BOOKS: Bill Gates offers a hopeful take on climate change | Jeff Rowe

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"How to Avoid Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need," by Bill Gates (Knopf)

Feb. 17, 2021 (AP) -- Watching Bill Gates in the news over the years, his demeanor usually is that of an earnest, enthusiastic college professor, someone who draws on research and thinks before he talks. And it turns out, before he writes, too.

Gates has crafted a calm, reasoned, well-sourced explanation of the greatest challenge of our time and what we must change to avoid cooking our planet in "How to Avoid Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need."

His goal with this book appears to be to explain and persuade and although he doesn't say so in the book, the implicit theme parallels something President Abraham Lincoln once said: "Give the people the facts and the nation will be safe," meaning we Americans would make the right decisions about the problems we face if we have the facts.

Will we though?

Certainly in recent years many Americans have felt completely free to adopt their own beliefs on everything, completely unmoored from science and truth.