🔗 Share this article

Let's address the central dilemma: The Microsoft founder denies political realities. Though he came to it late, he now recognizes environmental science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about how politics works. His new piece on climate, shared days ago, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He composes text ignoring political influence, and pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

Central Claim

His key position states that funds are very limited, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should shift funding from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards climate "adaptation" and allocating funds for economic hardship and illness.

Admittedly, resources for positive initiatives are insufficient, but this isn't due to universal principles, an unavoidable reality of communities. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and drastic cuts to the aid budgets of other countries. Financial restraint stems from policy choices. The choice to implement it comes from leaders submitting to the preferences of billionaire class.

Available Resources

There are truckloads of money available. Just after Gates published his new missive, research showed that the total wealth of America's wealthiest ten individuals grew by $698bn during the previous twelve months. This amount by itself, the growth in ten individuals' fortunes, is approximately ten times the yearly funding needed to eliminate severe poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of economic resources into private hands? And why can't we get it back through effective taxation? The explanation involves their transformation of financial influence into governmental control. With growing fortunes, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system to their preferences, securing ongoing financial growth. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both environmental measures and economic assistance could be identified.

'His writing appears primarily as reconciliation with Donald Trump.' Gates photographed with the former president for corporate executives in the capital.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

There's a direct link between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the riches he overlooks. In the US, unhoused populations are reaching new highs, and so is the percentage of resources held by the ultra-rich. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by keeping pay low, driving up rental prices, busting trade unions and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Study Results

A significant investigation in political science publications, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from the general population. The multimillionaires it interviewed, sharply different from average people, 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 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 increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Political Influence

What opinions win out? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Even though the investigation happened under Obama, it found that the very rich had far more access to politicians and officials than average citizens. And now? The current reality seems obvious.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

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: 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 conventional power. But Trump and similar demagogues are employing every method to hinder the change.

Partly as a result, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. This potentially clarifies why, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, actually grown.

Psychological Factors

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. This might indicate "wealth-induced cognitive distortion": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. Although extremely wealthy individuals are difficult to research, 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. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Political Calculations

But perhaps there's also calculation here: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. Trump certainly took it that way: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Gates has confessed his total mistake. This demonstrated nerve, and we're thankful. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

Gates has historically been mistaken on climate matters, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, repeating traditional energy arguments (green technologies could reduce global CO2 emissions only at a "beyond astronomical" cost) well after their refutation. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the intention behind Sri Lanka's failed prohibition on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

Further Difficult Realities

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 rapidly fail, the effects on human life, not to mention the existence of other species (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but via abrupt transitions, the conceivable consequences for people's quality of life are nearly impossible to anticipate. His claim that financial support should match current analytical approaches to quality of life, even if it seems logical, generates substantial unreasonableness when addressing fundamental change, {prompting us to ignore the greatest