Bill Gates: In Conversation—Online Bill Gates: In Conversation—Online

Gates will be in conversation for an online-only event on Thursday, February 18, 2021, at 7:30 PM (PST), as part of their SAL Presents series of special events. Digital Passes are on sale now, and all tickets (except Student/25 & Under and complimentary tickets) include a copy of Gates’ book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need. Books will be mailed to ticket holders by these local independent bookstores: Book Larder, Elliott Bay Book Company, Island Books, Phinney Books, Queen Anne Book Company, Secret Garden Books, Third Place Books, and University Book Store. The moderator for this event will be announced soon.

In the urgent, authoritative book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible—plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.

Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet’s slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal.

He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions—suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise.

As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

Bill Gates is a technologist, business leader, and philanthropist. In 1975, he cofounded Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen; today he and his wife, Melinda, are cochairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He also launched Breakthrough Energy, an effort to commercialize clean energy and other climate-related technologies. He and Melinda have three children and live in Medina, Washington.

Ticket Information:
All Digital Passes are Pay-What-You-Can Pricing and include a copy of How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, shipped to the ticket holder by Seattle-area independent bookstores in the two weeks following the event (except Student/25 & Under and complimentary tickets).

•    SAL Superhero Digital Pass & Book: $130
•    SAL Hero Digital Pass & Book: $80
•    SAL Pal Digital Pass & Book: $65
•    Suggested Price Digital Pass & Book: $50
•    Student of Life Digital Pass & Book: $40
•    Student/25 & Under Digital Pass: $5. No book.

Tickets are available at lectures.org or by calling the SAL Box Office at 206.621.2230, ext. 10.

About Seattle Arts & Lectures: Founded in 1987, Seattle Arts & Lectures champions the literary arts by engaging and inspiring readers and writers of all generations in the Puget Sound region. SAL’s programs include the Literary Arts Series, Poetry Series, Women You Need to Know (WYNK), Journalism Series, SAL Presents, Hinge, Local Voices, Summer Book Bingo, the Youth Poet Laureate (YPL) program, and Writers in the Schools (WITS). For more information about SAL, visit lectures.org.