{"id":517,"date":"2021-02-15T03:42:03","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T02:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/15\/bill-gates-carbon-neutrality-in-a-decade-is-a-fairytale-why-peddle-fantasies\/"},"modified":"2021-02-15T03:42:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T02:42:03","slug":"bill-gates-carbon-neutrality-in-a-decade-is-a-fairytale-why-peddle-fantasies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/15\/bill-gates-carbon-neutrality-in-a-decade-is-a-fairytale-why-peddle-fantasies\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates: \u2018Carbon neutrality in a decade is a fairytale. Why peddle fantasies?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After putting $100m into Covid research, the billionaire is taking on the climate crisis. And first he has some bones to pick with his fellow campaigners&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/composer.gutools.co.uk\/content\/600edddb8f083681e1c4b062\">Read an exclusive extract from Gates\u2019 new book<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bill Gates appears via video conference \u2013 Microsoft Teams, not Zoom, obviously \u2013 from his office in Seattle, a large space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Washington. It\u2019s a gloomy day outside and Gates is, somewhat eccentrically, positioned a long way from the camera, behind a large, kidney-shaped desk; his communications manager sits off to one side. If one had to stage, for the purposes of symbolism, a tableau of a man for whom a distance of 3,000 miles between callers still constitutes too intimate a setting, it might be this. \u201cAs a way to start,\u201d says Gates\u2019 aide, \u201cwould it be helpful for Bill to make a couple of comments about why he wrote his new book?\u201d It is helpful, and I\u2019m not ungrateful, but this is not how interviews typically commence.<\/p>\n<p>There is an urge towards deference, when speaking to Gates, which attends few other people of commensurate fame. Celebrity is one thing, but wealth \u2013 true, former-richest-man-in-the-world wealth \u2013 is something else entirely; one has a sense of being granted an audience with the Great Man, a fact made more surreal by his famously muted persona. The 65-year-old has the lofty, mildly longsuffering air of a man accustomed to being the smartest guy in the room, leavened by wry amusement and interrupted, on the evidence of past interviews, by the occasional peevish outburst \u2013 most memorably in 2014, when Jeremy Paxman questioned him about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=baUmdtrZp90\" title=\"\">Microsoft\u2019s alleged tax avoidance<\/a>. (\u201cI think that\u2019s about as incorrect a characterisation of anything I\u2019ve ever heard,\u201d he said, practically squirming in his seat with annoyance.)<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/feb\/15\/bill-gates-carbon-neutrality-in-a-decade-is-a-fairytale-why-peddle-fantasies\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/43de83936de69e99c2251f371442f9cb00cbbedd\/0_2242_8700_5220\/master\/8700.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=86d9a11ffccc2c289a6c214c3a09edba\" title=\"Bill Gates: \u2018Carbon neutrality in a decade is a fairytale. Why peddle fantasies?\u2019\" \/>After putting $100m into Covid research, the billionaire is taking on the climate crisis. And first he has some bones to pick with his fellow campaigners&#8230;<br \/>\nRead an exclusive extract from Gates\u2019 new book<br \/>\nBill Gates appears via video conference \u2013 Microsoft Teams, not Zoom, obviously \u2013 from his office in Seattle, a large space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Washington. It\u2019s a gloomy day outside and Gates is, somewhat eccentrically, positioned a long way from the camera, behind a large, kidney-shaped desk; his communications manager sits off to one side. If one had to stage, for the purposes of symbolism, a tableau of a man for whom a distance of 3,000 miles between callers still constitutes too intimate a setting, it might be this. \u201cAs a way to start,\u201d says Gates\u2019 aide, \u201cwould it be helpful for Bill to make a couple of comments about why he wrote his new book?\u201d It is helpful, and I\u2019m not ungrateful, but this is not how interviews typically commence.<br \/>\nThere is an urge towards deference, when speaking to Gates, which attends few other people of commensurate fame. Celebrity is one thing, but wealth \u2013 true, former-richest-man-in-the-world wealth \u2013 is something else entirely; one has a sense of being granted an audience with the Great Man, a fact made more surreal by his famously muted persona. The 65-year-old has the lofty, mildly longsuffering air of a man accustomed to being the smartest guy in the room, leavened by wry amusement and interrupted, on the evidence of past interviews, by the occasional peevish outburst \u2013 most memorably in 2014, when Jeremy Paxman questioned him about Microsoft\u2019s alleged tax avoidance. (\u201cI think that\u2019s about as incorrect a characterisation of anything I\u2019ve ever heard,\u201d he said, practically squirming in his seat with annoyance.) Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After putting $100m into Covid research, the billionaire is taking on the climate crisis. And first he has some bones to pick with his fellow campaigners&#8230; Read an exclusive extract from Gates\u2019 new book Bill Gates appears via video conference \u2013 Microsoft Teams, not Zoom, obviously \u2013 from his office in Seattle, a large space &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/15\/bill-gates-carbon-neutrality-in-a-decade-is-a-fairytale-why-peddle-fantasies\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bill Gates: \u2018Carbon neutrality in a decade is a fairytale. Why peddle fantasies?\u2019<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}