Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

Perhaps it's unsurprising that a billionaire has no interest in structural and political change. But @BillGates's belief that he can save the planet with technologies alone, while dissing popular movements and systemic transformation, is as naive as it is arrogant.

Moreover, his attack on divestment campaigns suggests he hasn't grasped even the basic dynamics of preventing climate breakdown:
It doesn't matter how many solar plants you build unless you simultaneously, and proactively, shut down fossil fuel investment.

Otherwise the political power of those with sunk costs will impede and stymie transition. Technical change is essential, but it's only a partial answer to economic power, and no answer at all to political power.

Gates's claim to be using "sustainable aviation fuel" in his private jets is just nonsense.
Because of jets' vast energy demand, there is currently no fuel that can be sustainably scaled. Biofuel for jets means massive ecological destruction.

The same goes for his claim to be offsetting his vast carbon footprint. There is simply no atmospheric space left for offsets, especially if they're used to justify such profligacy. Every sector needs to be decarbonised. Offloading cuts onto other sectors solves nothing.

Fundamentally, the problem is too much money. However green a person thinks they are, their destructive impacts match their spending. The more you spend, the more you destroy. We all deceive ourselves about the amount of harm we do. Gates turns out to be no exception.

Billionaires, regardless of their good intentions, are a threat to life on Earth.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

We should all try to live by Kant’s Categorical Imperative. In the environmental case, it means: “unless everyone can do this without causing harm, I should not do it.”
If everyone sought to live like @BillGates, we would overwhelm the Earth’s biophysical capacity within days.

The living world is being destroyed by exceptionalism:
“I’m special. So - unlike everyone else - I deserve that holiday in the Seychelles, that joint of beef, that SUV, those shares in an oil firm, that private jet.”

We should live in a way that everyone can live: modestly.