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LWe must start with the core issue: The Microsoft founder ignores the role of politics. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he exists in stark, awkward denial about how politics works. His latest essay on climate, released recently, approaches climate change without political context. He composes text ignoring political influence, and no such thing as billionaires.

Primary Argument

His main contention is that financial resources are scarce, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should shift funding from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards climate "adaptation" and spending on poverty and disease.

Admittedly, resources for positive initiatives are insufficient, but that's not because of some natural law, an unavoidable reality of communities. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, causing the dismantling of aid agencies and severe reductions in assistance funding of various states. 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. Shortly following Gates' latest publication, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of America's wealthiest ten individuals expanded by hundreds of billions during the previous twelve months. These funds independently, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is approximately ten times the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. Through what means did they accumulate of global wealth into personal accounts? What prevents redistribution through appropriate revenue collection? The explanation involves their transformation of economic power into political power. With growing fortunes, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system to their will, securing ongoing financial growth. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about methods and sources for additional funds for both environmental measures and economic assistance could be located.

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

Wealth Inequality Relationship

There's a direct link between the poverty Gates claims to care so much about and the riches he overlooks. In the US, homelessness is breaking records, and so is the portion of wealth controlled by the wealthiest fraction. While this might not be Gates's own business model, by holding down wages, racking up rents, undermining worker collectives and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Investigation Conclusions

A significant investigation in academic political journals, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from the general population. The rich participants surveyed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, considered fiscal shortfalls as critical of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were significantly more prone to argue that social welfare programs and national health services should be decreased, and significantly less prone to accept that the unemployed should have a "decent standard of living", or that there should be more regulation of oil companies, banks and health insurers. 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 extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than regular individuals. How about today? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

That's another telling absence in Bill Gates's essay: across extensive text, the former president receives no reference. Were Gates to do so, he'd have to recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: 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 conventional power. But Trump and like-minded politicians are employing every method to hinder the change.

In part due to these factors, 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, actually grown.

Psychological Factors

Regarding Gates, confronting extreme wealth power could appear inconceivable. I don't mean only that it clashes with his worldview. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": 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 obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.

Tactical Elements

However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his article seems designed as appeasement toward Trump. The former president clearly interpreted it this way: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. The billionaire has acknowledged his complete error. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

The billionaire has consistently been incorrect on this topic, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, reciting fossil fuel claims (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) well after their refutation. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, such as the groundless assertion in his new essay that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

More Challenging Facts

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. If, as currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and quickly deteriorate, the impact on humanity, let alone the survival of other life forms (a subject he consistently omits), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. 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, even if it seems logical, creates significant illogic when confronting systemic transformation, {prompting us to ignore the greatest