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Let's start with the core issue: The Microsoft founder ignores the role of politics. While he was slow to accept it, he now recognizes environmental science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about how politics works. 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 pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

The Main Contention

His primary argument suggests that funds are very limited, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should redirect resources from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards climate resilience and spending on poverty and disease.

Admittedly, resources for positive initiatives are insufficient, 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, causing the dismantling of aid agencies and substantial decreases in support money of other countries. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The selection to enforce it originates with leaders submitting to the preferences of extremely wealthy individuals.

Existing Wealth

Massive amounts of wealth exist. Just after Gates published his new missive, data indicated that the combined assets of the 10 richest US billionaires expanded by hundreds of billions in the past year. These funds independently, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is almost 10 times the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of economic resources into private hands? Why can't society reclaim it through appropriate revenue collection? The solution lies in their conversion of financial influence into governmental control. With growing fortunes, the stronger their capacity to shape political and economic frameworks to their preferences, securing ongoing financial growth. But the billionaire mentions nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both climate solutions and hardship alleviation could be located.

'His writing appears primarily as reconciliation with Donald Trump.' Gates photographed with the former president for business leaders in Washington DC.

Rich-Poor Dynamic

An obvious relationship appears between the deprivation Gates says concerns him and the fortunes he ignores. In the US, unhoused populations are reaching new highs, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by holding down wages, driving up rental prices, busting trade unions and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Investigation Conclusions

A remarkable study in political science publications, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that extremely wealthy individuals hold vastly distinct political perspectives from the general population. The wealthy respondents in the study, sharply different from average people, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were far more likely to insist that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, 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.

Policy Impact

What opinions win out? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access 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. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to acknowledge that the second of his major assumptions is shaky: 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 traditional energy sources. But Trump and similar demagogues are employing every method to hinder the change.

To some degree because of this, oil and gas continue generating substantial profits. This potentially clarifies why, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks 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. I don't mean only that it clashes with his worldview. 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. 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, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.

Political Calculations

But perhaps there's also calculation here: his article seems designed as appeasement toward Trump. Trump definitely understood it as such: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Gates has confessed his total mistake. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

Gates has always been completely WRONG on the issue, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, echoing petroleum industry talking points (clean technology could decrease pollution only through enormous spending) well after their refutation. He has spread confusion and misinformation, like the baseless statement in his latest article that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

More Challenging Facts

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. If, as currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and quickly deteriorate, the consequences for people, 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 potential effects on human welfare are very difficult to forecast. His position that all resources should follow existing data-driven assessments of human betterment, although it may appear reasonable, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest