DAVID SOLWAY: Billionaire Barbarian at the Gates, Part One.

It is clear why many people consider Gates a dangerous man. He is indescribably wealthy, influential and powerful, and also persuasively glib in furthering his various agendas. Obviously, no one can determine absolutely what his underlying motives might be. Is he philanthropist or exploiter, hero or villain, savior or eugenicist? But there is ample warrant to remain skeptical of his bona fides.

To be sure, his Ted Talk was framed in the context of global warming and the obligation to reduce CO2 emissions, a challenge that could be met by reducing the planetary census. According to his formula, CO2 = P x S x E x C, where P = People, S = Services per person, E = Energy per service, and C = CO2 per energy unit, fewer people in a congested world means less atmospheric carbon and the consequent decline in the rate of (ostensibly) rising global temperature.

The problem here is that a reduced population does not necessarily entail a reduction in manufacturing and industry. Major polluting countries like China and India give no indication of scaling down carbon-emitting coal plants. Moreover, Green technology—the wind farm/solar array nexus—is notoriously expensive, unreliable, landscape defiling, and fossil-fuel dependent with its inevitable and frequent outages. Similar drawbacks are true of the half-ton, non-disposable, toxic EV lithium batteries now all the rage in the plans of quantitative futurists. The Green solution is a neon green figment, largely unworkable in the long run. Energy extraction remains essential. Fracking and nuclear are the most feasible alternatives, but are ruled out by ecological enthusiasts.

But when it comes to portraying himself as an “ecological enthusiast,” it’s clear that Gates is merely cosplaying: Bill Gates shops for ‘hundreds of acres of farmland’ to create ‘sustainable farm in Turkey’ from aboard his $2 million-a-week rental yacht after celebrating lavish 66th birthday party with Jeff Bezos.

I don’t want to hear another word about Glenn Reynolds’ carbon footprint.