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LWe must start with the core issue: Bill Gates is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now recognizes environmental science. But he exists in stark, awkward denial about the realities of power. His latest essay on climate, published last week, approaches climate change without political context. He composes text ignoring political influence, and no such thing as billionaires.

The Main Contention

His main contention is that money is insufficient, so the representatives at the environmental conference in Brazil should redirect resources from "near-term emissions goals" towards environmental adjustment and spending on poverty and disease.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but this isn't due to universal principles, an unavoidable reality of communities. It's because oligarchic power has waged war on government social programs, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and substantial decreases in support money of additional nations. Financial restraint stems from policy choices. The selection to enforce it originates with leaders submitting to the preferences of the ultra-rich.

Existing Wealth

There are truckloads of money available. Shortly following Gates' latest publication, data indicated that the combined assets of the top ten US fortune holders grew by $698bn in the past year. These funds independently, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is nearly tenfold the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. What methods enabled such concentration of economic resources into private hands? And why can't we get it back through proper tax policies? The answer is their translation of economic power into political power. With growing fortunes, the greater their ability to influence government and financial structures to their desires, guaranteeing continued wealth accumulation. But the philanthropist discusses 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.' The billionaire alongside Trump at an exclusive meal for industry figures in Washington.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

An obvious relationship appears between the poverty Gates claims to care so much about and the riches he overlooks. In the US, unhoused populations are reaching new highs, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. Even if this doesn't characterize Gates' specific methods, by keeping pay low, driving up rental prices, undermining worker collectives and winning tax and spending cuts, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Study Results

A remarkable study in Perspectives on Politics, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, found that extremely wealthy individuals hold vastly distinct political perspectives from most people. The multimillionaires it interviewed, in stark contrast to mere earthlings, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were far more likely to insist that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and significantly less prone to accept that the unemployed should have a "decent standard of living", or that there should be increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were fiercely opposed to redistribution.

Governmental Access

So whose views prevail? The small elite or the vast population? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, it found that billionaires maintained closer relationships with government figures than regular individuals. What about currently? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

Here's another crucial exclusion from the billionaire's article: across extensive text, the former president receives no reference. 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. Naturally, it's beneficial that renewable energy costs are dropping significantly than fossil fuels. But Trump and similar demagogues are taking all possible actions to block the shift.

Partly as a result, traditional energy sources stay very profitable. This might explain, despite Gates's claim that his foundation had divested all its "direct holdings in oil and gas companies" in 2019, its investments in traditional energy securities have, actually grown.

Psychological Factors

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. 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. Perhaps this is a symptom of "billionaire brain": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. Even though billionaires present research challenges, drawing conclusions from studies about wealth's impact on thinking could suggest that gaining massive wealth resembles experiencing brain trauma. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.

Political Calculations

But perhaps there's also calculation here: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. The former president clearly interpreted it this way: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Gates has confessed his total mistake. This demonstrated nerve, and we're thankful. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

Gates has historically been mistaken on the issue, although not for Trump's stated reasons. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, echoing petroleum industry talking points (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) significantly following their debunking. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, such as the groundless assertion in his new essay that the purpose of Sri Lanka's disastrous ban on synthetic fertilisers was "to cut emissions".

Further Difficult Realities

The billionaire titles his piece Three Difficult Climate Realities. Therefore, here's another challenging fact he deliberately overlooks. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and quickly deteriorate, the effects on human life, let alone the survival of other life forms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. Given that climate alteration may not happen incrementally and steadily, but through rapid shifts, the conceivable consequences for people's quality of life are nearly impossible to anticipate. His claim that financial support should match current analytical approaches to quality of life, even if it seems logical, creates significant illogic when confronting systemic transformation, {prompting us to ignore the greatest