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      in World Politics

      Japan’s Art of Forgetfulness

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      What choices are available to a nation that, in its quest for modernization, foolishly built a nuclear reactor in a seismically active tsunami zone? The Royal Society reported in 2015 that the disastrous fate of Fukushima in 2011 resulted from a “cascade of engineering and regulatory failures.” This included not only multiple design errors and miscalculations of the geological risks, but also “methodological mistakes that nobody experienced in tsunami engineering should have made.” The report concluded that the “Fukushima accident was preventable, if international best practices and standards had been followed.”

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      A full 10 years later, after dealing with the aftermath in a reasonably efficient manner, Japan has one major task left. It must find a way of disposing of more than a million tons of contaminated water from the powerplant’s three decommissioned reactors. To the chagrin not only of neighboring countries including China and South Korea but also environmental groups and even Japan’s own fishing industry, the Japanese government has made the controversial decision to close the book on Fukushima by dumping the water into the ocean.

      According to Al Jazeera, the Japanese government claims to have taken this decision on the basis of its newfound concern with the “international best practices and standards” the Royal Society referred to in its report. The government released this statement on April 13: “On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Oceanic release:

      An act stirred by the temptation to believe that whatever you can discreetly dump into the ocean will be so diluted by the mass of moving water that within weeks or months, even if it is public knowledge, no one will actually remember that the deed was done or blame those who did it

      Contextual Note

      In his explanation of the government’s decision, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga appealed to the fabled capacity of the Japanese to accept the inevitable. “Releasing the … treated water,” he said, “is an unavoidable task to decommission the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant and reconstruct the Fukushima area.” As a politician, not only does he feel it is his humble duty to put the errors of the past behind him, but he knows it is always effective to focus on potential positive outcomes — in this case, the reconstruction of the non-nuclear reconstruction of the affected area. Averted readers should know that when a politician from any nation calls something “unavoidable,” the most sensible reaction is to suppose that what they really mean by “unavoidable” is what we judge to be the most convenient and economic way for us to dismiss such an annoying issue.

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      Polls in Japan show little support for the government. Le Monde reports that a poll conducted by NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, found that 51% of those polled opposed the plan, with only 18% supporting it. The Chinese called the plan “extremely irresponsible.” South Korea seconded the Chinese, deeming it “totally unacceptable.” Protesters in Seoul accused Japan of engaging in “nuclear terrorism,” echoing the Iranian government’s complaint this week following Israel’s brazen sabotage of the nuclear facility at Natanz in Iran. Even Taiwan — more fearful of China than of contaminated waters — expressed its concern, though much more timidly. 

      These reactions contrast with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s tweet in which he thanks “Japan for its transparent efforts in its decision to dispose of the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi site.” Transparent? China complained that the Japanese made their decision “without fully consulting with neighboring countries and the international community.” Is that what Blinken sees as a “transparent” effort? Or does he mean that because the operation will only be carried out in two years’ time, announcing it today is an example of transparency? After all, the US tends to act first and explain later and rarely worries about transparency.

      Then there is another consideration the Japanese government would be wise to ponder. Dumping the still polluted water into the Pacific means that sooner rather than later the West Coast of the US will be affected. At some point in the future, could this have dire consequences for Japanese Americans who risk being assaulted for spreading “Fukushima cancer” just as Chinese Americans have been attacked for releasing the “Wuhan flu”?

      Historical Note

      The Japanese language has a common expression: Shouganai. One specialist of Japanese offers this explanation of the expression: “The best way I can translate ‘Shouganai’ is ‘It can’t be helped,’” comparing it with the well-known French expression, “C’est la vie.” The author confesses to using the Japanese “phrase almost daily.” Italian Americans from New York might prefer to compare it with their favorite all-purpose phrase for dismissing any subject they don’t want to discuss: “Forget about it.” Every culture has its own way of accepting what is written off as a fatality that cannot be constructively addressed.

      Pushing the explanation of the Japanese phrase further, the author insists that despite always being used in reference to negative events, Shouganai is “actually a pretty positive way to look at the world.” It signifies a basic feeling at the core of Japanese culture, that it’s “better to not get hung up on things outside of your control.” In contrast, US culture encourages making every effort — including at times extreme violence — to demonstrate one is in control.

      Since the end of the Second World War, the Japanese government has developed the art of not getting hung up on disagreeable past events from the past, such as the fate of the Chinese and Korean sex slaves they euphemized with the name “comfort women” at a time in their history when they believed they could dominate all of Asia. After their six-week-long massacre known as the Rape of Nanking, sensing the risk of bad PR the knowledge of the brutal campaign of massacre and violent rape might produce, the emperor decided to step in. The answer was less murder and more rape, but better organized and subject to the kind of discipline and social rituals with which Japanese culture feels comfortable. The treatment of the comfort women was unspeakably cruel and inhuman, but the Japanese military had the good sense to manage it as a stable institution rather than allowing rape to play out according to the random whims of marauding soldiers.

      The website History explains the pattern of denial associated with this episode: “For decades, the history of the ‘comfort women’ went undocumented and unnoticed. When the issue was discussed in Japan, it was denied by officials who insisted that ‘comfort stations’ had never existed.” Whether those same officials were saying Shouganai in private while they systematically refused to admit anything in public will never be known. Even today, the Japanese government continues to deny some of the most obvious facts about the “comfort women.”

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      The Fukushima catastrophe lacks the deeply human moral dimension associated with the crimes perpetrated by Japanese imperialism in the early 20th century. The scandal relating to the fact that the nuclear catastrophe was preventable had more to do with professional negligence and government incompetence than moral failings, cruel personal behavior and abusive policies, though the frontier between conscious and neglectful abuses will always be difficult to define. The tendency to deny and then forget is common to both.

      On the purely moral plane, were either of these human disasters in any way comparable with US President Harry Truman’s decision to drop — without warning — not one but two atomic bombs on urban civilian targets at the end of World War II? The immediate difference between the attitudes of the two nations is that the Japanese showed some sense of shame, however hypocritical, following the Rape of Nanking. Their consistent denial of the true history of comfort women also indicates a degree of implicit shame. It’s as much a question of not losing face as it is of aggressive denial.

      In contrast, the American government never attempted to disguise its fulsome pride in an achievement that — following its cultural logic summed up in the expression, “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” — put an end to a world war. Could it have been done differently? Of course. But for most Americans, the positive result canceled all the useless scruples one might have concerning the gravity of the damage done.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      New EPA chief Michael Regan relishes ‘clean slate’ after chaos of Trump era

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      Michael Regan has perhaps the most fiendishly challenging job within Joe Biden’s administration. As the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Regan not only has to grapple with the unfolding cataclysm of the climate crisis, he must do so at the helm of a traumatized, shrunken institution still reeling from the chaos of the Donald Trump era.“I was deeply concerned as I watched the previous administration,” Regan told the Guardian. “We all witnessed a mass exodus of scientists and qualified people the agency needs. I was really concerned coming into the job as to how morale would be and how much of a setback it would be to tackle the challenges before us.”Trump vowed to reduce the EPA to “little bits”, and although his plans to wildly slash the agency’s budget were largely rejected by Congress, the environmental regulator is now left with its fewest employees since the mid-1980s, during which time the US population has grown by nearly a third.Scientists were routinely sidelined, with an average of three a week fleeing the agency during Trump’s term. “It was a sort of painful hell,” said one career official, who weighed up leaving but decided to stay.There were plenty of sources for angst.Trump’s EPA laid siege to dozens of environmental regulations – from limits on pollution from cars and trucks to rules designed to stop coal plants dumping toxins into rivers to a ban on a pesticide linked with brain damage in children – often contrary to scientific advice and sometimes shortly after meetings with industry lobbyists. Mentions of climate change were not only scrubbed from the EPA website, the Trump administration mulled holding a televised debate as to whether it existed at all.Scientific panels were purged of various experts and replaced with industry representatives who appeared to hold sway. Andrew Wheeler, Regan’s predecessor, is a former coal lobbyist who said acting on climate change was merely “virtue signaling to foreign capitals”. Scott Pruitt, Trump’s first EPA chief, was embroiled in an extravaganza of scandals, including living in an apartment paid for by a lobbyist, using his position to get his wife a job at Chick-fil-A, spending agency funds on foreign trips and even deploying staff to obtain a cut-price mattress from Trump’s Washington hotel.“It was incredibly frustrating,” is how Regan sums up watching the agency unravel. “I was incredibly frustrated.”Regan, the first black man to lead the EPA in its half-century of existence, previously worked at the agency during Bill Clinton and George W Bush’s administrations. “I worked here for a decade and I knew the staff were not being utilized properly,” he said. “I know the people, I know the quality of work they can do.”Regan has made a good first impression – colleagues say the 44-year-old is affable and charismatic. Mentions of the climate crisis are no longer verboten at the EPA, experts are ushered into decision making and intertwined issues such as the anti-racism protests that swept the US last year are no longer glossed over. Regan is a “smart, savvy guy who knows the issues”, said Peggy Shepard, a longtime environmental justice campaigner and now White House adviser.Even Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator who voted against his confirmation because she opposes Biden’s climate agenda, said she “really liked getting to know Michael Regan”. The new administrator is a “dedicated public servant and an honest man,” Capito acknowledged.Regan peppers his statements with promises to listen and engage with “stakeholders”, including industry. “The worst thing we can do is be paternalistic in our first actions,” he added.But he also knows the sting of pollution’s unjust burden – growing up in eastern North Carolina, Regan suffered from the proximity of highways, hog farms and other polluting industry. He needed an inhaler in childhood, part of a broader American experience where black children are five times more likely to be hospitalized with asthma than white children. Communities of color in general are also far more likely to live directly alongside sources of pollution.“During days of high ozone and high pollution I did suffer respiratory challenges,” he said. “I’ve been keenly aware of the impact of pollution from an early age and what that means, from lost school days or from preventing me enjoying the outdoors with my grandfather and father. That’s always been part of my knowledge base.”Later in life, Regan was to be the top environmental regulator in his home state, garnering praise for his work to clean up piles of toxic coal ash but also sometimes vexing environmentalists who wanted a more full-throated champion.Emily Zucchino, a campaigner at Dogwood Alliance, a North Carolina group that opposes chopping down forests for biomass energy, said Regan had a “mixed record” in the state, on the one hand creating a new environmental justice board but also handing out permits for new wood pellet operations. “Had Regan’s actions matched his words, we would have had an outcome more favorable to the communities and forests of North Carolina,” she said.It remains to be seen whether Regan’s collegiate approach will enable the EPA to pick its way through a tangle of challenges amid opposition from Republicans who have assailed Biden’s climate ambitions as a job killer. A key factor within this crucible is time – not only does the climate crisis remorselessly worsen by the day but a tranche of new EPA rules to reduce planet-heating emissions, not to mention clean air and water edicts, will take several years, probably via numerous legal battles, to materialize.It’s a pressure that Regan appreciates. “We definitely feel the responsibility. We aren’t going to shrink away from our obligations,” he said. “We are going to apply our statutory authority to solve as much of this problem [climate change] as we can as an agency. Yes, we have to revisit bad decisions, but the goal isn’t to get back to neutral: we have to make up for lost time. We are leaning in.”New directives around scientific integrity and environmental justice have already been rolled out, while strengthened standards for vehicle pollution and methane leaks from oil and gas drilling are expected in summer.Regan said he feels he also has a “clean slate” to write a new pollution rule that would curb emissions from coal-fired power plants, after the courts struck down a Trump EPA attempt to weaken a previous Obama-era version. All of this, and much more, will be crucial if the US, and the world, is to slow the disastrous heatwaves, flooding, storms and other ravages of the climate crisis.“He does have a lot on his plate and with a lot of these things we’d want rules finalized by the fall of next year,” said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund who worked with Regan for eight years at the environmental group.“He could well have the hardest job in the administration. It’s an enormous challenge, so it’s good that he’s so talented.” More

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      in Elections

      Opposition Wins Greenland Election After Running Against Rare Earths Mine

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      Greenland’s left-wing environmentalist party promised to halt a mining project that could have made Greenland a major source of rare earths but at a potentially steep environmental price.Greenland’s left-wing environmentalist party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, won a victory in general elections on Tuesday after campaigning against the development of a contentious rare earths mine partly backed by China.The party, which had been in the opposition, won 37 percent of the vote over the longtime incumbents, the center-left Siumut party. The environmentalists will need to negotiate a coalition to form a government, but observers said their election win in Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark that sits on a rich vein of untapped uranium and rare earth minerals, signaled concerns from voters over the impact of mining.“The people have spoken,” Múte B. Egede, the leader of Inuit Ataqatigiit, told the Danish broadcaster DR, adding that voters had made their position clear and that the mining project in Kvanefjeld in the country’s south would be halted.Greenland Minerals, an Australian company behind the project, has said the mine has the “potential to become the most significant Western world producer of rare earths,” adding that it would create uranium as a byproduct. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the vote.The supply of rare earths, a crucial part of the high-tech global supply chain and used in the manufacture of everything from cellphones to rechargeable batteries, is currently dominated by China. Shenghe Resources, a Chinese rare earth company, owns 11 percent of Greenland Minerals.Opposition to the Greenland mine, which the incumbent Siumut party had supported, played a primary role in its defeat, its leader, Erik Jensen, conceded in an interview with the Danish station TV2.The mining project has been in development for years, with the government approving drilling for research, but not issuing final approval for the mine.Among Greenlanders, opposition to the mine had grown over potential exposure of a unique, fragile area to “radioactive pollution and toxic waste,” said Dwayne Menezes, director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative, a London-based think tank. “What they’re opposed to is dirty mining.”The election result sent a clear message, Mr. Menezes added: Mining companies that want access to Greenland’s deposits will have to abide by stringent environmental standards and should look to give Greenlanders a “viable alternative.”In Greenland, whose economy is heavily dependent on payouts from Denmark, the tensions over the mine centered on the potential economic boon, including hundreds of jobs on an island with about 57,000 people, versus the environmental cost of doing business.But the vote also highlighted the Arctic region’s growing geopolitical significance on a warming planet, as its polar seas become more navigable and as the melting ice unveils newly accessible resources, including the rare earths that play an essential part in the production of many alternative energy sources.“On a global level, we are going to need to address head on this tension between Indigenous communities and the materials we are going to most need for a climate-stressed planet,” said Aimee Boulanger, executive director of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, a nonprofit.Given China’s dominance over the global rare earth production and supply, Mr. Menezes said that Western countries should be looking for ways to enhance their partnerships with resource-rich Greenland to keep it in “their sphere of influence.”Two years ago, Greenland’s lucrative resources and its increasing strategic importance led President Donald J. Trump to muse about purchasing the island. Greenland’s government, however, made clear that it was not for sale.“We’re open for business, not for sale,” the island’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on Twitter at the time. More

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      in US Politics

      White House moves toward approving huge windfarm off east coast

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe Biden administration is moving to sharply increase offshore wind energy along the US east coast, saying on Monday it is taking steps toward approving a huge windfarm off New Jersey as part of an effort to generate electricity for more than 10m homes by 2030.Meeting the target could mean jobs for more than 44,000 workers and for 33,000 others in related employment, the White House said. The effort also would help avoid 78m metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, a key step in the fight to slow the climate crisis.Joe Biden “believes we have an enormous opportunity in front of us to not only address the threats of climate change, but use it as a chance to create millions of good-paying, union jobs that will fuel America’s economic recovery,” said the White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy.“Nowhere is the scale of that opportunity clearer than for offshore wind.”The commitment “will create pathways to the middle class for people from all backgrounds and communities”, she added.The administration said it intends to prepare a formal environmental analysis for the Ocean Wind project off New Jersey, moving it toward becoming the third commercial-scale offshore wind project in the US.The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (OEM), part of the interior department, said it was targeting offshore wind projects in shallow waters between Long Island, New York and New Jersey. A recent study shows the area can support up to 25,000 development and construction jobs by 2030, a statement said.OEM said it will push to sell commercial leases in late 2021 or early 2022.Ocean Wind, 15 miles off the coast of southern New Jersey, is projected to produce about 1,100 megawatts a year, enough to power 500,000 homes.The Department of the Interior has announced environmental reviews for Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts and South Fork windfarm about 35 miles east of Montauk Point in New York. Vineyard Wind is expected to produce about 800 megawatts and South Fork about 132.Biden has vowed to double offshore wind production by 2030 as part of his effort to slow the climate crisis. The likely approval of the Atlantic coast projects – the leading edge of at least 16 offshore wind projects along the east coast – marks a sharp turnaround from the Trump administration, which stymied wind power onshore and in the ocean.Donald Trump frequently derided wind power as an expensive, bird-killing way to make electricity, and his administration resisted or opposed projects including Vineyard Wind. The developer of the Massachusetts project temporarily withdrew its application in a bid to stave off possible rejection. Biden provided a fresh opening for the project soon after taking office in January.“For generations, we’ve put off the transition to clean energy and now we’re facing a climate crisis,” said the interior secretary, Deb Haaland.“As our country faces the interlocking challenges of a global pandemic, economic downturn, racial injustice and the climate crisis, we have to transition to a brighter future for everyone.”Vineyard Wind is slated to become operational in 2023, Ocean Wind a year later.Offshore wind development is in its infancy in the US, far behind Europe. A small windfarm operates in waters controlled by Rhode Island, and another small farm operates off Virginia.The three major projects are owned by European companies or subsidiaries. Vineyard Wind is a joint project of a Danish company and a US subsidiary of the Spanish energy company Iberdrola. Ocean Wind and South Fork are led by the Danish company, Orsted.Wind developers are poised to create tens of thousands of jobs and generate more than $100bn in new investment by 2030 “but the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management must first open the door to new leasing″, said Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association.Fishing groups from Maine to Florida have expressed fear that large offshore wind projects could render huge swaths of the ocean off-limits to their catch. More

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      in US Politics

      Ban on US water shutoffs could have prevented thousands of Covid deaths – study

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      A national moratorium on water shutoffs could have prevented almost half a million Covid infections and saved at least 9,000 lives, according to new research.Good hygiene is essential to preventing the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. Amid pressure from public health experts and rights groups, hundreds of utilities and states suspended disconnections for overdue bills to ensure households kept running water for hand-washing and sanitation.But many refused, others let the bans expire after a few months, and Congress refused to step in with a national moratorium. By the end of 2020, 211 million Americans – including a disproportionate number of households of color – faced the threat of having their taps turned off during the worst public health and economic crisis in modern history.This patchwork protection cost thousands of American lives between April and December last year, according to research by Cornell University and the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW).Researchers found that states which suspended disconnections significantly reduced their growth rates of Covid infections and deaths, compared to states without similar orders. The biggest reduction was seen in states with comprehensive bans covering all private and public utilities.If similar policies had been adopted across the US, the study model shows that Covid cases might have been reduced by 4% and deaths by 5.5% in the 41 states without a full moratorium.“This research clearly shows us that the pain and suffering caused by the pandemic was exacerbated by political leaders who failed to take action to keep the water flowing for struggling families,” said Wenonah Hauter, FWW’s executive director.The findings come amid growing pressure on Michigan and New York state officials to extend their state moratoriums, both of which expire at the end of March. Failure to do so would leave a further 27 million people at risk of losing their water supplies for unpaid bills, as concerns grow about a potential third wave.Advocates are also urging Joe Biden to impose a national moratorium and make water a priority in the forthcoming infrastructure bill.An investigation by the Guardian last year found millions of Americans were facing unaffordable bills even before the pandemic as ageing infrastructure, environmental clean-ups, changing demographics and the climate emergency fuelled exponential price hikes in almost every corner of the US.Federal funding for water systems has plummeted since peaking in 1977.Mildred Warner, a professor of local government at Cornell University, said: “This study shows the importance of a national standard for access to water, especially for low-income households.“The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed so many structural inequities in our society, and access to drinking water is one that demands our attention.” More

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      in World Politics

      The Missing Pieces to Avoid a Climate Disaster

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      After stepping down as Microsoft CEO in 2000, Bill Gates gradually shifted his focus to the operations of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which set out to improve global health and development, as well as education in the US. Partially through his role with the foundation, Gates came to learn more about the causes and effects of climate change, which was contributing to and exacerbating many of the problems he and his wife were looking to remedy.

      Outside of the foundation, he has become more vocal about climate change and has founded and funded a number of ventures that address innovation challenges connected to climate change. His recently published book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” continues this path. It summarizes what the last decades have taught him about the drivers of climate change and plots a path of necessary actions and innovations.

      © Ash.B / Shutterstock

      Greenhouse Gas Emissions

      The book spends only a few initial pages making the argument for the anthropogenic nature of climate change, as it is clearly intended for readers who accept the scientific consensus for it. Early on, Gates asserts that the mere reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is not sufficient to avoid a climate disaster. The only real goal, according to Gates, must be achieving net-zero emissions, taking as much GHG out of the atmosphere as we put in, year by year. 

      However, significant political, economic and infrastructural hurdles have to still be overcome to electrify personal transport. Decisions to exit or curtail carbon-free nuclear power production seem to largely be following public opinion rather than science. These examples demonstrate that scaling viable, existing carbon-neutral solutions is already hard. Finding and utilizing affordable green alternatives to problems where we currently have none is even harder.

      Gates points to the fact that without finding scalable carbon-neutral ways of producing steel, cement or meat, we will not be able to arrive at a net-zero economy in the 21st century. Even if humanity was able to produce all of its energy in carbon-neutral ways and cut carbon emissions from transport, agriculture and deforestation, as well as from heating and air conditioning by half, we would still be left with more than half of the GHG emissions we currently produce. This point is further exacerbated once we consider the growing global population and rising wealth and consumption in populous countries like China, India or Nigeria.

      © Roschetzky Photography / Shutterstock

      What’s More Important Than Innovation?

      Innovation, for Gates, does not stop with technology. It is of little help if a revolutionary technological solution is developed, but there is no way or incentive for an individual person, company or city to use it. Innovation, to use Gates’ words, “is also coming up with new approaches to business models, supply chains, markets, and policies that will help new innovations come to life and reach a global scale.” Ideas like carbon taxation and regulation, which are often cited as crucial incentives for climate innovation, may trouble some free market enthusiasts, but, as Gates argues, it is important to realize that getting to net-zero is also a “huge economic opportunity: The countries that build great zero-carbon companies and industries will be the ones that lead the global economy in the coming decades.”

      Gates heavily utilizes the concept of a “Green Premium,” which he understands as the extra cost of a carbon-neutral alternative compared to today’s carbon-producing equivalent. For example, today, the Green Premium of an advanced biofuel is 106%, making biofuel 206% as expensive as gasoline. He stresses that innovation cannot only aim to develop carbon-neutral alternatives. It must also make them competitive and accessible, lowering green premiums as far as possible and driving infrastructural and political incentives.

      It should not come as a surprise that Gates approaches the challenge of getting to net-zero as a capitalist and a technology optimist. He firmly believes that a dollar in the Global North is better spent on carbon innovation than on disincentivizing the utilization of carbon-intensive products and services — a doctrine that his own investments certainly follow. However, spending public climate funds on research and development in cement production or generation IV nuclear reactors, rather than on bike paths in Berlin, Paris or New York, will be a difficult sell. 

      : © PHOTOCREO Michal Bednarek / Shutterstock

      A Clear Roadmap

      Bill Gates has received criticism of varying degrees of legitimacy for many of the stances he has taken, going back to the United States v. Microsoft antitrust litigation and beyond. With “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” however, he has achieved what many of our political leaders have not: clearly defining and communicating a holistic and evidence-based roadmap that leads us to a net-zero carbon future and mitigates the most horrific scenarios of runaway, anthropogenic climate change.

      “Show me a problem, and I’ll look for a technology to fix it,” Gates proclaims. Being a believer not only in his own, but also humanity’s ability to innovate its way out of the gloomiest odds, he remains optimistic, whilst conceding the momentous nature of the challenge we face: “We have to accomplish something gigantic we have never done before, much faster than we have ever done anything similar.”

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More