In a fawning interview with billionaire Bill Gates aired on Wednesday’s 3rd Hour Today show, co-host Al Roker hailed the Microsoft founder for launching a climate change crusade to “help save the planet.” A prominent left-wing climate activist in his own right, Roker was particularly concerned about “deniers” spreading “misinformation” and wondered if “big tech” could be used to silence them.
“Bill Gates is talking about saving the planet. Being emissions free in 30 years,” Roker heralded at the top of the segment. Turning to Gates, Roker fretted: “Plain and simple, if we don’t act now, what’s at stake here?” The How to Avoid a Climate Disaster author made sure to promote his new book by engaging in doomsday fearmongering:
The south of the United States will no longer be used for, you know, farming. It’ll have days that you can’t go outdoors. The sea level rise, the die off of the natural ecosystems. It gets quite extreme. So it’s almost apocalyptic, but that’s what’s at stake if you don’t start investing now in stopping the emissions.
Roker dutifully followed up by lecturing viewers: “Greenhouse gas emissions, 51 billion tons of it, are being added to the Earth’s atmosphere every year because of us, humans.” He then complained that “It’s a subject often met with skepticism,” before asking Gates what could be done about “climate deniers” who didn’t accept the quasi-religious belief that humans are bringing about the environmental end times: “What do you say to the climate deniers, to folks who still say, ‘I don’t think this is as bad as you’re saying it is’?”
Gates scolded: “The evidence just, you know, is so clear at this point, you know, that I’d really encourage people to study it.”
Roker then urged “big tech” to do something to shut down the skepticism: “So much of this has been about misinformation. What responsibility do you think that big tech has in this?” Gates agreed: “I’ve seen it personally in terms of conspiracy theories. It’s a serious issue, and I hope we’ll look back and say, ‘Oh, we were so naive and we figured out the right trade-offs.’”
Is free speech one of those “trade-offs”?
The two wealthy liberal elitists then engaged in a discussion about the sacrifices they felt people must start making:
ROKER: So do we need to, say, start from zero when we think about everything that we do, so that we get to zero?
GATES: We need a plan. Thirty years is going to go by quickly, so we really can’t afford to waste much time, you know, working in parallel across all these different areas.
ROKER: Areas like manufacturing, electricity, even the food we eat, need innovation.
GATES: You’ve got to go to all those steel mills and change that process. You’ve got to go to all those cement plants, and that’s much harder than doing electric cars. So we need innovators to come along and change it.
Roker followed up by suggesting everyone stop eating meat, apparently just shutting down a food industry that employs many around the world: “I think a lot of people would be surprised that the food we eat, especially when thinking about meat, beef especially, adds to our carbon emissions....Is that something that is realistic, that we need to start to really think about changing what we eat?”
Gates enthusiastically replied: “Well, ideally, you know, for some people, giving up meat all together means that their carbon footprint goes down a lot....And so getting beef-like product that doesn’t involve greenhouse gas emissions, people like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and actually many others...”
Roker only briefly noted that Gates was “an investor in plant-based food companies.” How convenient.
In a fleeting moment of self-awareness, Roker played devil’s advocate: “What do you say to people when they say, well, who’s Bill Gates to tell me about a climate disaster?” Gates confessed his climate sins: “I plead guilty to my large carbon footprint.” However, he then suggested throwing money at the issue made it okay: “I’m paying over $7 million a year to do things that pull at that – those greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, so that I’m no longer at all a net emitter.”
Turning to partisan politics, Roker hoped Gates was working with the Biden administration to implement his plans: “The President, he signed a series of executive actions, really leaning into climate change. Have you spoken with President Biden about this?” Gates responded:
Yeah, I’ve spoken with President Biden, both about the pandemic and climate change, you know, which, of course, two of his very top priorities. We’ll see what they call their Build Back Better bill, how we concretely get into the budget, the R & D resources, and the incentives to start scaling these things up. But I’m very optimistic.
Wrapping up the friendly chat, Roker highlighted: “You say climate change will probably kill more people than a pandemic will, though.” Gates doubled down: “So this is way larger. Sadly, it’s way harder to solve. We can’t just get, you know, like a vaccine, and then climate change, you know, goes away.”
Gates made the same outlandish statement during an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, seeming to brush aside the 2.5 million who have died of COVID worldwide.
Following the taped exchange on Wednesday, Roker’s fellow 3rd Hour Today host Craig Melvin swooned: “You know, Bill Gates, his legacy won’t be Microsoft. His legacy is going to be what he is doing for this planet. He continues to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to climate change.”
NBC News is apparently completely on board with putting potentially millions of people around the world out of work, controlling people’s dietary habits, and silencing anyone who dares to dissent. All of that in the name of pushing a radical climate agenda.
Roker’s effusive praise of Gates was brought to viewers by Wayfair and Tylenol. You can fight back by letting these advertisers know what you think of them sponsoring such content.
Here is a full transcript of the February 17 segment:
9:14 AM ET
DYLAN DREYER: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world. He and his wife, Melinda, have spent years working to improve health conditions around the world and eliminate poverty.
CRAIG MELVIN: Well, now, Gates is turning his focus to climate change and he’s out with a new book, it’s called, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and The Breakthroughs We Need. Mr. Roker had the chance to talk to Bill Gates yesterday about his call for action and his call for innovation.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster”; Bill Gates On Call to Action to Help Save the Planet]
BILL GATES: You make big things happen. You build the movement around a dream, and this dream is getting all the way to zero. We can do it.
AL ROKER: Bill Gates is talking about saving the planet. Being emissions free in 30 years. Plain and simple, if we don’t act now, what’s at stake here?
GATES: The south of the United States will no longer be used for, you know, farming. It’ll have days that you can’t go outdoors. The sea level rise, the die off of the natural ecosystems. It gets quite extreme. So it’s almost apocalyptic, but that’s what’s at stake if you don’t start investing now in stopping the emissions.
ROKER: Greenhouse gas emissions, 51 billion tons of it, are being added to the Earth’s atmosphere every year because of us, humans. It’s a subject often met with skepticism. What do you say to the climate deniers, to folks who still say, “I don’t think this is as bad as you’re saying it is”?
GATES: The evidence just, you know, is so clear at this point, you know, that I’d really encourage people to study it. When somebody says it can be solved in ten years, that’s almost as bad – not quite as bad – as saying that the problem doesn’t exist.
ROKER: So much of this has been about misinformation. What responsibility do you think that big tech has in this?
GATES: I’ve seen it personally in terms of conspiracy theories. It’s a serious issue, and I hope we’ll look back and say, “Oh, we were so naive and we figured out the right trade-offs.”
ROKER: I was somewhat surprised that there is a, I think, a fairly high level of optimism in your book.
GATES: Absolutely. With the right innovations, we can do this. And it is doable, particularly because the young generation cares about it.
ROKER: So do we need to, say, start from zero when we think about everything that we do, so that we get to zero?
GATES: We need a plan. Thirty years is going to go by quickly, so we really can’t afford to waste much time, you know, working in parallel across all these different areas.
ROKER: Areas like manufacturing, electricity, even the food we eat, need innovation.
GATES: You’ve got to go to all those steel mills and change that process. You’ve got to go to all those cement plants, and that’s much harder than doing electric cars. So we need innovators to come along and change it.
ROKER: We talk a lot about electricity, renewables. Are we on the right track for them?
GATES: There’s more to do. We have to get more solar panels, more on-shore wind. And so the electric sector is so important. We’ve got to drive forward and build at a rate that is much higher than anything we’ve ever done.
ROKER: I think a lot of people would be surprised that the food we eat, especially when thinking about meat, beef especially, adds to our carbon emissions because of all the methane that cows emit on both ends. You know, I know you’re an investor in plant-based food companies. Is that something that is realistic, that we need to start to really think about changing what we eat?
GATES: Well, ideally, you know, for some people, giving up meat all together means that their carbon footprint goes down a lot. And I don’t think we can count on, you know, everyone to make that change. And so getting beef-like product that doesn’t involve greenhouse gas emissions, people like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and actually many others now, are advancing those technologies.
ROKER: What do you say to people when they say, well, who’s Bill Gates to tell me about a climate disaster?
GATES: I plead guilty to my large carbon footprint. I’m paying over $7 million a year to do things that pull at that – those greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, so that I’m no longer at all a net emitter.
ROKER: The President, he signed a series of executive actions, really leaning into climate change. Have you spoken with President Biden about this?
GATES: Yeah, I’ve spoken with President Biden, both about the pandemic and climate change, you know, which, of course, two of his very top priorities. We’ll see what they call their Build Back Better bill, how we concretely get into the budget, the R & D resources, and the incentives to start scaling these things up. But I’m very optimistic.
ROKER: You say climate change will probably kill more people than a pandemic will, though.
GATES: So this is way larger. Sadly, it’s way harder to solve. We can’t just get, you know, like a vaccine, and then climate change, you know, goes away. The challenge is that the pain is out in the future, and the steps we need to take to change it are kind of now.
MELVIN: You know, Bill Gates, his legacy won’t be Microsoft. His legacy is going to be what he is doing for this planet. He continues to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to climate change. He’s invested more than$2 billion on new green technologies. That new book is available now.
SHEINELLE JONES: And he’s been doing it for decades.
MELVIN: Oh, yeah, long before it was fashionable.
JONES: I remember, I think it was almost 13 years ago, we were in South Africa and we went to this remote village. And they talked about this village had running water, and they’re were all these kids with these pumps. And I said, “Oh, how did they do this?” And they said, “Oh, Bill Gates.” I’m like, no one knew about it, he just did it.
