Page 52 - 4921

our act together. Now, that's just an insurance policy. You hope you don't need to do that. Some people say you
shouldn't even work on the insurance policy because it might make you lazy, that you'll keep eating because you
know heart surgery will be there to save you. I'm not sure that's wise, given the importance of the problem, but
there's now the geoengineering discussion about -- should that be in the back pocket in case things happen faster,
or this innovation goes a lot slower than we expect?
CA: Climate skeptics: If you had a sentence or two to say to them, how might you persuade them that
they're wrong?
BG: Well, unfortunately, the skeptics come in different camps. The ones who make scientific arguments
are very few. Are they saying that there's negative feedback effects that have to do with clouds that offset things?
There are very, very few things that they can even say there's a chance in a million of those things. The main
problem we have here, it's kind of like AIDS. You make the mistake now, and you pay for it a lot later.
And so, when you have all sorts of urgent problems, the idea of taking pain now that has to do with a gain
later, and a somewhat uncertain pain thing -- in fact, the IPCC report, that's not necessarily the worst case, and
there are people in the rich world who look at IPCC and say, "OK, that isn't that big of a deal." The fact is it's
that uncertain part that should move us towards this. But my dream here is that, if you can make it economic, and
meet the CO2 constraints, then the skeptics say, "OK, I don't care that it doesn't put out CO2, I kind of wish it
did put out CO2, but I guess I'll accept it because it's cheaper than what's come before." (Applause)
CA: And so, that would be your response to the Bjorn Lomborg argument, that basically if you spend all
this energy trying to solve the CO2 problem, it's going to take away all your other goals of trying to rid the world
of poverty and malaria and so forth, it's a stupid waste of the Earth's resources to put money towards that when
there are better things we can do.
BG: Well, the actual spending on the R&D piece -- say the U.S. should spend 10 billion a year more than
it is right now -- it's not that dramatic. It shouldn't take away from other things. The thing you get into big money
on, and this, reasonable people can disagree, is when you have something that's non-economic and you're trying
to fund that -- that, to me, mostly is a waste. Unless you're very close and you're just funding the learning curve
and it's going to get very cheap, I believe we should try more things that have a potential to be far less expensive.
If the trade-off you get into is, "Let's make energy super expensive," then the rich can afford that. I mean, all of
us here could pay five times as much for our energy and not change our lifestyle. The disaster is for that two
billion.
And even Lomborg has changed. His shtick now is, "Why isn't the R&D getting more discussed?" He's
still, because of his earlier stuff, still associated with the skeptic camp, but he's realized that's a pretty lonely
camp, and so, he's making the R&D point. And so there is a thread of something that I think is appropriate. The
R&D piece, it's crazy how little it's funded.
CA: Well Bill, I suspect I speak on the behalf of most people here to say I really hope your wish comes
true. Thank you so much.
BG: Thank you. (Applause)

Russian
Сегодня я буду говорить об энергии и климате. И это может показаться несколько удивительно,
потому что вся моя работа в фонде посвящена, по большей части, вакцинам и семенам, тому, что надо
изобрести и внедрить, чтобы улучшить жизнь беднейших двух миллиардов населения Земли. Но дело в
том, что энергия и климат для этого слоя исключительно важны. Более того, для них это важнее, чем для
всех остальных на планете. Ведь ухудшение климата для них означает, что урожая не будет несколько
лет. Дождя будет либо слишком много, либо слишком мало, и их хрупкая среда окажется просто не в
состоянии справиться с изменениями. Это приведёт к голоду, к неуверенности, к беспорядкам. Значит,
изменения климата для этих людей ужасно.
51