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Comment by gargs | Hacker News Reader

Climate science research.

'The investment underlines Gates’s long-standing interest in alternative fuels, and his enthusiasm for new technology that could tackle emissions from industry and transport that together make up 75% of the world’s carbon footprint.'

It's an 'investment'.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/09/bill-gate...

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Well, as ridiculous as it sounds, this is bound to trigger some R&D for hydrogen powered ships. And from what I know, maritime transport is in dire need of clean tech, since it's actually a huge pollutant.

Plus, there's many bad things to say about Bill Gates, but he's been the world's richest man for 20+ years. I find it a bit ludicrous that only now we'd be making fun of him for buying a superyacht when he could afford and could have bought one back in 1985 :-)))

Allow me to pick a nit. You're argument still stands but he hasn't been consistently at number 1. He has been surpassed by Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim and now Jeff Bezos. What he has done is manage to stay at top three, and always recover the top position after a fall - that is, until Bezos came along.

There are two well proven ways to get founding for research projects:

1) make it part of a sport (see Formula 1)

2) convince rich people this is a cool thing to have

It's the same kind of "climate change research" as if I burned a bunch of tires in my backyard. The energy required to manufacture and operate that yacht far exceeds any imaginable reasonable threshold for anyone who truly cares about the environment. And that's something _he doesn't even need_. Same with his 30000sqft house. It's pure hypocrisy.

Yes, it's hard to take on board his pleas to reduce carbon emissions when he does the exact opposite.

Looks like the story is fake news though.

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