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Comment by sevenless | Hacker News Reader

> Gates doesn’t blame the paucity of miracle technologies on the absence of a price on carbon

So governments introducing no regulations or taxes around carbon pollution isn't a problem? Would he have said that about ozone depletion or SOx/NOx emissions standards?

This reads like a typical free-marketer's apology for Exxon lobbyists and paid denialists screwing up international cooperation on global warming.

Also nothing in here about using less energy.

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    > Also nothing in here about using less energy.

I think we will require a lot more energy than ever before. To produce clean water - possibly from ocean water (desalination) - and to add more and more A/C, possibly using different technologies than today (but they'll still require energy input). Water and heat are becoming more and more of a problem for vast regions. The Middle East already is next to unlivable, setting new temperature records (which will probably be broken again and again in the foreseeable future). We can move hundreds of millions or even billions of people to more livable climate regions, we can let them die, or we can use technology - and energy, plenty of it, on a huge scale.

fracking - 70 to 140 billion gallons anually

animal agriculture - 34 to 76 trillion gallons anually

at least we know what wastes a lot of water, the solution is simple, but is not as tasty.

as for heating, yes, it's quite a problem.

withouthotair.com is a great resource for the approximate numbers.

Neither fracking nor animal agriculture are being done in the Gulf region, or AFAIK (at least not in large scale, and not in regions without sufficient water) in the Middle East. Regions that have enough water can do whatever they want, why would I save water e.g. in Germany or Washington State (coastal region) when there's a shortage in the middle of India, how would that help? Also, I don't see the US as having a water problem - well it does, but they have the resources to do something about it whenever they wish to do so. I'm talking about regions that have a "real" problem, not just one of politics.

I've put fracking numbers to point out the comparison.

Animal agriculture is being done everywhere.

I'm doubting people are eating meat from Brazil, Australia and Denmark in US, Asia or Africa so much that these are the main dots of world animal agriculture.

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