It Would Be Nice to Ignore Bill Gates on the Climate Crisis. But He's a Billionaire, So We Must Listen.

LWe must begin with the fundamental problem: The Microsoft founder ignores the role of politics. Though he came to it late, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about the realities of power. His latest essay on climate, released recently, discusses the topic as though politics didn't matter. He pens words that disregard governmental authority, and pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

Primary Argument

His main contention is that money is insufficient, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should shift funding from "short-term pollution targets" towards environmental adjustment and spending on poverty and disease.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, an unchangeable fact of civilization. This results from wealthy interests attacking 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 governments bowing to the wishes of billionaire class.

Existing Wealth

There are truckloads of money available. Just after Gates published his new missive, research showed that the total wealth of America's wealthiest ten individuals grew by $698bn in the past year. That money alone, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is nearly tenfold 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 answer is their translation of economic power into political power. The richer they become, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system to their preferences, guaranteeing continued wealth accumulation. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both climate action and poverty relief could be found.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' Gates photographed with the former president for business leaders in Washington DC.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

There's a direct link between the deprivation Gates says concerns him 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. While this might not be Gates's own business model, by suppressing salaries, increasing housing costs, busting trade unions and winning tax and spending cuts, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Study Results

A remarkable study in academic political journals, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from the general population. The wealthy respondents in the study, sharply different from average people, saw budget deficits as the most important 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 unemployed people merit reasonable生活质量, or that there should be stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Political Influence

Which perspectives dominate? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Though the study was conducted in the Obama years, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than average citizens. And now? The current reality seems obvious.

Omissions and Assumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: throughout thousands of words, Trump goes unmentioned. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to admit that another key premise is questionable: reductions in the cost of new green technologies lead inexorably to environmental progress. Naturally, it's beneficial that renewable energy costs are dropping significantly than traditional energy sources. But Trump and similar demagogues are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

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 investments in traditional energy securities have, in fact, increased.

Mental Aspects

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. I mean that, judging by his remarkable silences on the issue, he might be literally incapable of thinking about it. Perhaps this is a symptom of "billionaire brain": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, drawing conclusions from studies about wealth's impact on thinking 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.

Tactical Elements

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!!!"

Background Information

Gates has always been completely WRONG on this topic, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, reciting fossil fuel claims (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) significantly following their debunking. He has disseminated uncertainty and false information, like the baseless statement in his latest article that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on synthetic fertilisers was "to cut emissions".

Further Difficult Realities

Gates names his article Three Challenging Environmental Facts. Therefore, here's another challenging fact he deliberately overlooks. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and rapidly fail, the impact on humanity, not to mention the existence of other species (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Given that climate alteration may not happen incrementally and steadily, but through sudden changes of state, the potential effects on human welfare are very difficult to forecast. His position that all resources should follow existing data-driven assessments of human betterment, although it may appear reasonable, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest