Bill Gates' New Doc, 'Solving for Zero,' Showcases Climate Change Solutions That Could Actually Work
Published April 5 2022, 2:51 p.m. ET
A still of Bill Gates in 'Solving for Zero.'
It’s been just over a year since Bill Gates’ book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster was published. And if you still haven’t gotten around to reading it, perhaps you’ll be more motivated to watch the upcoming documentary Solving for Zero and subsequent educational series, both of which are inspired by the book, and feature Bill Gates himself.
To learn more about what to expect from the documentary and the 10-part series, as well as all the details on the release date and how to watch, keep reading.
Bill Gates’ book has inspired the new documentary ‘Solving for Zero.’
In his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, Bill Gates gathered and published advice from experts in a variety of relevant fields, regarding what solutions humanity must take advantage of in order to take us closer to zero emissions, and put an end to the climate crisis.
To showcase some of the solutions laid out in the book, Wondrium (more details on Wondrium below) has put together a 75-minute documentary called Solving for Zero. The doc features Gates, as well as five scientists and changemakers who are doing incredible work to solve the climate crisis:
Grace Andrews of Project Vesta, which is working on a global solution to coastal carbon capture
Joy Dunn of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a clean energy startup
Conor O’Riain of Ecocem Materials, which works to reduce the construction industry’s effects on climate change
Ana Maria Loboguerrero of the OneCGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which works to scale climate-smart agriculture
Jonah Goldman of Gates Ventures as well as Breakthrough Energy, which is working to scale technologies that will help humanity achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
“Getting to net zero by 2050 will be the hardest thing people have ever done, but I believe it’s possible,” Gates said in a statement in December, when the documentary was announced.
“Two of the most important tools we have as we try to solve climate change are education and innovation,” Gates continued. “I hope these projects from Wondrium inspire people to think about the roles they can play in the fight against climate change.”
Scientists from Project Vesta monitor conditions on the ocean floor off the coast of the Dominican Republic, where they hope to deploy a mineral called olivine to draw CO2 out of the atmosphere.
The documentary will go deeper in its accompanying learning series, ‘Solving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovation.’
A week after Solving for Zero is released on Wondrium, the platform will drop an accompanying learning series titled Solving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovation.
The series is made up of 10 episodes, each running about 30 minutes, and it will give viewers a deeper look into the science introduced in the doc, with each episode functioning as a lesson as part of a course.
Gates will appear in the series as well, which is composed of the following 10 episodes:
How We Got Here
This Will Be Hard
How We Plug In
How We Make Things
How We Grow Things
How We Transport Things
The Buildings We Live In
Adapting to a Warmer World
Why Government Policies Matter
How We Do This Together
Maize breeder Yoseph Beyene inspects maize in a drought-ravaged field in Kenya for CIMMYT, an international organization that is helping developing countries to adapt to climate change.
How to watch the ‘Solving for Zero’ documentary and learning series:
The documentary Solving for Zero will drop on Wondrium, a learning content streaming platform, on Friday, April 8, 2022. A week later, on Friday, April 15, all 10 episodes of Solving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovation will hit the platform, too.
A Wondrium membership ranges from $12.50/month to $20/month, and the service also offers a 14-day free trial. The Wondrium website is filled with thousands of other documentaries, learning series, and videos on “pretty much anything” you’ve ever wanted to learn about.
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