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Let's start with the core issue: The Microsoft founder ignores the role of politics. Though he came to it late, he now recognizes environmental science. But he operates in blatant, cringeworthy denial about the realities of power. His recent article on climate, published last week, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He composes text ignoring political influence, and no such thing as billionaires.

The Main Contention

His main contention is that funds are very limited, so the representatives at the environmental conference in Brazil should direct money away from "short-term pollution targets" towards climate resilience and spending on poverty and disease.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but this isn't due to universal principles, an unavoidable reality of communities. This results from wealthy interests attacking on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance 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 the ultra-rich.

Existing Wealth

Massive amounts of wealth exist. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the 10 richest US billionaires expanded by hundreds of billions in the past year. 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. What methods enabled such concentration of global wealth into personal accounts? What prevents redistribution through appropriate revenue collection? The solution lies in their conversion of economic power into political power. With growing fortunes, the more they can bend political and economic frameworks to their will, ensuring that they become richer still. 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 essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for business leaders in Washington DC.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

An obvious relationship appears 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 percentage of resources held by the ultra-rich. While this might not be Gates's own business model, by keeping pay low, increasing housing costs, undermining worker collectives and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Research Findings

A notable research in Perspectives on Politics, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that extremely wealthy individuals hold vastly distinct political perspectives from the great majority. The multimillionaires it interviewed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were significantly more prone to argue that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and much less inclined to think 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.

Governmental Access

What opinions win out? The small elite or the vast population? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than regular individuals. What about currently? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

Omissions and Assumptions

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 acknowledge that the second of his major assumptions is shaky: decreasing expenses for eco-friendly innovations automatically creates ecological advancement. 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 taking all possible actions to block the shift.

In part due to these factors, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. This potentially clarifies why, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its oil and gas financial assets have, in fact, increased.

Mental Aspects

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. I mean that, judging by his remarkable silences on the issue, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Strategic Considerations

But perhaps there's also calculation here: his article seems designed as appeasement toward Trump. Trump certainly took it that way: "We've defeated the climate change falsehood." Gates has confessed his total mistake. This demonstrated nerve, and we're thankful. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

Gates has historically been mistaken on climate matters, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, echoing petroleum industry talking points (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) significantly following their debunking. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, like the baseless statement in his latest article that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

Further Difficult Realities

Gates names his article Three Challenging Environmental Facts. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. If, as currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and suddenly collapse, the impact on humanity, let alone the survival of other life forms (an issue he regularly neglects), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but via abrupt transitions, 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, although it may appear reasonable, creates significant illogic when confronting systemic transformation, {prompting us to ignore the greatest