetic meat investor Bill Gates calls for rich countries to shift entirely to synthetic meat
Livestock industry leaders have urged Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthrophist Bill Gates to undertake more research into livestock production after he called for policies requiring people in rich countries to eat “100 percent synthetic beef”.
To view Mr Gates’ full interview with the MIT Techology Review click here
Mr Gates, who has invested in range of ‘synthetic meat’ startups including Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, Memphis Meats and Hampton Creek Foods, made the comments in an interview promoting his new book ‘How to Avoid a Climate Disaster’.
In the interview with MIT Technology Review, Mr Gates said he did not think the poorest 80 countries in the world would be eating synthetic beef in future.
“I do think all rich countries should move to 100 percent synthetic beef,” he said.
“You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time.
“Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.”
He described the problem of reducing methane emissions as “very difficult”, stating that even compounds which reduce methane emissions weren’t enough.
Mr Gates does not claim to be vegetarian and is reported to still enjoy the occasional cheeseburger.
However he has been strong public and financial supporter of plant and cellular based alternatives to meat for several years, stating that farmed animals take a “big toll” on the environment.
Mr Gates said in the MIT interview he wasn’t sure if ‘lab grown’ meat like Memphis Meats will ever be economical, but said plant-based protein companies Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have a quality and cost road map that makes them “totally competitive”.
In his new book Mr Gates says using regulation to force a shift to synthetic meat is only one of a wide range of government policies that will ultimately be needed to avoid a climate disaster.
After initial market hype, plant based ‘fake meat’ brands have run into headwinds in recent times including stock rating downgrades, price discounting to lift sales, and law suits over food safety standards.
In response to his push for the developed world to replace beef with synthetic meat, which appears to have generated largely supportive media coverage around the world, a range of voices have responded on social media by urging Mr Gates to spend more time researching the livestock sector.