Facebook and internet life have opened a stream of live communication. For several years America’s public voice box has been exposed. What an airing of words, thoughts and misconceptions! Voluble is one term for this. Opinionated, another. Ever-flowing and distracting. Annoying. Illogical. Blame and complain.
We have generations of experts in America. We have invested in them, their academic strongholds, and their corporate and institutional organizations. Whether partnered with tech industries, academic and research institutions, or government agencies, these people deal in the details the rest of us don’t see or understand. They have our back. And they have saved us from ourselves many times before.
They will do that again and again; if we let them. If we help them.
That is not a given in today’s upside down world. We find fault with everything. When we can’t find just the right thing, we invent another target of fear – the unknown, the dark state, unreliability of science and its institutions, etc.
Some decades ago, Bill Gates came on the scene to change our world through technology. He came equipped with an internal vision of the world and the use of technology brimming at the edges of society. He put the two together and built Microsoft. He introduced our entire culture to the immediacy and genius of the Internet and personal computing. He made it accessible and doable.
With the billions he earned from that enterprise, he now retired to quiet spaces to think on other large problems and potential solutions. Poverty. Third world countries. Public health on a global basis and its effect on other areas of the globe. Potable drinking water for all. Neutralizing sewerage and making it broadly available throughout the globe to boost public health.
And now climate change.
Bill Gates doesn’t need more money. Or fame. Or ego massage. All he wants to do is tackle big problems and tame them. Bring them safely home to serve and protect the rest of humankind.
And he doesn’t do it alone. He reaches out to others who have resources that can be targeted to help whatever cause is their focus at the time. Then they lay out the project – defining the specific problem, identifying what the ideal outcome would look like, and knowing the stumbling blocks to a solution.
Then the team finds experts in many related fields and focuses their energy on the project. In time solutions become available. This is work the government is not doing. This is work few nations are tackling. But these are the problems that block global advancement to equal access of human health, food, water and other basic needs.
They have made a difference. In some instances, some governments do not allow use of the solutions, but there is no limit to stupidity. Access to healthy sewage treatment that produces its own power to accomplish the task, quarantine’s the toxic matter from public contact, and produces clean water at the end of the entire project. This is one of the projects not allowed in India and some African countries. Go figure.
But potable water projects are going forward and producing results. Same with drilling for water in areas with scarce resources. Villages are banding together, drilling shared wells, and thriving in scattered, remote areas of Africa.
I hear people complain that Bill Gates is not a scientist and should keep his mouth shut. On the contrary, he is a man of ideas and financial resources. He finds the scientists to address the issues he feels are most important. Then he funds the work and helps produce results that matter for people in need.
He is my hero. I thank God for Bill and Melinda Gates daily. They do more than many governments can. And the wellbeing of humankind reaps the benefits.
We applaud their accomplishments for others.
April 26, 2020
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