Bill Gates sat down for his seventh Reddit AMA session on Monday, February 26, dispensing some interesting perspectives. Asked about the biggest threat to humanity during the AMA, short for Ask Me Anything, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist offered the following.

There are some things that aren’t likely but we should worry about – nuclear bombs and bioterrorism (from nation states or terrorism), or a big pandemic. This is the 100th anniversary of the Spanish flu and if it came back the amount of travel would make it spread faster than it did last time.

Once you get past those threats then the biggest question is global cooperation to avoid climate change and reduce the risk of war. It is disconcerting to see a rise of countries turning inwards and not investing in alliances which have helped us avoid big wars since World War 2.

Climate change is a real test of how we can work together globally since it is a complex problem where major changes need to be done well in advance of the big harms.

When he was asked if humanity can reverse the climate change crisis, he’s hopeful yet pragmatic.

Yes but I am worried that people think it is easy to do -” just buy renewables and drive electric cars in rich countries.” These are good things but they won’t stop the temperature from continuing to rise.

Unfortunately the sources of emissions are very broad and even in the case of electricity you have to cover the times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine and electricity storage (batteries) are not likely to be cheap enough to cover this.

As a fledgling developer, I got a kick out him broaching the tabs vs. spaces debate. He’s also taking more questions on climate change and energy innovation here in a separate post, which is already garnering some great topics.

Check it out!

Image Credit: Bill Gates/Reddit