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LWe must address the central dilemma: Bill Gates is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about how politics works. His latest essay on climate, shared days ago, discusses the topic as though politics didn't matter. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

Central Claim

His main contention is that financial resources are scarce, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should direct money away 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 this isn't due to universal principles, an unavoidable reality of communities. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and substantial decreases in support money of various states. Financial restraint stems from policy choices. The selection to enforce it originates with leaders submitting to the preferences of extremely wealthy individuals.

Available Resources

Massive amounts of wealth exist. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, data indicated that the combined assets of the 10 richest US billionaires increased by nearly $700 billion during the previous twelve months. This amount by itself, the growth in ten individuals' fortunes, is almost 10 times the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of economic resources into private hands? Why can't society reclaim it through proper tax policies? The solution lies in their conversion of wealth into policy-making authority. The richer they become, the greater their ability to influence 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 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

There's a direct link 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. Even if this doesn't characterize Gates' specific methods, by suppressing salaries, increasing housing costs, weakening labor organizations and winning tax and spending cuts, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Research Findings

A significant investigation in academic political journals, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, found that billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions from the great majority. The rich participants surveyed, in stark contrast to mere earthlings, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were much more inclined to demand 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 increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Governmental Access

Which perspectives dominate? The tiny minority or the great majority? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, it found that billionaires maintained closer relationships with government figures than ordinary people. What about currently? The situation hardly requires explanation.

Omissions and Assumptions

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 fossil fuels. But Trump and similar demagogues are employing every method to hinder the change.

Partly as a result, traditional energy sources stay very profitable. This might explain, despite Gates's claim that his foundation had divested all its "direct holdings in oil and gas companies" in 2019, its oil and gas financial assets have, in fact, increased.

Psychological Factors

For Gates, challenging billionaire influence might seem impossible. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, he might be literally incapable of thinking about it. Perhaps this is a symptom of "billionaire brain": a fundamental failure to comprehend alternative viewpoints. 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. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.

Strategic Considerations

But perhaps there's also calculation here: 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. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Background Information

The billionaire has consistently been incorrect on climate matters, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, echoing petroleum industry talking points (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) long after they've been discredited. He has spread confusion and misinformation, such as the groundless assertion in his new essay that the purpose of Sri Lanka's disastrous ban on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

Further Difficult Realities

Gates names his article Three Challenging Environmental Facts. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. If, as currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and suddenly collapse, the impact on humanity, not to mention the existence of other species (an issue he regularly neglects), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. 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 position that all resources should follow existing data-driven assessments of human betterment, even if it seems logical, creates significant illogic when confronting systemic transformation, {prompting us to ignore the greatest