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LWe must start with the core issue: Bill Gates denies political realities. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he operates in blatant, cringeworthy denial about how politics works. His latest essay on climate, released recently, 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.

Primary Argument

His key position states that funds are very limited, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should direct money away from "near-term emissions goals" towards climate "adaptation" and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but this isn't due to universal principles, 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 other countries. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The choice to implement it comes from leaders submitting to the preferences of the ultra-rich.

Available Resources

Massive amounts of wealth exist. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, research showed that the total wealth of the top ten US fortune holders increased by nearly $700 billion in the past year. These funds independently, the increase in a handful of billionaires' net worth, is approximately ten times the yearly funding needed to eliminate severe poverty worldwide. What methods enabled such concentration of global wealth into personal accounts? What prevents redistribution through effective taxation? The explanation involves their transformation of economic power into political power. As their wealth increases, the greater their ability to influence political and economic frameworks to their desires, guaranteeing continued wealth accumulation. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both climate solutions and hardship alleviation could be identified.

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

Wealth Inequality Relationship

There's a direct link 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 share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by suppressing salaries, driving up rental prices, weakening labor organizations and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Study Results

A notable research in academic political journals, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from most people. The multimillionaires it interviewed, sharply different from average people, considered fiscal shortfalls as critical of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were far more likely to insist 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 increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Policy Impact

So whose views prevail? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, it found that billionaires maintained closer relationships with government figures than average citizens. How about today? The current reality seems obvious.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

That's another telling absence in Bill Gates's essay: at no point in its 5,000 words does it mention Donald Trump. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. 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 taking all possible actions to block the shift.

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

Cognitive Considerations

For Gates, challenging billionaire influence might seem impossible. I don't mean only that it clashes with his worldview. 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, inferring from investigations about money's effect on mental processes could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Political Calculations

Yet, political maneuvering could be present: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. Trump definitely understood it as such: "Our victory over climate misinformation is complete." Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

The billionaire has consistently been incorrect on the issue, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, repeating traditional energy arguments (clean technology could decrease pollution only through enormous spending) significantly following their debunking. 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 artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

More Challenging Facts

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 rapidly fail, the effects on human life, not to mention the existence of other species (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. 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 claim that financial support should match current analytical approaches to quality of life, while it might sound rational, generates substantial unreasonableness when addressing fundamental change, {prompting us to ignore the greatest