Gates and MS Don't See Eye-To-Eye On CO2 288
Sam Machkovech writes "Bill Gates's speech at last week's TED Conference centered on 'moving to zero-carbon energy, and our need to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050.' His choice of subject was an abrupt turn from The Gates Foundation's typical humanitarian topics, but he insisted that energy innovation is crucial to his Foundation's goals. A move by Microsoft today proves that Gates's old company has less interest in that carbon-neutral goal — Microsoft has begun campaigning against a bridge redesign that would result in more bus and transit options for commuters between Seattle and the company's homebase of Redmond, WA."
Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
The changes Microsoft made to both Windows Vista and 7 have resulted in more CO2 savings that most other efforts combined. I am of course talking about the default and recommended power settings in Windows along with the "best practice" guidelines given to their corporate partners. Microsoft has also added support for power saving features to Windows ahead of what the hardware and or drivers in the market offered...
troll... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of perfectly good reasons to oppose a bridge that may well be a bad idea to build.
Terrible Title & Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
While there are still some final design issues that need to be resolved with the City of Seattle, we should not let last-minute objections undermine the hard-won agreements already in place for the rest of the project. Doing so would cause yet more delay, increase the cost to taxpayers, and put this vital transportation and economic corridor at risk. The current bridge is 47 years old, and state engineers warn that it could sink in a major storm or earthquake.
So its not like Microsoft is against it because they love to emit Carbon Dioxide. In fact, closing the bridge for construction will cause people to go around, emitting more CO2.
Microsoft is mostly against it because it highly affects their employees in a negative way. It means more lates, or more inconvenience. Will the CO2 offset from more buses balance out the increased amount created during its upgrade? Who knows.
Bill's Ted talk was actually great. He promoted the design and development of the new Nuclear reactors that burn the 99% of uranium - essentially the old toxic waste that we have sitting around. Yeah, everyone was afraid of nuclear technology partly because of the waste produced, and with modern super computers we've simulated that we can actually burn the waste produced by regular nuclear reactors. We just need to jump on it. Bill Gates goes through how Solar power and Geo power are great alternatives but they aren't as solid, as such they will only work towards extending our deadline to meet the Carbon 0 goal.
These two events, the Ad and the Ted talk, are totally exclusive and neither are really about the other, and this isn't them butting heads. Bill Gates goes on about how the entire world needs to come together on a new project. This is one company against adding bus lanes to a bridge. Whoever lumped those two together didn't really look at the big picture.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
>>The changes Microsoft made to both Windows Vista and 7 have resulted in more CO2 savings that most other efforts combined.
Which is really sad, since the overall effect is quite small.
If we'd gone nuclear since the 70s, we'd have met every CO2 target out there today, and we wouldn't be having all this annoying debate. Well, we'd be having some kind of annoying debate, but not so much over CO2 production.
I watched that talk by Gates a few days ago, and he has an interesting design for a nuclear reactor, that basically would work like burning a candle - "burning" starts on one end of the nuclear log and proceeds down the log until 50 years later, when you pop it out and put a new log in. The little bit of waste left over could be put into a new log, and it runs on unenriched uranium, which makes fuel a lot less expensive, and a lot more available. It could all be a pipe dream, but it would be great if they could get it working. Given that Gates can bankroll all the R&D out of his deep pockets, I'm cautiously optimistic about Terrapower.
The sad thing is that environmentalists have a sort of knee jerk reaction every time they hear the word nuclear, even though it is the only power source that is cheap, safe, and good for the environment. The only people who oppose it are the ignorant (Nuclear Power means Nuclear War!) or people who think life would be AWESOME if we could all go back to living in caves.
Re:Population Reduction (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:only 2 general lanes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Population Reduction (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:only 2 general lanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if they are stuck in traffic jams day after day, they may find themselves much more likely to try the train, bus or carpool option
Hasn't happened yet. [forbes.com]
it's also faster. At least, it's faster in a well-designed transit system.
Spherical cow. [wikipedia.org] It's all easy if you can postulate away any actual practical limitations. Things like existing residence and employment location patterns ("first, we make everyone live within 5 miles of where they work..."); stuff already in the way of your well-designed transit system ("how many dozens of blocks are you willing to demolish to set up your light rail system?"); and the simple societal preference for individual mobility.
The U.S. is a big, sprawling country, and the cities are big and sprawling too. That is the result of, and the reinforcement for, the big, sprawling, commute-centric mindset of suburban/exurban America. And 3-hour commutes, $4 per gallon gasoline, and 35,000 traffic fatalities a year haven't changed it yet. If you don't mind, I won't hold my breath.
How do you mark this whole story as troll? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I, for one, am shocked... (Score:5, Insightful)
nobody puts money into malaria research except for philanthropic reasons
Oh I don't know, they can't very well buy MS products if they're dead now can they?
In all seriousness, why is giving '3rd world kiddies' free access to your companies software cynical? Ok, yes you can make the argument that you're trying to indoctrinate them, but isn't it more likely that Bill Gates genuinely believes that MS products are some of the best available and that the kids should have the best available products? Especially since, given his contacts, the software can be had at little to no cost? Not every act of a millionaire is duplicitous, it seems to me that he's just trying to do the most good possible. His opinion of the software may be wrong, but I doubt that he is conciously trying to brainwash the developing world.
Re:Not Contradictory (Score:2, Insightful)
Even worse, his efforts to prevent malaria are likely to result in millions and millions of additional living humans.
But maybe it all doesn't boil down to any simple calculus.
Re:troll... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they're not directly opposing mass transit. They're opposing efforts to delay the expansion of the existing (car only) bridge because the expansion has been needed (light rail or no) for a long time (a decade or so), and now that they've finally got an agreement worked out, they don't want to go back to the drawing board.
I don't know the details of the current bridge plans, but when I worked out there, it was patently obvious the bridge needed expansion. The highway leading up to it on the eastern side (the MS side) was three lanes each way, one of which was an HOV-3 lane. Problem was, when you hit the bridge, it narrowed to two lanes, eliminating the HOV lane. Which meant all the HOV travelers had to merge back in, and the merging itself created massive traffic jams. The HOV lane was only really useful at the edges of rush hour; in the middle of rush hour it would back up almost as badly as the non-HOV lanes (and keep in mind, buses were using it to, so mass transit wasn't a workaround). If they could just expand the bridge by one lane each way, and make the extra lane HOV-3, carpooling would make a lot more sense, as would riding the bus, and even people in the non-HOV lanes would benefit a bit (since the last second merging wouldn't exacerbate otherwise minor traffic jams).
Re:troll... (Score:5, Insightful)
All large business attempts to minimize their tax burdens via legal means. How many home owners have been taught that a "Home mortgage is a great tax deduction!"? As long as you do it legally by the law, there is no cheating involved.
Pick any WA politician, and ask would they rather get those taxes, or would they like Microsoft to move their HQ and jobs elsewhere.
At least they didn't move their HQ to a PO Box in the Cayman islands...
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I don't know if it's completely true. No one can know if it's completely true. From what I've heard, there's reactors now where the waste is something actually useful, or can be easily converted to non-hazardous materials, so at the very least, now is the time to start a massive push to nuclear, supplimented by renewable sources like tidal/geothermal/solar/wind as regionally appropriate.
Re:Bill Gates vs Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
McGinn’s proposal would also introduced further delays. Which is what MS is complaining about.
I'll bet they don't give a hoot one way or the other about the LRT lanes. But if that bridge goes down for even one day, no matter what it looks like, they lose millions.
This topic is flamebait. (Score:3, Insightful)
How does this indicate that Microsoft isn't green?
Maybe Microsoft is simply looking at the reality: there is no incentive for people who might cross that bridge to use public transit. People who are able to afford a lengthy daily drive to work are also likely to be able to justify not sitting another 20+ minutes on a bus/train with strangers.
Also, public transit has shown to do one thing very well in the US: bring criminals from their urban homes to suburbia where they can commit crimes and then hop back on the train in time for dinner.
Upper-middle-class people do not ride on public transit unless it is very, very clean, safe, and private. (This is partially because train lines seem to typically go from urban downtown to their pleasant neighborhoods, resulting in urban scum coming out to deal drugs and expand their turf in the relatively safe 'burbs.)
Maybe Microsoft is opposed to the lengthy extensions to the bill proposing public transit because said public transit would then come out of the Redmond tax coffers.
There's probably close to a half dozen plausible reasons why MS might be opposed to this bridge, and it has nothing to do with how "Green" they are.
Why don't you call them "Reds" and have McCarthy go after them? (That's what this Green bullshit is becoming - the New McCarthyism.)
I'm going to go burn some tires.
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
The sad thing is that environmentalists have a sort of knee jerk reaction every time they hear the word nuclear
I think it's a small but vocal minority. I doubt any environmentalist that thoroughly researched it would recommend coal or gas over nuclear. (those are the current solutions in the US)
Certainly, we should avoid living within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor, just to be safe - but denying such an efficient form of energy generation because of possible risks seems fool hearty - and perhaps even hypocritical. For example, there's significantly more evidence out there that genetically modified corn (and the fructose produced from it) is causing all sorts of genetic damage and diseases(obesity, heart disease, etc.), but that doesn't stop us from shoving it down our faces, because it tastes good.
And we're worried about Nuclear? Why exactly?
Re:This topic is flamebait. (Score:3, Insightful)
Upper-middle-class people do not ride on public transit unless it is very, very clean, safe, and private. (This is partially because train lines seem to typically go from urban downtown to their pleasant neighborhoods, resulting in urban scum coming out to deal drugs and expand their turf in the relatively safe 'burbs.)
Ok, I know this not to be true, not only here in Europe, but in the US as well. I have lived in NYC, and I can tell you that there are *a lot* of upper middle class (and even wealthy) people who use the subway there, and it's not exactly clean, or private. (it's much safer than driving though)
Pure bullshit. The part about transit bringing criminals to suburbs too, can you point to *any* serious study that supports this?