You’ve probably heard by now the blockbuster news that Microsoft founder Bill Gates, one of the richest people to ever walk the planet, has had a change of heart on climate change. For several decades, Gates poured billions of dollars into the climate-industrial complex and was howling that the end is nigh unless we stop using fossil fuels, cars, air conditioning and general anesthesia.

Now he says he rejects the “doomsday” predictions of the more extreme global warming prophets.

Some conservatives have snuffed that Gates has shifted his position on climate change because he and Microsoft have invested heavily in energy-intensive data centers.

What Gates has done is courageous and praiseworthy. There are not many people of his stature who will admit that they were wrong. Al Gore certainly hasn’t. My wife says I never do.

Gates still endorses the need for communal action (which won’t work), but he has sensibly disassociated himself from the increasingly radical and economically destructive dictates from the green movement. For that, the Left has tossed him out of their tent as a “traitor.”

I wish to highlight several critical insights that should be the starting point for constructive debate that every clear-minded thinker on either side of the issue should embrace.

1) It’s time to put human welfare at the center of our climate policies. This includes improving agriculture and health in poor countries.

2) Countries should be encouraged to grow their economies even if that means a reliance on fossil fuels like natural gas. Economic growth is essential to human progress.

3) Although climate change will hurt poor people, it will not be the only or even the biggest threat to the lives and welfare of the vast majority of them. The biggest problems are poverty and disease.

I would add to these wise declarations two inconvenient truths: First, the solution to changing temperatures and weather patterns is technological progress. A much smaller percentage of people die of severe weather events today than did 50 or 100 or 1,000 years ago.

Second, energy is the master resource, and to deny people reliable and affordable energy is to keep them poor and vulnerable — and this is inhumane.

If Gates were to direct even a small fraction of his foundation funds toward ensuring everyone on the planet has access to electric power and safe drinking water, it would do more for humanity than all the hundreds of billions of dollars that governments and foundations have devoted to climate programs that have failed to change the globe’s temperature.

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