It Would Be Nice to Ignore the Tech Mogul on the Environmental Emergency. But He's a Billionaire, So We Must Listen.

Let's start with the core issue: The Microsoft founder 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 how politics works. His recent article on climate, released recently, approaches climate change without political context. He pens words that disregard governmental authority, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

Primary Argument

His main contention is that financial resources are scarce, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should shift funding from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards climate resilience and spending on poverty and disease.

Yes, the funds available for any good cause are scarce, but that's not because of some natural law, an unchangeable fact of civilization. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, leading to the destruction of USAID and substantial decreases in support money of other countries. Financial restraint stems from policy choices. The decision to impose it is driven by authorities yielding to the demands of extremely wealthy individuals.

Existing Wealth

Substantial financial resources are present. Just after Gates published his new missive, research showed that the total wealth of the top ten US fortune holders grew by $698bn during the previous twelve months. That money alone, the increase in a handful of billionaires' net worth, is almost 10 times the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. Through what means did they accumulate 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. As their wealth increases, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system to their will, ensuring that they become richer still. But the billionaire mentions nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both climate action and poverty relief could be found.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for corporate executives in the capital.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

An obvious relationship appears between the deprivation Gates says concerns him and the riches he overlooks. In the US, homelessness is breaking records, and so is the percentage of resources held by the ultra-rich. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by suppressing salaries, racking up rents, busting trade unions and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Investigation Conclusions

A remarkable study in Perspectives on Politics, among limited studies accessing this exclusive domain, found that billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions from the great majority. The rich participants surveyed, sharply different from average people, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and ecological crisis as insignificant. They were significantly more prone to argue that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and far less likely to believe 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.

Policy Impact

So whose views prevail? 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.

Omissions and Assumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: across extensive text, the former president receives no reference. 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. Of course it helps that wind, solar and other green technologies are becoming radically cheaper than fossil fuels. But Trump and like-minded politicians are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

Partly as a result, oil and gas continue generating substantial profits. 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 investments in traditional energy securities have, truly expanded.

Mental Aspects

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. I don't mean only that it clashes with his worldview. Considering his significant avoidance of this subject, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. Perhaps this is a symptom of "billionaire brain": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. Although extremely wealthy individuals are difficult to research, inferring from investigations about money's effect on mental processes could suggest that gaining massive wealth resembles experiencing brain trauma. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.

Political Calculations

However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his article seems designed as appeasement toward Trump. The former president clearly interpreted it this way: "Our victory over climate misinformation is complete." Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Background Information

Gates has historically been mistaken on the issue, 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) significantly following their debunking. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing 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 now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and suddenly collapse, the consequences for people, ignoring the persistence of additional organisms (a subject he consistently omits), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. Given that climate alteration may not happen incrementally and steadily, but through sudden changes of state, the possible impacts on human wellbeing are extremely hard to predict. His argument that we should align all funding to current "data-based analysis" of improvements in human welfare, even if it seems logical, generates substantial unreasonableness when addressing fundamental change, {prompting us to ignore the greatest