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  • How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

  • The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
  • By: Bill Gates
  • Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
  • Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,727 ratings)

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How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

By: Bill Gates
Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, shares what he has learnt in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address climate problems. He explains how the world can work to build the tools it needs to get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions - investing in research, inventing new technologies and deploying them quickly at a large scale. Gates is optimistic that the world can prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

This is a visionary and inspiring book by one of the world's most celebrated public figures.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Bill Gates (P)2020 Penguin Audio
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What listeners say about How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

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The most important issue for the world.

Enjoyed. However the delivery is rather frantic. Should be encouraged reading in schools, EVERYWHERE !

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Very pedagogical

The problems, the challenges and how we should look at this matter that is real.

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Succinct, engaging and challenging

An interesting book which helps clarify what the main goal is and what steps are required to get there.

Whilst enthusiastic and varied the narration can at times be distracting and patronising.

Overall a book I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in the subject.

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Who did the pdf?

A black and white pdf, with a bad layout? It takes me back to paper school books in the 60s and 70s. Please fix this.

Otherwise, an informative book helping me understand which are the biggest producers of C02.

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Eye opening

Lots of well gathered data regarding human activity impacting climate, list of technologies needed to improve the situation and what personally we can do to help.

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Essential read by everyone!

Time to do your bit! I have already dedicated myself to this ambitious goal! B

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Excellent

A reference for understanding and acting upon the climate emergency, I highly recommend this book.

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A book to be listened to by everybody.

The author is more optimistic than I am about our future. I hope he is right. He believes technology can solve the climate crisis. And shows that everyone can, if they choose, make a difference.

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If you want to read one book on Climate Change ...

This book will not satisfy already deeply informed experts, it will feel too much playing at the surface and they might claim, facts are out of date. The latter point is impossible to avoid in a fast moving area such as this hot topic of Climate Change and I hope the book will get regular updates to address this valid point. Activist might want to see more the poltical side, the lobbying, the failures in the past and who to blame. The narrator seems controversial going by other reviews turning into a child-like story telling.

However: If you look for a well structured, easy to follow story line book on what climate change is and what our options are at a high level with a number of deeper dives on key arguments, then this is your book. It is clear and credible and I like the fact that it sticks to facts and science and leaves out emotionally charged political topics - there are enough other books out there for that. I could recommmend this book to anybody, no matter what prior education level on this topic. It even goes through the effort of making science clear, clarifying the lazy language (e.g. explaing that when everybody says Carbon, they actual mean Carbon Dioxide - am I the only person hating the fact that "Technology" was hijacked by the digital jocks?), and making big number like a Giga ton of emisson relateable. No news for experts but even for myself (relevant technical background) a great reminder and a perfect tool how I can communicate these points better in the future to a wider audience. Everything is being made relateable, one of the big positives of this book - many have tried this, but this book properly succeededon that front.

The book structure is clear, going through all the various sources of carbon (CO2) emission that make up the 51 Gt (which is number that brings everything together), one by one and what we can do about it. It explains all the mainstream technologies already available but also makes the case that we need many new innovations going forward to fix this. Even the battered and usually emotionally charged "Geo-Engineering" topic is addressed and positioned in a factual way and why it cannot just be dismissed. Cooling technologies are being looked into adressing the most pressing issue, rising temperatures. The one tech missing is active ocean cooling (not just prevention of incoming radiation), which was probably too early stage when book was published. A logical point of attack as that is where 90% of the excess heat is now stored.
The last Chapter is very much a US focussed call for action within the US political system and each listener outside the US needs to translate this to their own circumstances. For me, not living in the US, it was a bit of a less exciting finish of the book which the "Final words" could not pull it back again.

And finally on the narrator: This is a matter of taste. I am biased as I loved his role in the "Big Bang Theory" (yes, I am a geek) and with that enjoyed listening to his voice. His articstic footprint is to add emphasis to a lot of words which in my view helps the listener to focus in the right areas, adds additional guidance, but I can see how it might come across as patronising to others. I however much prefer this delivery to the many robotic, dipassionate deliveries I have experienced with other Audio-books that often make me disengage and then have to wind back to listen again.
Well done Bill and Will.

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As a person trying to make change at work….

This book is practical and useful for regular people who are responsible for those who have a need to make a change

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