It Would Be Nice to Dismiss the Tech Mogul on the Climate Crisis. But He's a Billionaire, So We Must Listen.

LWe must address the central dilemma: The Microsoft founder is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now recognizes environmental science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about political realities. His latest essay on climate, shared days ago, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

Primary Argument

His key position states that funds are very limited, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should redirect resources from "short-term pollution targets" towards climate resilience and allocating funds for economic hardship and illness.

Yes, the funds available for any good cause are scarce, but that's not because of some natural law, an unchangeable fact of civilization. This results from wealthy interests attacking on benign state spending, leading to the destruction of USAID and severe reductions in assistance funding of additional nations. Financial restraint stems from policy choices. The choice to implement it comes from governments bowing to the wishes of extremely wealthy individuals.

Available Resources

Substantial financial resources are present. Shortly following Gates' latest publication, data indicated that the combined assets of the 10 richest US billionaires increased by nearly $700 billion over the last year. That money alone, the growth in ten individuals' fortunes, 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? What prevents redistribution through appropriate revenue collection? The explanation involves their transformation of financial influence into governmental control. The richer they become, the greater their ability to influence government and financial structures to their preferences, securing ongoing financial growth. But the billionaire mentions nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both climate solutions and hardship alleviation could be identified.

'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 industry figures in Washington.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

A clear connection exists between the deprivation Gates says concerns him 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. Even if this doesn't characterize Gates' specific methods, by keeping pay low, driving up rental prices, undermining worker collectives and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Study Results

A notable research in academic political journals, among limited studies accessing this exclusive domain, 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 ecological crisis as insignificant. They were far more likely to insist that social welfare programs and national health services should be decreased, and significantly less prone to accept that jobless individuals deserve adequate living conditions, or that there should be increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Policy Impact

So whose views prevail? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Even though the investigation happened under Obama, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than ordinary people. What about currently? The situation hardly requires explanation.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: throughout thousands of words, Trump goes unmentioned. Were Gates to do so, he'd have to admit that another key premise is questionable: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than conventional power. But Trump and similar demagogues are taking all possible actions to block the shift.

Partly as a result, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. This could be why, even though Gates states his organization sold all direct fossil fuel investments in 2019, its oil and gas financial assets have, truly expanded.

Cognitive Considerations

Regarding Gates, confronting extreme wealth power could appear inconceivable. 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 profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. 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. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.

Strategic Considerations

Yet, political maneuvering could be present: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. Trump definitely understood it as such: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

The billionaire has consistently been incorrect on the issue, although not for Trump's stated reasons. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, reciting fossil fuel claims (green technologies could reduce global CO2 emissions only at a "beyond astronomical" cost) long after they've been discredited. He has spread confusion and misinformation, such as the groundless assertion in his new essay that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

Additional Tough Truths

The billionaire titles his piece Three Difficult Climate Realities. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. If, as currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and rapidly fail, the effects on human life, let alone the survival of other life forms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Since ecological transformation probably won't occur slowly and predictably, but through rapid shifts, 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