Indeed, he clears information up that is so often used against environmental arguments, such as the fact that being environmentally friendly means halting our energy use. For someone with as much influence as the co-founder of Microsoft to put everything together cohesively and humorously, makes him an appropriate person to successfully counter the misinformation and doubt constantly spread among the public about climate change. There is an argument that it is entirely because Gates is so famous and successful that he should have written this book in the first place, in order to give the issue as much traction as possible. Without labouring the point, he also outlines how he is personally tackling this: for example, although transparent about having invested in fossil fuels in the past, he explains how he is now using sustainable jet fuel made from renewable and alternative raw material in replacement of petroleum-based fuels and has cut down on his meat intake.īut I think the criticism is also somewhat obsolete. However, Gates is vocally self-aware of his own personal fallbacks throughout, in terms of both his own carbon footprint and his knowledge gaps. On the whole, the content of the book is well organised and clearly presented, with the science broken down into simple concepts and the alternatives for a greener future clearly explained.Ī significant criticism levelled against the book is that Gates is a successful billionaire preaching to the masses about how to live their lives, whilst owning multiple mansions around the world and producing more air miles than the majority of us - he even admits to taking his private jet to the Paris Summit. Others less technically or visually-minded, however, have found the number of statistics and graphs piled up to be a little overwhelming. For example, some critics have deemed it a little too simplistic, with no real new insight and information relayed that someone even a little interested in the environment wouldn’t already know. There is a lot of good in “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” and the way in which it should be appraised as a whole depends on how much of a climate expert the reader already is. Gates’s response is that overcoming the climate crisis necessitates the knowledge, awareness and collaboration of it all - from science to government, activism to technology. Even the title “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” is empirical, claiming to give us outright answers to a question that can be overwhelming. “Why should we listen to a man who claims to be an expert on so many things?”, you might ask.
Reading a book by Bill Gates involves the preexisting knowledge that you are delving into the expertise of a man best known for his work not only in tech but in the energy and charitable sectors too. Green Reads is a book club for our growing community of purpose-driven innovators and changemakers.
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