I Wish We Could Dismiss Bill Gates on the Environmental Emergency. But His Wealth Matters, So We Can't.

Let's address the central dilemma: The Microsoft founder is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he exists in stark, awkward denial about political realities. His new piece on climate, released recently, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He pens words that disregard governmental authority, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

The Main Contention

His main contention is that money is insufficient, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should shift funding from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards climate "adaptation" and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but that's not because of some natural law, an unchangeable fact of civilization. The reason is elite influence has declared war on public welfare investments, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and drastic cuts to the aid budgets of other countries. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The choice to implement it comes from governments bowing to the wishes of the ultra-rich.

Existing Wealth

There are truckloads of money available. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the top ten US fortune holders expanded by hundreds of billions in the past year. This amount by itself, 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? What prevents redistribution through appropriate revenue collection? The answer is their translation of wealth into policy-making authority. With growing fortunes, the more they can bend the state and economic system to their will, guaranteeing continued wealth accumulation. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both climate action and poverty relief could be located.

'The article seems designed as appeasement toward Donald Trump.' Gates photographed with the former president for business leaders in Washington DC.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

An obvious relationship appears between the deprivation Gates says concerns him and the wealth he fails to mention. In the US, unhoused populations are reaching new highs, and so is the portion of wealth controlled by the wealthiest fraction. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by holding down wages, racking up rents, weakening labor organizations 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 the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from most people. The multimillionaires it interviewed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were significantly more prone to argue that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, 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 fiercely opposed to redistribution.

Political Influence

Which perspectives dominate? The tiny minority or the great majority? 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. And now? The situation hardly requires explanation.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

That's another telling absence in Bill Gates's essay: throughout thousands of words, Trump goes unmentioned. Were Gates to do so, he'd have to admit that another key premise is questionable: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than fossil fuels. But Trump and similar demagogues are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

In part due to these factors, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. This might explain, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, in fact, increased.

Mental Aspects

Regarding Gates, confronting extreme wealth power could appear inconceivable. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, he might be literally incapable of thinking about it. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. Although extremely wealthy individuals are difficult to research, drawing conclusions from studies about wealth's impact on thinking could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Political Calculations

Yet, political maneuvering could be present: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. Trump certainly took it that way: "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

The billionaire has consistently been incorrect on the issue, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, repeating traditional energy arguments (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) well after their refutation. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, like the baseless statement in his latest article 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 currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and rapidly fail, the impact on humanity, let alone the survival of other life forms (a subject he consistently omits), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Given that climate alteration may not happen incrementally and steadily, but through sudden changes of state, 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