The Gates of paradise

For years the converging of business and environmentalism has produced some innovative technologies, promising enterprise, and has reinvigorated both venture capitalists and stock markets eager for promising IPOs. Even despite a major economic crisis, greentech investments have fared better than expected. So when Bill Gates recently spoke at TED, he upped the ante to an already very busy, and very high stakes game. Speaking in front of a giant projection of our planet (due for an asteroid impact sometime) complimented by a big number 0, the message was clear. Reducing emissions should not be the goal, eliminating them should be.

Gates' vision of Earth circa 2050 is not fanciful utopian musings or idealistic wishful thinking, this is a man who has stated he is on a mission to stop global warming before it stops human civilization. The difference is that when some crazy red eyed hippie says the same thing we're quick to discount them, when someone like Gates says it, a man who has already helped to transform the world like few humans before him, heads turn.


With the incredible network of connections and massive capital at his disposal, having an icon like Gates join the green brigade has major implications. The dream of a healthier, greener, less polluted, more equitable future is no longer the dream of the flower children. it's no longer the PR efforts of a a green global conspiracy of over funded NGOs, funding-hungry alarmist scientists or of unrealistic left winged politicians who want to mire free enterprise in a bureaucratic eco-despotism. No, it's none of the things that many major corporations, energy companies most of all, and the politicians or media attack dogs who have been stuck in an antiquated status-quo have said it is. It is now front and centre, part of our mainstream culture, it has become the new way of doing things.

Regardless of the science behind climate change, for or against, a cleaner more equitable world is something worth striving for. The screaming and howling from those trying to squeeze every drop of oil out of the ground and into aerodynamically retarded vehicles, those who belch toxic gasses into the air we breathe and materials we surround ourselves with, has filled the media for years. A chorus of shrieking and finger pointing "experts" has gobbled down fists full of money from those who writhe in anguish at the thought of change, and made a noise pollution befitting of the very noxious culture they've been paid to downplay. Creating new, cleaner and better technologies, new cleaner and better jobs, new sciences, business practices and economics to meet the demands of a growing population that exerts a very real influence and toll on the planet, shouldn't be like pulling teeth. To me that sounds like progress, and too many people for far too long have been standing in the way of it. I hope Gates' bold presentation will, if even for a moment, silence the shrieking din of bullshit.

For more on Gates' presentation at TED go here.

I hope I'm able to enjoy being a healthy old man living in Gates' zero emission world, and therefore I say asteroid later.