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LWe must begin with the fundamental problem: The Microsoft founder is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he exists in stark, awkward denial about political realities. His new piece 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 no such thing as billionaires.

The Main Contention

His main contention is that money is insufficient, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should shift funding from "near-term emissions goals" towards climate resilience and spending on poverty and disease.

Yes, the funds available for any good cause are scarce, but that's not because of some natural law, an unchangeable fact of civilization. It's because oligarchic power has waged war on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and severe reductions in assistance funding of other countries. Austerity is a political choice. The selection to enforce it originates with leaders submitting to the preferences of extremely wealthy individuals.

Available Resources

There are truckloads of money available. Shortly following Gates' latest publication, research showed that the total wealth of the top ten US fortune holders expanded by hundreds of billions during the previous twelve months. That money alone, the increase in a handful of billionaires' net worth, is nearly tenfold the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. What methods enabled such concentration of economic resources into private hands? And why can't we get it back through proper tax policies? The answer is their translation of financial influence into governmental control. As their wealth increases, the more they can bend government and financial structures to their preferences, ensuring that they become richer still. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both climate action and poverty relief could be located.

'The article seems designed as appeasement toward Donald Trump.' The billionaire alongside Trump at an exclusive meal for industry figures in Washington.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

An obvious relationship appears between the poverty Gates claims to care so much about and the wealth he fails to mention. In the US, unhoused populations are reaching new highs, and so is the percentage of resources held by the ultra-rich. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by suppressing salaries, driving up rental prices, busting trade unions 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 billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions from the general population. 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 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 strongly against wealth redistribution.

Political Influence

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 ordinary people. And now? The situation hardly requires explanation.

Omissions and Assumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: throughout thousands of words, Trump goes unmentioned. If Gates included 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. Of course it helps that wind, solar and other green technologies are becoming radically cheaper than conventional power. But The former president and comparable figures are employing every method to hinder the change.

In part due to these factors, 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, actually grown.

Mental Aspects

For Gates, challenging billionaire influence might seem impossible. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. Considering his significant avoidance of this subject, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, 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, 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. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

The billionaire has consistently been incorrect on the issue, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, reciting fossil fuel claims (green technologies could reduce global CO2 emissions only at a "beyond astronomical" cost) well after their refutation. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the purpose of Sri Lanka's disastrous ban on synthetic fertilisers was "to cut emissions".

Additional Tough Truths

Gates names his article Three Challenging Environmental Facts. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and suddenly collapse, the impact on humanity, ignoring the persistence of additional organisms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. 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 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