🔗 Share this article

LWe must start with the core issue: The Microsoft founder denies political realities. While he was slow to accept it, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he operates in blatant, cringeworthy denial about political realities. His recent article on climate, released recently, approaches climate change without political context. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

The Main Contention

His primary argument suggests that money is insufficient, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should direct money away from "short-term pollution targets" towards climate resilience and allocating funds for economic hardship and illness.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but that's not because of some natural law, an unchangeable fact of civilization. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and severe reductions in assistance funding of additional nations. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The choice to implement it comes from authorities yielding to the demands of the ultra-rich.

Current Funds

There are truckloads of money available. Shortly following Gates' latest publication, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of America's wealthiest ten individuals grew by $698bn over the last year. That money alone, the increase in a handful of billionaires' net worth, is nearly tenfold the yearly funding needed to eliminate severe poverty worldwide. Through what means did they accumulate of the world's money into their pockets? Why can't society reclaim it through effective taxation? The solution lies in their conversion of economic power into political power. With growing fortunes, the more they can bend government and financial structures to their will, securing ongoing financial growth. But the billionaire mentions nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both environmental measures and economic assistance could be identified.

'The article seems designed as appeasement toward Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for corporate executives in the capital.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

An obvious relationship appears between the poverty Gates claims to care so much about and the riches he overlooks. In the US, housing insecurity is achieving unprecedented levels, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. While this might not be Gates's own business model, by holding down wages, driving up rental prices, weakening labor organizations and winning tax and spending cuts, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Research Findings

A remarkable study in academic political journals, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, found that extremely wealthy individuals hold vastly distinct political perspectives from the great majority. The wealthy respondents in the study, sharply different from average people, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and ecological crisis as insignificant. They were significantly more prone to argue that social welfare programs and national health services should be decreased, and much less inclined to think that unemployed people merit reasonable生活质量, or that there should be more regulation of oil companies, banks and health insurers. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Political Influence

Which perspectives dominate? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than regular individuals. And now? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

That's another telling absence in Bill Gates's essay: at no point in its 5,000 words does it mention Donald Trump. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to admit that another key premise is questionable: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than fossil fuels. But Trump and similar demagogues are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

Partly as a result, oil and gas continue generating substantial profits. This could be why, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, truly expanded.

Psychological Factors

Regarding Gates, confronting extreme wealth power could appear inconceivable. I don't mean only that it clashes with his worldview. Considering his significant avoidance of this subject, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. Perhaps this is a symptom of "billionaire brain": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.

Political Calculations

However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. Trump definitely understood it as such: "Our victory over climate misinformation is complete." Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

Gates has always been completely WRONG on the issue, although not for Trump's stated reasons. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, repeating traditional energy arguments (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) well after their refutation. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, such as the groundless assertion in his new essay that the intention behind Sri Lanka's failed prohibition on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

More Challenging Facts

The billionaire titles his piece Three Difficult Climate Realities. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and rapidly fail, the consequences for people, not to mention the existence of other species (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but through sudden changes of state, the possible impacts on human wellbeing are extremely hard to predict. His position that all resources should follow existing data-driven assessments of human betterment, even if it seems logical, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest