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Let's start with the core issue: Bill Gates is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about the realities of power. His latest essay on climate, published last week, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

Primary Argument

His primary argument suggests that funds are very limited, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should redirect resources from "short-term pollution targets" towards environmental adjustment and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, an unchangeable fact of civilization. The reason is elite influence has declared war on public welfare investments, causing the dismantling of aid agencies and substantial decreases in support money of various states. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The selection to enforce it originates with governments bowing to the wishes of extremely wealthy individuals.

Current Funds

Massive amounts of wealth exist. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the 10 richest US billionaires grew by $698bn in the past year. This amount by itself, the growth in ten individuals' fortunes, is approximately ten times the yearly funding needed to eliminate severe poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of economic resources into private hands? Why can't society reclaim it through proper tax policies? The answer is their translation of financial influence into governmental control. With growing fortunes, the more they can bend the state and economic system to their desires, ensuring that they become richer still. But the billionaire mentions nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both climate solutions and hardship alleviation could be located.

'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.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

A clear connection exists between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the fortunes he ignores. In the US, unhoused populations are reaching new highs, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by holding down wages, racking up rents, busting trade unions and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Study Results

A notable research in political science publications, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from most people. The multimillionaires it interviewed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, considered fiscal shortfalls as critical of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were far more likely to insist that social welfare programs and national health services should be decreased, and much less inclined to think that the unemployed should have a "decent standard of living", or that there should be stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Governmental Access

What opinions win out? The tiny minority or the great majority? Even though the investigation happened under Obama, it found that billionaires maintained closer relationships with government figures than ordinary people. How about today? The current reality seems obvious.

Omissions and Assumptions

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 recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: reductions in the cost of new green technologies lead inexorably to environmental progress. Of course it helps that wind, solar and other green technologies are becoming radically cheaper than fossil fuels. But Trump and like-minded politicians are employing every method to hinder the change.

In part due to these factors, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. This might explain, even though Gates states his organization sold all direct fossil fuel investments in 2019, its oil and gas financial assets have, actually grown.

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 might be literally incapable of thinking about it. This might indicate "wealth-induced cognitive distortion": a fundamental failure to comprehend alternative viewpoints. Although extremely wealthy individuals are difficult to research, inferring from investigations about money's effect on mental processes could suggest that acquiring huge amounts of money is like taking a blow to the head. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.

Strategic Considerations

But perhaps there's also calculation here: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. Trump definitely understood it as such: "We've defeated the climate change falsehood." Gates has confessed his total mistake. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

Gates has historically been mistaken on the issue, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, reciting fossil fuel claims (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) long after they've been discredited. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

Further Difficult Realities

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and quickly deteriorate, the consequences for people, not to mention the existence of other species (an issue he regularly neglects), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. Since ecological transformation probably won't occur slowly and predictably, but through rapid shifts, the conceivable consequences for people's quality of life are nearly impossible to anticipate. His position that all resources should follow existing data-driven assessments of human betterment, while it might sound rational, generates substantial unreasonableness when addressing fundamental change, {prompting us to ignore the greatest