Tech billionaires could end climate change. So why aren’t they? | David Wallace-Wells | Big Think

Tech billionaires could end climate change. So why aren’t they?
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Saving the world from the apocalyptic impact of climate change should be a dream for many Silicon Valley titans concerned about legacy, says David Wallace-Wells, and yet few are dedicating themselves to addressing the catastrophe.

Negative emissions technology funded by Bill Gates exists. It would cost $3 trillion per year to operate and would mean human industry could continue at current levels without global warming.

That figure sounds astronomical, however global subsidies to fossil fuel industries cost $5 trillion per year.
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DAVID WALLACE-WELLS:

David Wallace-Wells is a national fellow at the New America foundation and a columnist and deputy editor at New York magazine. He was previously the deputy editor of The Paris Review. He lives in New York City.
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TRANSCRIPT:

DAVID WALLACE-WELLS: We live in a culture now that is really enamored with the idea of technological innovation. I would say that certainly up until the last couple of years, but even in the aftermath of the 2016 election, there's just been widespread cultural admiration, lionization, even deification of the founders of Silicon Valley and the world that they have built for us. I think that's misplaced faith in a lot of ways. But I think given the scale of the climate crisis, it's especially damning that so few of these people, so few of these founders, and so few of our new billionaires are really invested in the climate crisis and in figuring out ways to address it. And I don't actually even understand why that is, to the extent that these are people who want to see themselves as world historical figures, who are driven in part by ego, you'd think they would see the existential threat of climate change as an incitement to action.

You could theoretically invent a solution to this problem and save the world. And yet very few of them are doing that. Instead, they seem focused on problems that are arising from their own invention. So they're very worried about runaway AI, for instance, artificial intelligence. But climate change is a much bigger problem than that. Climate change challenges, threatens to undermine the entire infrastructure of our modern world, all of our political institutions, all of our social institutions, our national institutions. Everything is vulnerable to the transformations of climate, because we all live within climate. And I think one perverse effect of our cult of technology is that we're learning more and more to think of what's happening on our phones and on our screens as the real world and to be less focused on the impacts that are happening outside our windows. In an awful way, I think that may train us for the climate suffering that we're likely to see over the next few decades. But what I would hope for is that more of these figures are really focused on what are possible technological solutions, and you do see Bill Gates doing exactly that. He's made really significant investments in negative emissions technologies and is, in fact, behind the most exciting research in that area, which is quite exciting. It's a company called Carbon Engineering led by a guy named David Keith that has found that you can take carbon out of the atmosphere at a cost of about $100 a ton. That would mean, in theory that we could completely neutralize all global carbon emissions at a cost of about $3 trillion a year, which would mean that the economy could continue just as it is. Our agriculture could continue just as it is. Our infrastructure, our industry can continue just as they are, and we could just completely suck out all of the carbon that was being emitted for $3 trillion a year, which sounds like an enormous amount. But there are estimates about how much we subsidize the fossil fuel business today that run as high as $5 trillion a year. In theory, we could redirect those subsidies to this technology and solve the problem already. That's in theory. There are huge engineering problems. We'd have to find a place to put the carbon, which would require, the experts say, a new industry two or three times the size of the oil and gas business right now that's just to put the carbon back into the ground. But nevertheless, there are really promising technological paths forward.

We've seen incredible progress on green energy over the last 10, 15 years, much faster than anyone predicted, even its biggest advocates. And we need to continue doing that. So w...

[mulliniks]

' We could have saved the world but we were too cheap . ' - Kurt Vonnegut

[ajmalarkunnummal]

I get the idea of getting rich people to do more but I don't understand why it's only on *tech* billionaires that are targeted here. What about oil and coal billionaires that literally got rich off the problem? Or literally every other industry from agriculture to Hollywood to manufacturing to real estate, banking and everything else. I think singling out just tech is unfair. especially because the people you mentioned happens to be at least doing something about climate change.

[mattcousins]

Elon Musk started Tesla because of his dream to stop using fossil fuels. And make loads of money.

[ryankrawec]

The whole point of Tesla is to accelerate the widespread adaptation of the electric car.

[madshorn]

The billionaires are not going to fix things because the problem is the very economic model they thrive on.
Eternal economic growth is only possible in the fantasy genre called "economic textbooks", *not* in the real world.

Find Albert Bartlett here on Youtube.

[matheussantiago]

Why bill gates and elon musk are in the tumbnail??? They are literally the ones that contribute the most for our future

[Baraborn]

Well there you go, new jobs for the truckers: Carbon recyclers.

[ratatataraxia]

I can’t even get five people together for movie night.

[FocusReborn]

Why use your own money when you can use somebody else's? -- This is why they don't.

[tubhair]

I would love to see them buy the rainforests, make it protected land and promote indigenous habitation.

[MusicfromMarrs]

While sucking the carbon out of the atmosphere is an important factor, we also need to be looking at NOT continuing agriculture or business as usual. Continuing with monocrpping and CAFOs, and oil pumping and fracking, and other business practices that destroy he earth’s ecosystem s a bad plan. Innovation and change have to happen or our time on this host planet is doomed.

[malice_wonderland]

This is a vague finger wag at an entire industry, with the only example being one which is antithetic to the core statement. I suggest it needs more call outs against those who aren't to improve the quality of the argument. It fails to mention the impacts of economy of scale of any industry which takes in $3T in revenues per year. This isn't going to win over anyone sitting on the fence.

[laurencevanhelsuwe]

Carbon Engineering is not the solution, it is part of the problem. Carbon Engineering's business model poses the same moral hazard problem the threatened collapse of the banking system posed back in 2008/2009. CE's clean fuels model explicitly allows the rest of the economy to continue as if nothing was wrong with it, as if none of the other environmental disasters we face have anything to do with it, when in fact, it is our entire economic model which is the root cause of our predicament. CE may be able to technically suck a fraction of the CO2 out of the atmosphere, but if that capability is used to support the existing ways of doing business on this planet... this just won't work.

[AaCc]

Let’s point fingers at the people who have solved the worlds biggest problems and tell them to do more. Personal responsibility is overrated.

[ataritheone]

I absolutely love big think, but this title was misleading. It doesn't answer the question asked. At all. I think you can see it looking at votes already

[chenjoseph]

"Trust me bro, I am a journalist and I found everything online" - David Wallace-Wells

[alderon]

Little think needs to take Elon off the thumbnail, he is literally developing technology to help

[vandertuber]

The tech billionaires secretly know that climate change is fake.

[brentkn]

Really?
So you really think that our technology can stop the Arctic from thawing completely in the next year or so?

Dream much?

[shawnmoshos]

Spend $3 Trillion a year on planting trees, gardens, and other plants and the excess CO2 would be gone and everyone would be fed.