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LWe must address the central dilemma: The Microsoft founder denies political realities. While he was slow to accept it, he now recognizes environmental science. But he exists in stark, awkward denial about the realities of power. His new piece on climate, published last week, approaches climate change without political context. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

Central Claim

His main contention is that funds are very limited, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should direct money away from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards environmental adjustment and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, an unavoidable reality of communities. This results from wealthy interests attacking on government social programs, leading to the destruction of USAID and substantial decreases in support money of various states. Austerity is a political choice. The selection to enforce it originates with leaders submitting to the preferences of extremely wealthy individuals.

Current Funds

There are truckloads of money available. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, data indicated that the combined assets of the top ten US fortune holders expanded by hundreds of billions over the last year. These funds independently, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is approximately ten times the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. What methods enabled such concentration of economic resources into private hands? And why can't we get it back through effective taxation? The solution lies in their conversion of wealth into policy-making authority. As their wealth increases, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system to their preferences, guaranteeing continued wealth accumulation. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about methods and sources for additional funds for both climate action and poverty relief could be identified.

'The article seems designed as appeasement toward Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for corporate executives in the capital.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

An obvious relationship appears between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the riches he overlooks. In the US, housing insecurity is achieving unprecedented levels, and so is the portion of wealth controlled by the wealthiest fraction. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by holding down wages, driving up rental prices, busting trade unions and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, 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 most people. The wealthy respondents in the study, sharply different from average people, considered fiscal shortfalls as critical 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 much less inclined to think that jobless individuals deserve adequate living conditions, or that there should be stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Governmental Access

What opinions win out? The small elite or the vast population? Though the study was conducted in the Obama years, it found that the very rich had far more access to politicians and officials than ordinary people. What about currently? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

That's another telling absence in Bill Gates's essay: throughout thousands of words, Trump goes unmentioned. If Gates included this, he'd have to acknowledge that the second of his major assumptions is shaky: reductions in the cost of new green technologies lead inexorably to environmental progress. Of course it helps that wind, solar and other green technologies are becoming radically cheaper than fossil fuels. But The former president and comparable figures are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

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

Cognitive Considerations

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. 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. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. Although extremely wealthy individuals are difficult to research, drawing conclusions from studies about wealth's impact on thinking could suggest that gaining massive wealth resembles experiencing brain trauma. 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. Gates has confessed his total mistake. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

The billionaire has consistently been incorrect on the issue, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, echoing petroleum industry talking points (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, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the intention behind Sri Lanka's failed prohibition on synthetic fertilisers was "to cut emissions".

Further Difficult Realities

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. Therefore, here's another challenging fact he deliberately overlooks. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and quickly deteriorate, the effects on human life, ignoring the persistence of additional organisms (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, even if it seems logical, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest