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Let's start with the core issue: Bill Gates ignores the role of politics. Though he came to it late, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about the realities of power. His new piece on climate, published last week, discusses the topic as though politics didn't matter. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and no such thing as billionaires.

The Main Contention

His key position states that financial resources are scarce, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should redirect resources from "short-term pollution targets" towards environmental adjustment and allocating funds for economic hardship and illness.

Admittedly, resources for positive initiatives are insufficient, but this isn't due to universal principles, some implacable truth about human society. The reason is elite influence has declared war on public welfare investments, leading to the destruction of USAID and severe reductions in assistance funding of additional nations. Austerity is a political choice. The decision to impose it is driven by authorities yielding to the demands of billionaire class.

Existing Wealth

There are truckloads of money available. Just after Gates published his new missive, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the top ten US fortune holders expanded by hundreds of billions over the last year. This amount by itself, the growth in ten individuals' fortunes, is approximately ten times the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of global wealth into personal accounts? What prevents redistribution through appropriate revenue collection? The answer is their translation of economic power into political power. As their wealth increases, the stronger their capacity to shape government and financial structures to their desires, securing ongoing financial growth. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both climate action and poverty relief could be identified.

'The article seems designed as appeasement toward Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for industry figures in Washington.

Rich-Poor Dynamic

There's a direct link 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%. While this might not be Gates's own business model, by holding down wages, increasing housing costs, undermining worker collectives and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Study Results

A significant investigation in political science publications, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, found that billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions from most people. The rich participants surveyed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were much more inclined to demand 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 stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Political Influence

So whose views prevail? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Even though the investigation happened under Obama, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than average citizens. And now? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

Here's another crucial exclusion from the billionaire's article: at no point in its 5,000 words does it mention Donald Trump. If Gates included this, he'd have to acknowledge that the second of his major assumptions is shaky: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than conventional power. But The former president and comparable figures are taking all possible actions to block the shift.

Partly as a result, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. 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, truly expanded.

Mental Aspects

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 could genuinely find it impossible to consider. Perhaps this is a symptom of "billionaire brain": a fundamental failure to comprehend alternative viewpoints. Even though billionaires present research challenges, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.

Strategic Considerations

But perhaps there's also calculation here: his article seems designed as appeasement toward Trump. Trump certainly took it that way: "Our victory over climate misinformation is complete." The billionaire has acknowledged his complete error. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Background Information

Gates has always been completely WRONG on the issue, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, echoing petroleum industry talking points (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 intention behind Sri Lanka's failed prohibition on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

Further Difficult Realities

The billionaire titles his piece Three Difficult Climate Realities. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. Should, as appears probable, vital planetary systems reach critical thresholds and suddenly collapse, the impact on humanity, let alone the survival of other life forms (a subject he consistently omits), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. Since ecological transformation probably won't occur slowly and predictably, but through sudden changes of state, the potential effects on human welfare are very difficult to forecast. His argument that we should align all funding to current "data-based analysis" of improvements in human welfare, even if it seems logical, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest