The techno-optimists have never been much interested in the low-tech fixes that actually enhance climate resilience and lower emissions (and make us happier in the process).

Ultimately, climate change is not a technological problem but one of human restraint – where/how to build, where not to, and how to moderate energy use. Technology is useful for these aims but secondary.

What is changing is not the science but the remarkably poor track record of technological innovation to offer a fix commensurate to the threat (e.g., direct air capture, a deployment of renewables that comes decades too late).

Gates follows in the steps of a growing number of techno-optimists (Musk, Shellenberger, etc.) who once acknowledged the immensity of the climate challenge and now dismiss evidence of near to medium-term devastation as alarmism.

The federal government now spends more on rebuilding devastated communities each year than the total amount budgeted for highways, bridges, airports, seaports, spaceports, and (needless to say) transit.