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Bill Gates’ “vision” is cloudy - Again

image credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Tony Paradiso 216,588

Principal, E3

I provide consulting services primarily assisting renewable energy-related companies in areas such as strategic planning, marketing, and operations. I have helped bring to market numerous leading...

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Dec 7, 2023Dec 7, 2023 7:47 pm GMT
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I started my career in high tech as the first PC rolled off the assembly line. And in the early days I competed against and did deals with Microsoft. Bill Gates is often described as a visionary, but I don’t think the label applies. He and Microsoft were late in developing Windows, and he completely missed the evolution to internet browser technology.

Gates is now involved in climate change and his “vision” hasn’t gotten any better. He recently said that he doesn’t believe the world will meet the Paris Agreement goals and that keeping warming to 2 degrees C “isn’t that likely.”

No kidding. Bill – what was your first clue?

Even the UN has basically given up on the 1.5C target. In a recent report, it estimates that based on current country emission reduction plans, we’ll warm by 2.9 degrees C. I suspect that is the more likely scenario, and we can only hope that the damage that will stem from that is not irreversible.

For some reason the human race has a problem with long-term planning. We prefer to wait until things hit crisis level to act. That inclination is foolish on so many levels. It’s particularly foolish when it comes to climate change because once crisis becomes reality, it will be too late.

I’ve repeatedly said we need to stop making believe we can hit 1.5 degrees C. Doing so isn’t productive. We need to assess the areas of shortfall, the reasons for those shortfalls, and develop a realistic plan that maximizes our finite human and financial resources. And yes, then cross our fingers that it isn’t too late.

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Douglas Cotton on Dec 7, 2023

There will not be any warming that, with correct physics, could be proven to be caused by methane or carbon dioxide. The correct physics shows why the main greenhouse gas water vapor could only cool the planet.

Fortunately, it does so by a few degrees because we know that it reduces the tropospheric temperature gradient, and this leads to less of an increase above temperatures at the radiating altitude than occurs in dry regions. Studies of real-world data confirm this cooling and most people know rain forests are cooler than deserts, other things being equal. So, data confirms this cooling by water vapor: correct physics explains why.

All warming is natural, primarily due to cosmic ray intensity which affects cloud cover. We are close to a maximum in a natural cycle of about 1,000 years which is unlikely to peak at more than half a degree above current temperatures - cooler than the maximum in Roman times. Read my peer-reviewed material at https://ssrn.com/author=2627605

Visit https://climatescience.homesteadcloud.com

Rick Engebretson on Dec 8, 2023

Thanks, Tony, for the discussion. I think Bill Gates is a visionary entrepreneur, if not a scientist. My computer days started carrying boxes of punch cards; first in the fortran computer programming language, then assembly language. A year or two later, younger programmers were so proud of their "computer innovation" using then trendy character terminals on a CRT video display. I have enjoyed using and learning Linux since about 2000.

I would like to hear how urbanites think they are going to have food, water, air, energy, and climate controlled homes in their crowded concrete jungles? Bill Gates knows the value of good farmland.

Tony Paradiso on Dec 8, 2023

Rick - I would agree that Gates' best trait was having a set of "steel ones." He sold IBM an operating system he didn't have. He then acquired the technology from a company called Seattle Computer for virtually nothing. And lucky for him, IBM had a total hardware mentality and didn't realize that the future would be in the software so they ceded control of the operating system to Gates.

That was his one and only "brilliant" move. After that the government allowed Microsoft to use it's OS monopoly to control the application business and Microsoft Office was born. For me, that was a blatant antitrust violation but the government didn't see it that was. So Lotus, Wordstar et al all rest in peace.

Gates was in the process of managing Microsoft into the ground, particularly when he put his buddy Steve Ballmer in charge. Ballmer was one of the biggest idiots I have ever met and now he a billionaire. Lucky for Microsoft they got rid of Ballmer and that was when they started functioning like a tech company that actually knew what they were doing.

Rick Engebretson on Dec 9, 2023

Thanks again, Tony, for more insights into computer software history. I've heard about some of that "intrigue."

My experience was a little different. Trying to be brief, I had first encountered "optical wave-guides" in the Lab. for Biophysical Chemistry where bio-chemical kinetics was followed by fiber-optic spectroscopy. And I hung out at Prof. Otto Schmitt's bio-electric lab. Otto's lab was an eye opener of computers past, present, and future. With my wing-ding learning of solid state physics, and preaching to combine it with biochemistry, I needed a computer to explain concepts. I got an Epson QX10 using a Zilog CPU and more ram and video. I had recognized (among many other similar concepts) the huge accumulative electric dipole feature of protein alpha-helix. Some variant of "Basic" software actually completed both a calculation of dipole and drawings of alpha-helix and beta sheet, with (liquid crystal?) electro-optic coefficients. Otto's lab had a shelf for CRT related research. Ultimately, a remarkable group gathered at my converted prohibition era warehouse speakeasy, 4th floor across from the historic St.Paul MN train depot then housing a cable TV company. We never discussed the then hot Minnesota political advocacy of a supercomputer institute.

Later, using that same computer, I was able to monitor the photon emission kinetics from chemiluminescent tags on antibodies and push automation of "homogeneous ratiometric chemiluminescent immuno-assays."

You are right, it takes some "steel ones" to pass a customer computer OS through a network screening and modification at boot-start-up. Luckily, Linux is now there for serious computing needs, and IBM still plays a serious role.

Thank Tony for the Post!

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