Everyone's a critic

I kind of liked it better when Bill Gates was someone you could hate -- hate for his ruthless business practices and his company's buggy software that despite its ricketiness always became the industry standard. But there's been no getting around the fact that Bill Gates has done what preposterously wealthy men used to do with their money instead of buying 47 megamansions and five-figure wastebaskets: he's turned to philanthropy. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation doesn't pursue just pipe-dreamy stuff like giving laptops to kids while their families have nothing to eat. The Foundation works on projects like helping communities in developing countries grow food, treating and eradicating malaria, and creating schools in these countries. From a January 2009 Foundation press release:

“I believe that the wealthy have a responsibility to invest in addressing inequity. This is especially true when the constraints on others are so great,” says Gates. He added that if investments are not made, "we will come out of the economic downtown in a world even more unequal, with greater inequities in health and education and fewer opportunities for people to improve their lives. There is no reason to accept that, when we know how to make huge gains over the long term.”

Contrast this notion to Rick Santelli standing in a room full of stock traders screaming about "loser mortgages." Contrast this notion to the bonuses and trips and junkets that zombie banks and AIG have been doling out with taxpayer money.

Say what you will about the company he ran, but it would be hard to fault what he's done with the money he's made, but someone always finds a way.

Today it's Joseph Romm, who at Salon today makes the case that it's somehow Gates' responsibility to address global warming:

Now, you might think a foundation focusing on third-world "sustainable" development would devote some significant portion of its resources toward preventing catastrophic global warming. After all, on our current emissions path, we will have destroyed a livable climate by 2100. Most every independent scientific and economic analysis says the developing world will suffer horribly. This goes double for the region Gates is focusing much of the foundation's resources on -- Africa, a continent facing climate-driven desertification in the north and the south, a continent with huge coastal populations.

But, in fact, the Gates Foundation has no program to help prevent global warming. Back in 2006, when Gates first announced that he planned to spend most of his time running the foundation, Newsweek raised the climate change issue in an interview:

Q: I know you're concerned about global warming. Will the foundation become involved with that?

A: I'm already reading some books on energy and the environment, but I will read a lot more two years from now and think whether there's something the foundation should do in those areas. The angle I'll have when I'll look at most things is, What about the 4 billion poorest people? What about energy and environmental issues for them?

Here's what Gates should have learned by now about the key energy and environmental issues facing the 4 billion poorest people. Using a "middle of the road" greenhouse gas emissions scenario, a study in Science found that for the more than 5 billion people who will be living in the tropics and subtropics by 2100, growing-season temperatures "will exceed the most extreme seasonal temperatures recorded from 1900 to 2006." The authors conclude: "Half of world's population could face climate-driven food crisis by 2100."

A study led by MIT economists found that "the median poor country's income will be about 50 percent lower than it would be had there been no climate change." And that was based on a 3-degree C warming by 2100, about half the warming we are currently on track to reach. A further study led by scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that several regions would see rainfall reductions "comparable to those of the Dust Bowl era." Worse, unlike the Dust Bowl, which lasted a decade or two, this climate change would be "largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop."

Perhaps soo, as the governor of Alaska would say. But when a fire requires a thousand gallons of water to put out, and you have two gallons of water that would do nothing to put out the fire when everyone else who has water is looking the other way and pretending there's no fire, or give your two gallons to a small group of children who will die within hours of dehydration, what are you going to do?

Global warming requires a global response. Gates may be late to the table on this, but so is everyone else. I recognize that we are, or perhaps have, already run out of time. But until the rest of the world, and certainly the United States, gets fully on board with sustainable, renewable energy that does not contribute to the problem, it's hard to point the finger at Bill Gates and say "YOU Do something about it."