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Let's start with the core issue: Bill Gates is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about the realities of power. His new piece on climate, released recently, 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.

Primary Argument

His primary argument suggests that funds are very limited, so the representatives at the environmental conference in Brazil should redirect resources from "short-term pollution targets" towards climate "adaptation" 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. The reason is elite influence has declared war on public welfare investments, causing the dismantling of aid agencies and substantial decreases in support money of other countries. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The selection to enforce it originates with governments bowing to the wishes of the ultra-rich.

Current Funds

Massive amounts of wealth exist. 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 in the past year. That money alone, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is nearly tenfold the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of economic resources into private hands? And why can't we get it back through appropriate revenue collection? The solution lies in their conversion of wealth into policy-making authority. As their wealth increases, the greater their ability to influence government and financial structures to their will, ensuring that they become richer still. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both climate solutions and hardship alleviation could be identified.

'His writing appears primarily as reconciliation with Donald Trump.' Gates photographed with the former president for business leaders in Washington DC.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

A clear connection exists between the deprivation Gates says concerns him and the wealth he fails to mention. In the US, homelessness is breaking records, and so is the percentage of resources held by the ultra-rich. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by holding down wages, increasing housing costs, weakening labor organizations and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Study Results

A significant investigation in Perspectives on Politics, among limited studies accessing this exclusive domain, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from the general population. The rich participants surveyed, in stark contrast to mere earthlings, considered fiscal shortfalls as critical of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were much more inclined to demand that public retirement benefits and government medical care should be reduced, and much less inclined to think that unemployed people merit reasonable生活质量, or that there should be more regulation of oil companies, banks and health insurers. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Governmental Access

Which perspectives dominate? The tiny minority or the great majority? Even though the investigation happened under Obama, it found that billionaires maintained closer relationships with government figures 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: 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 traditional energy sources. But Trump and like-minded politicians are employing every method to hinder the change.

Partly as a result, traditional energy sources stay very profitable. This potentially clarifies why, 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.

Psychological Factors

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 may actually be unable to conceptualize it. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, inferring from investigations about money's effect on mental processes could suggest that gaining massive wealth resembles experiencing brain trauma. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.

Political Calculations

Yet, political maneuvering could be present: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. The former president clearly interpreted it this way: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. The billionaire has acknowledged his complete error. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

Gates has always been completely WRONG on this topic, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, echoing petroleum industry talking points (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) significantly following their debunking. He has spread confusion and misinformation, like the baseless statement in his latest article that the purpose of Sri Lanka's disastrous ban on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

Further Difficult Realities

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. If, as currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and suddenly collapse, the consequences for people, ignoring the persistence of additional organisms (a subject he consistently omits), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. Given that climate alteration may not happen incrementally and steadily, but through rapid shifts, 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