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LWe must begin with the fundamental problem: Bill Gates denies political realities. While he was slow to accept it, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about political realities. His recent article on climate, released recently, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He composes text ignoring political influence, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

The Main Contention

His primary argument suggests that financial resources are scarce, so the representatives at the environmental conference in Brazil should direct money away from "short-term pollution targets" towards climate resilience and allocating funds for economic hardship and illness.

Yes, the funds available for any good cause are scarce, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, some implacable truth about human society. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and substantial decreases in support money of various states. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The decision to impose it is driven by leaders submitting to the preferences of billionaire class.

Existing Wealth

Substantial financial resources are present. 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 approximately ten times the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. Through what means did they accumulate of global wealth into personal accounts? And why can't we get it back through proper tax policies? The explanation involves their transformation of wealth into policy-making authority. As their wealth increases, 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.

'His writing appears primarily as reconciliation with Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for industry figures in Washington.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

An obvious relationship appears between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the riches he overlooks. In the US, housing insecurity is achieving unprecedented levels, and so is the percentage of resources held by the ultra-rich. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by keeping pay low, racking up rents, undermining worker collectives and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, the ultra-rich thrive on impoverishing other people.

Research Findings

A significant investigation in academic political journals, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that extremely wealthy individuals hold vastly distinct political perspectives from the general population. The multimillionaires it interviewed, sharply different from average people, considered fiscal shortfalls as critical of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were much more inclined to demand that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and far less likely to believe that jobless individuals deserve adequate living conditions, or that there should be stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Policy Impact

What opinions win out? The tiny minority or the great majority? Even though the investigation happened under Obama, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than regular individuals. What about currently? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

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. If Gates included this, he'd have to recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: decreasing expenses for eco-friendly innovations automatically creates ecological advancement. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than conventional power. But Trump and like-minded politicians are employing every method to hinder the change.

In part due to these factors, traditional energy sources stay very profitable. This might explain, even though Gates states his organization sold all direct fossil fuel investments in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, truly expanded.

Mental Aspects

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. I mean that, judging by his remarkable silences on the issue, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, inferring from investigations about money's effect on mental processes could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.

Political Calculations

However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his article seems designed as appeasement toward Trump. Trump definitely understood it as such: "Our victory over climate misinformation is complete." Gates has confessed his total mistake. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Background Information

Gates has always been completely WRONG on this topic, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, repeating traditional energy arguments (green technologies could reduce global CO2 emissions only at a "beyond astronomical" cost) well after their refutation. He has disseminated uncertainty and false information, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

Additional Tough Truths

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. Should, as appears probable, vital planetary systems reach critical thresholds and rapidly fail, the effects on human life, let alone the survival of other life forms (a subject he consistently omits), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but via abrupt transitions, the possible impacts on human wellbeing are extremely hard to predict. His argument that we should align all funding to current "data-based analysis" of improvements in human welfare, while it might sound rational, generates substantial unreasonableness when addressing fundamental change, {prompting us to ignore the greatest