Common Sense with Paul Jacob

“Ever since billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump won his second presidential election, tech barons like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and of course Elon Musk have made no bones about shedding their progressive skin and embracing the new administration,” explains Joe Wilkins at Futurism. “Gates, too, is cozying up to the returning president. In early January, the Microsoft founder spent three hours dining with his fellow billionaire, telling the Wall Street Journal he was ‘frankly impressed’ by Trump’s grasp on the issues dear to him.”

The Futurism article is entitled “Bill Gates Gives Up on Climate Change” and is blurbed “That’s enough of that.”

A major chapter in climate giving has ended,” is how Heatmap puts it. “Breakthrough Energy, the climate philanthropy organization founded by Bill Gates, is closing its policy and advocacy office and has laid off much of its staff in Washington, D.C. . . .”

Courtesy of GeekWire, we learn of the New York Times’s coverage:

The Seattle-based organization has scrapped its U.S. climate policy team, its European team and employees working in partnership with other climate groups, said the Times, citing an internal memo issued Tuesday and unnamed sources.

“Bill Gates remains as committed as ever to advancing the clean energy innovations needed to address climate change,” according to a statement provided to GeekWire by a Breakthrough Energy spokesperson.

“His work in this area will continue and is focused on helping drive reliable, affordable, clean energy solutions that will enable people everywhere to thrive,” she added.

Lisa Stiffler, “Report: Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy cuts climate policy team and partnership support,” Geek Wire (March 12, 2025).

“Gates, who is worth $106.5 billion,” GeekWire further explains, “donated $50 million to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, according to earlier reports from the Times.” The article goes on to explain just how many billions Gates has invested in this cause, and how many more billions have been gathered up from other sources. Many, many billions: $2 billion raised in two rounds; an $839 million fund; and $4 billion from Gates himself.

Climate scientist Michael Mann has appeared in these pages before, the subject of some criticism for his less-than-honest science and public pronouncements. So a recent news story is worth sharing, even if we leave the commentary to you. Quoting from Roger Pielke, Jr.:

The DC Court that heard the defamation case brought by climate scientist Michael Mann against two bloggers has ruled today that Mann and his lawyers acted in “bad faith” during the case, by presenting false claims on multiple occasions related to Mann’s grant funding:

Here, the Court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that Dr. Mann, through [his lawyers] Mr. Fontaine and Mr. Williams, acted in bad faith when they presented erroneous evidence and made false representations to the jury and the Court regarding damages stemming from loss of grant funding. . . The Court does not reach this decision lightly.

This ruling follows closely on the heels of the same court reducing the punitive damages awarded to Mann against one of the defedents from $1,000,000 to $5,000. That reduction follows the Court’s order that Mann pay $530,820.21 of legal expenses that his lawsuit resulted in for National Review — which Mann had also sued, but whose case was dismissed.

Roger Pielke, Jr., “In Bad Faith” (March 12, 2025).

The judge was none too pleased with Mann and his lawyers:

They each knowingly made a false statement of fact to the Court and Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information.

As those who have followed Michael Mann’s sorry career pushing Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) may remember, Mann has been caught conspiring to keep hidden in his data and graphs the reality of the Medieval Warming Period. As a public figure and one of the main faces of the AGW “climate change” hysteria, he has helped diminish the public’s confidence in scientists in general.

So maybe we should thank him? After he pays off the damages and court costs, of course.

“The irony here is deep,” concludes Mr. Pielke. “The lawsuit Mann brought on the basis that he was intemperately accused of misconduct winds up revealing that Mann engaged in misconduct that was ‘extraordinary in its scope, extent, and intent.’ It’ll be interesting to see what the climate science community does now.”