Five questions to ask in every climate conversation
7 important questions on Five questions to ask in every climate conversation
How did Bill Gates come up with his framework of five questions that you, according to Bill Gates, need to ask in every climate conversation?
- When Bill Gates started learning about climate change, he found the numbers so large that they were hard to picture. Besides that, the data he was seeing often appeared devoid of any context.
- For an example = how much is 51 billion tons of gas?
- As a result, he built a mental framework of five questions what will help you cut through the clutter.
- The first questions is "How much of the 51 billion tons are we talking about?" Whenever Bill Gates read something about some amount of greenhouse gases, he does some math. What calculation does he make and why?
- Whenever Bill Gates read something about some amount of greenhouse gases, he does some match, coverting in into a percentage of the annual total of 51 billion tons, because this makes more sense.
- For an example = if you have a program that's getting rid of 17 millions tons a year: divide it by 51 billion and turn it into a percentage. In this case, that's a reduction of about 0.03% of annual global emissions.
It this calculation of Bill Gates a meaninful contribution?
- Is the number likely to go up, or is it going to stay the same? It depends on this answer.
- For an example = At Breakthrough Energy, we fund only technologies that could remove at least 500 millions tons a year, which is 1% of global emissions. Technologies that will never exceed 1% shouldn't compete for the limited resources we have for getting to zero.
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The second question that, according to Bill Gates, you need to ask in every climate conversation is "What's your plan for cement?" Why is this, according to Bill Gates, one of the questions at all?
- Making steel and cement alone accounts for around 10% of all emissions, so this question is a reminder to account for more than things like electricity and cars if you're talking about climate change.
Emissions come from five different human activities that produce greenhouse gases. How much greenhouse gases is emitted by this human activities?
- Making things (cement, steel, plastic): 31%
- Plugging in (electricity): 27%
- Growing things (plants, animals): 19%
- Getting around (planes, trucks, cargo ships): 16%
- Keeping warm and cool (heating, cooling, refrigeration): 7%
What does power density say?
- How much power you van get from different sources for a given amount of land. It's measured in watts per square meter.
How much power we can generate per square meter with fossil fuels, nuclear, solar, hydropower (dams), wind and wood and other biomass?
- Fossil fuels: 500-10,000 watts per square meter
- Nuclear: 500 - 1,000 watts per square meter
- Solar: 5-20 watts per square meter
- Hydropower (dams): 5-50 watts per square meter
- Wind: 1-2 watts per square meter
- Wood and other biomass: less that 1 watts per square meter
- For an example = if you want to use wind instead of solar, you'll need more land. This doesn't mean wind is bad and solar is good, but it means they have different requirements.
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