Source: CNN
(CNN)If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
We were asked that question recently by high school students in Kentucky. Our answers must have sounded pretty lame to fans of superheroes like Supergirl and the Flash — we simply wished for more energy and time to help us keep up with all the moving pieces in our busy lives.
But for billions of families around the world, the challenges of energy and time are very different from ours — and these challenges have a huge impact on their ability to realize their potential. That’s why we chose to focus on these critical issues in our annual letter, which we’re releasing today.
Energy to fuel poverty reduction
Imagine life without energy. No energy to power a light bulb, mobile phone, or fridge. In fact, about 1.3 billion people — 18% of the world’s population — don’t need to imagine. That’s what life is like for them every day.
If we had to sum up history in one sentence it would be: “Life gets better — not for everyone all the time, but for most people most of the time.” And one of the biggest reasons is energy. For thousands of years, people burned wood for fuel. Their lives were, by and large, short and hard.
But when people started using coal in the 1800s, life started getting better a lot faster. Pretty soon we had lights, skyscrapers, elevators, air conditioning, cars, planes, and all the other things that make up modern life.
Without access to energy, the poor are stuck in the dark, denied all of the economic, social and health benefits that come with power. So if we really want to help the world’s poorest families, we need to find a way to get them access to energy they can afford. And we need to do it in a way that doesn’t make climate change worse, because the poor are more vulnerable to extreme weather and other climate impacts than anyone else.
To produce much more cheap, clean energy, we must make better use of existing technologies, such as solar and wind. Even more important, we’re going to need a massive amount of research into thousands of new ideas.
Today, the U.S. government is the largest funder of energy R&D, and yet we’re still woefully underinvesting. In fact, consumers spend more on gasoline in a week than the government spends on clean-energy research in a year!
To help trigger a big increase in R&D, Bill recently helped launch an effort by more than two dozen private citizens that will complement government research being done by several countries. Some of the crazier inventions that Bill is excited about are a possible way to use solar energy to produce fuel, much like plants use sunlight to make food for themselves, and batteries the size of swimming pools with huge storage capacity.
Categories: Alternative energy, America, renewable energy, Research, The Muslim Times, USA
Amazing! People, who have been supposed to be beneficial for human being, are waiting of the time when even the trees will play active role in the killing of Jews ( some of them are doing ) , on the other hand some from that group which are to be vanished, are working for the betterment of mankind. I am confused who should be dearer; one who says Allah o akbar all the time, make others lives troublesome, kills the innocents and again shout Allah o Akbar or those who are thinking of the betterment and comfort of human being ?
Great people, both of them. Their philanthropy is exceptional and their service of mankind is outstanding. Let us not forget some other legends in this field of philanthropy and service of mankind, such as Abdul Sattar Edhi and his marvelous team. While Bill Gates works with his enormous wealth, Edhi is a legend all by himself. Living in a poor and corrupt society, having no resources he has built a huge operation which serves all around the world.
No religion is bigger and better than humanity, not Islam, not Christianity and not Judaism. We are humans first and Muslims second.