Futures grad student Dennis Coffey sent me a nice piece — The business of cooling the planet — from Fortune on Bill Gates getting mobilized around global environmental issues, and when Gates and the Gates Foundation get involved, things happen.
The article points out that Gates has been convinced that the risk of global warming is worse than most people think. What intrigued me was that as a result, he has become the world’s leading funder of research ($4.6 million) into geoengineering — deliberate, large-scale interventions in the earth’s climate system intended to prevent it.
It reminded me of forecasts we did at the old Coates & Jarratt, Inc. under the auspices of Joe Coates. Joe has always been an advocate of geo-engineering — we often used the term macroengineering. So, I looked for some of our thoughts on the topic. In the review of forecasts from 2025 I did a few years back — How Accurate Are Your Forecasts? — the evaluation of the macroengineering was that it would “need a boost” to occur by 2025. I said: We haven’t seen much progress here [in macroengineering], and there have been growing questions about whether this is a desirable strategy. Maybe Gates will provide the boost? Andy Hines
