Bill Gates: Expecting people to stop eating meat or consumers to cut back won’t be enough to fix climate change

 

Climate change is an urgent issue, but it won’t be solved by asking everyone to become vegetarians — or any other similar calls for consumers to cut back, Bill Gates said at a recent event in India.

“Will all Indians become vegetarians? Will all Americans become vegetarians? I wouldn’t want to count on it. Anybody wants to evangelize that they’re welcome to,” Gates said, speaking with Anant Goenka, the executive director of the Indian Express Group, an Indian media company.“In climate movements, you can get this, ‘Hey, we’ve been consuming too much,’ and ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn’t travel anymore,’” Gates said, speaking at the 5th Ramnath Goenka Memorial Lecture delivered on March 1.

These de-growth arguments have limited applicability, though. While Americans could use less energy than they currently do, Gates said, it would be “completely unjust” to ask people living in India to continue using the same amount of energy...

“I don’t think we can count on people living an impoverished lifestyle as a solution to climate,” Gates said...more