Mike's Minute: Bill Gates said what many of us have been thinking

I think the biggest test for those who fell over backwards when Bill Gates said what he did, is not that he said it.

It's whether the people he talks about can possibly begin to accept that they might be wrong, that they might be on the wrong side of the whole equation and that as a result of the Gates' revelation, they may need to readjust some of the obsessive behaviour they have shown these past years as climate change has become the maniacal calling card for too many.

Not that climate change, as Bill points out, isn't an issue, because it is, and some good work has been done.

But where Gates is so right and deserves so much respect is that he has worked out that there has been an astonishing amount of waste in the area. Lord-knows-what amount of time, energy and money has been spent on too many things going nowhere.

Climate change, he concludes, will not wipe us out.

There are more pressing areas. His new passion is hunger. USAID has been smashed to pieces and people are dying as a result.

In other words he is prioritising. He is pragmatic. He is to be thanked.

Of course for many of us this isn't news. Gates is but one of a growing group, whether driven by the right reasons or not, who have come to the conclusion that the climate obsession has gone too far and is now damaging, rather than fixing.

The difference here and the importance of this is that Gates is one of them. He's one of the disciples, one of the believers, until of course he isn't.

He is the best sort of sceptic - a well-reasoned, highly studied, impartial observer brought to the conclusion by the work.

He is not a bandwagoner and he is not an obsessive. He is an observer.

He's used his wealth from his success to investigate the planet's big issues and he has decided climate change can go down the pecking order. God bless him for that.

The important bit though is can those immersed get what he is saying? Can they dare to believe it may all need a bit of reining in? Or in their eyes is Gates merely a deluded traitor?

And if they can't, but we do, how much further is the obsessive's reputation damaged as more and more of the world side with Gates and not the nutters?

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