Free Republic

"Representative democracy" has failed; the private sector is "inept"; and only bigger government - led by China and the US - has the power to save the world from climate change. So says Bill Gates in a dogmatic but somewhat confused interview with The Atlantic in which he simultaneously pours scorn on green tech solutions but insists that more of them are needed - on a scale bigger than the Manhattan Project - if we are to deal successfully with a problem whose nature he admits may well have been exaggerated by environmentalists.

Billionaire software tycoon Bill Gates has pontificated that businessmen who operate in free markets are too greedy and incompetent to reduce concentrations of carbon dioxide that he believes are disastrously heating the planet. Gates held forth on his anti-capitalist views in an interview published in this month’s issue of The Atlantic. Gates, who made his billions in free markets, declared that “there’s no fortune to be made” in private-sector attempts to lower CO2 levels.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Did you see what Bill Gates did? Did you see what Bill Gates said? This is one of the craziest, nonsensical things I have ever in my life heard. I understand why he said it. But it is just over-the-top unbelievable. Bill Gates says that capitalism cannot save us from climate change. Bill Gates says that socialism is the only thing that can save us from climate change. "The world's richest man, Bill Gates, has said that the private sector is too selfish and inefficient to produce effective energy alternatives to fossil fuels. While announcing his plan...