🔗 Share this article

Let's address the central dilemma: Bill Gates is a politics denier. Though he came to it late, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he exists in stark, awkward denial about the realities of power. His latest essay on climate, published last week, discusses the topic as though politics didn't matter. He pens words that disregard governmental authority, and pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

The Main Contention

His main contention is that money is insufficient, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should shift funding from "short-term pollution targets" towards environmental adjustment and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but that's not because of some natural law, some implacable truth about human society. It's because oligarchic power has waged war on public welfare investments, 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 authorities yielding to the demands of extremely wealthy individuals.

Current Funds

Substantial financial resources are present. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, research showed that the total wealth of America's wealthiest ten individuals increased by nearly $700 billion in the past year. This amount by itself, the growth in ten individuals' fortunes, is nearly tenfold the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of economic resources into private hands? What prevents redistribution through appropriate revenue collection? The solution lies in their conversion of wealth into policy-making authority. With growing fortunes, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system to their will, guaranteeing continued wealth accumulation. But the billionaire mentions nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both climate solutions and hardship alleviation could be identified.

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

Rich-Poor Dynamic

An obvious relationship appears between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the wealth he fails to mention. In the US, unhoused populations are reaching new highs, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. Even if this doesn't characterize Gates' specific methods, by suppressing salaries, driving up rental prices, busting trade unions and winning tax and spending cuts, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Study Results

A significant investigation in academic political journals, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions from most people. The rich participants surveyed, in stark contrast to mere earthlings, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were much more inclined to demand that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and significantly less prone to accept that unemployed people merit reasonable生活质量, or that there should be more regulation of oil companies, banks and health insurers. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Policy Impact

Which perspectives dominate? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Though the study was conducted in the Obama years, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than average citizens. And now? The situation hardly requires explanation.

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. Should the billionaire address this, 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 conventional power. But Trump and like-minded politicians are taking all possible actions to block the shift.

In part due to these factors, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. This could be why, despite Gates's claim that his foundation had divested all its "direct holdings in oil and gas companies" in 2019, its oil and gas financial assets have, truly expanded.

Psychological Factors

Regarding Gates, confronting extreme wealth power could appear inconceivable. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. Considering his significant avoidance of this subject, he might be literally incapable of thinking about it. Perhaps this is a symptom of "billionaire brain": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. Even though billionaires present research challenges, inferring from investigations about money's effect on mental processes could suggest that acquiring huge amounts of money is like taking a blow to the head. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Political Calculations

However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. The former president clearly interpreted it this way: "We've defeated the climate change falsehood." The billionaire has acknowledged his complete error. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

Gates has historically been mistaken on climate matters, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, reciting fossil fuel claims (clean technology could decrease pollution only through enormous spending) well after their refutation. He has disseminated uncertainty and false information, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

Additional Tough Truths

The billionaire titles his piece Three Difficult Climate Realities. 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, ignoring the persistence of additional organisms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. Since ecological transformation probably won't occur slowly and predictably, but through sudden changes of state, 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, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest