🔗 Share this article

Let's address the central dilemma: The Microsoft founder ignores the role of politics. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about how politics works. His recent article on climate, published last week, approaches climate change without political context. He composes text ignoring political influence, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

Central Claim

His key position states that financial resources are scarce, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should direct money away from "short-term pollution targets" towards environmental adjustment and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.

Yes, the funds available for any good cause are scarce, but that's not because of some natural law, some implacable truth about human society. This results from wealthy interests attacking on government social programs, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and substantial decreases in support money of various states. Austerity is a political choice. The choice to implement it comes from leaders submitting to the preferences of extremely wealthy individuals.

Existing Wealth

Substantial financial resources are present. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, research showed that the total wealth of the top ten US fortune holders grew by $698bn over the last year. These funds independently, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is almost 10 times the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. What methods enabled such concentration of global wealth into personal accounts? And why can't we get it back through proper tax policies? The explanation involves their transformation of economic power into political power. As their wealth increases, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system 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 action and poverty relief could be found.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' The billionaire alongside Trump at an exclusive meal for corporate executives in the capital.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

There's a direct link between the deprivation Gates says concerns him and the wealth he fails to mention. In the US, homelessness is breaking records, 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, undermining worker collectives and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Research Findings

A significant investigation in political science publications, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from the general population. The multimillionaires it interviewed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were far more likely to insist that public retirement benefits and government medical care should be reduced, and significantly less prone to accept that jobless individuals deserve adequate living conditions, or that there should be more regulation of oil companies, banks and health insurers. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Political Influence

What opinions win out? The tiny minority or the great majority? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than ordinary people. How about today? The current reality seems obvious.

Omissions and Assumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: 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. Of course it helps that wind, solar and other green technologies are becoming radically cheaper than fossil fuels. But The former president and comparable figures are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

Partly as a result, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. This potentially clarifies why, even though Gates states his organization sold all direct fossil fuel investments in 2019, its oil and gas financial assets have, in fact, increased.

Psychological Factors

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that acquiring huge amounts of money is like taking a blow to the head. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Tactical Elements

But perhaps there's also calculation here: 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 demonstrated nerve, and we're thankful. MAGA!!!"

Background Information

Gates has always been completely WRONG on the issue, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, reciting fossil fuel claims (green technologies could reduce global CO2 emissions only at a "beyond astronomical" cost) long after they've been discredited. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, such as the groundless assertion in his new essay that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

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 consequences for people, ignoring the persistence of additional organisms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. Given that climate alteration may not happen incrementally and steadily, but via abrupt transitions, the conceivable consequences for people's quality of life are nearly impossible to anticipate. 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