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Let's address the central dilemma: The Microsoft founder ignores the role of politics. While he was slow to accept it, he now recognizes environmental science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about how politics works. His latest essay on climate, shared days ago, approaches climate change without political context. He pens words that disregard governmental authority, and pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

The Main Contention

His key position states that funds are very limited, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should direct money away from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards climate "adaptation" and spending on poverty and disease.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but this isn't due to universal principles, an unavoidable reality of communities. This results from wealthy interests attacking on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and severe reductions in assistance funding of various states. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The decision to impose it is driven by authorities yielding to the demands of extremely wealthy individuals.

Available Resources

Massive amounts of wealth exist. 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 growth in ten individuals' fortunes, is almost 10 times the yearly funding needed to eliminate severe poverty worldwide. What methods enabled such concentration of economic resources into private hands? What prevents redistribution through appropriate revenue collection? The answer is their translation of wealth into policy-making authority. With growing fortunes, the more they can bend the state and economic system to their will, securing ongoing financial growth. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both climate action and poverty relief could be found.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' The billionaire alongside Trump at an exclusive meal for industry figures in Washington.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

There's a direct link between the deprivation Gates says concerns him and the fortunes he ignores. In the US, housing insecurity is achieving unprecedented levels, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. Even if this doesn't characterize Gates' specific methods, by keeping pay low, racking up rents, weakening labor organizations and winning tax and spending cuts, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Study Results

A significant investigation in political science publications, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that extremely wealthy individuals hold vastly distinct political perspectives 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 climate breakdown as the least. They were significantly more prone to argue that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, 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 vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Governmental Access

Which perspectives dominate? 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 average citizens. How about today? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

Here's another crucial exclusion from the billionaire's article: at no point in its 5,000 words does it mention Donald Trump. Should the billionaire address 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. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than fossil fuels. But Trump and like-minded politicians are employing every method to hinder the change.

To some degree because of this, traditional energy sources stay very profitable. This potentially clarifies why, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, in fact, increased.

Mental Aspects

For Gates, challenging billionaire influence might seem impossible. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. This might indicate "wealth-induced cognitive distortion": 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 gaining massive wealth resembles experiencing brain trauma. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Tactical Elements

Yet, political maneuvering could be present: his essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump. Trump certainly took it that way: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. The billionaire has acknowledged his complete error. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

Gates has historically been mistaken on climate matters, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, echoing petroleum industry talking points (clean technology could decrease pollution only through enormous spending) 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 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. Should, as appears probable, vital planetary systems reach critical thresholds and suddenly collapse, the effects on human life, 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. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but via abrupt transitions, 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, while it might sound rational, generates substantial unreasonableness when addressing fundamental change, {prompting us to ignore the greatest