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Let's 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 lives in flat, embarrassing denial about how politics works. His new piece on climate, published last week, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He composes text ignoring political influence, and no such thing as billionaires.

The Main Contention

His main contention is that funds are very limited, so the representatives at the environmental conference in Brazil should direct money away from "near-term emissions goals" towards climate "adaptation" and spending on poverty and disease.

Yes, the funds available for any good cause are scarce, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, some implacable truth about human society. This results from wealthy interests attacking on public welfare investments, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and substantial decreases in support money of various states. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The selection to enforce it originates with leaders submitting to the preferences of billionaire class.

Available Resources

Substantial financial resources are present. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the top ten US fortune holders grew by $698bn during the previous twelve months. This amount by itself, the increase in a handful of billionaires' net worth, is almost 10 times the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of global wealth into personal accounts? And why can't we get it back through effective taxation? The solution lies in their conversion of economic power into political power. With growing fortunes, the stronger their capacity to shape political and economic frameworks to their desires, ensuring that they become richer still. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both environmental measures and economic assistance could be found.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' Gates photographed with the former president for industry figures in Washington.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

There's a direct link between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the fortunes he ignores. In the US, housing insecurity is achieving unprecedented levels, and so is the portion of wealth controlled by the wealthiest fraction. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by keeping pay low, driving up rental prices, busting trade unions and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, the ultra-rich thrive on impoverishing other people.

Study Results

A significant investigation in academic political journals, among limited studies accessing this exclusive domain, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from most people. The rich participants surveyed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were significantly more prone to argue that public retirement benefits and government medical care should be reduced, and significantly less prone to accept that unemployed people merit reasonable生活质量, or that there should be stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were fiercely opposed to redistribution.

Policy Impact

What opinions win out? The small elite or the vast population? Though the study was conducted in the Obama years, it found that the very rich had far more access to politicians and officials than regular individuals. What about currently? The current reality seems obvious.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: at no point in its 5,000 words does it mention Donald Trump. Were Gates to do so, he'd have to acknowledge that the second of his major assumptions is shaky: 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 traditional energy sources. But Trump and like-minded politicians are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

To some degree because of this, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. 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.

Psychological Factors

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. Considering his significant avoidance of this subject, he may actually be unable to conceptualize it. This might indicate "wealth-induced cognitive distortion": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. 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, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.

Strategic Considerations

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." Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!"

Background Information

Gates has historically been mistaken on climate matters, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, repeating traditional energy arguments (green technologies could reduce global CO2 emissions only at a "beyond astronomical" cost) well after their refutation. He has spread confusion and misinformation, such as the groundless assertion in his new essay that the intention behind Sri Lanka's failed prohibition 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. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and suddenly collapse, the impact on humanity, not to mention the existence of other species (an issue he regularly neglects), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. Since ecological transformation probably won't occur slowly and predictably, 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, creates significant illogic when confronting systemic transformation, {prompting us to ignore the greatest