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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 recognizes environmental science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about the realities of power. His recent article on climate, shared days ago, approaches climate change without political context. He composes text ignoring political influence, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

Primary Argument

His main contention is that financial resources are scarce, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should redirect resources from "near-term emissions goals" towards environmental adjustment and spending on poverty and disease.

Admittedly, resources for positive initiatives are insufficient, 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, leading to the destruction of USAID and drastic cuts to the aid budgets of additional nations. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The choice to implement it comes from governments bowing to the wishes of extremely wealthy individuals.

Current Funds

Substantial financial resources are present. Just after Gates published his new missive, data indicated that the combined assets of the top ten US fortune holders grew by $698bn over the last year. That money alone, the increase in a handful of billionaires' net worth, is approximately ten times the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of the world's money into their pockets? What prevents redistribution through proper tax policies? The answer is their translation of wealth into policy-making authority. With growing fortunes, the greater their ability to influence government and financial structures to their will, ensuring that they become richer still. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about methods and sources for additional funds for both environmental measures and economic assistance could be identified.

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

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, 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 keeping pay low, increasing housing costs, undermining worker collectives and winning tax and spending cuts, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Study Results

A notable research 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 great majority. The rich participants surveyed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were significantly more prone to argue that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and far less likely to believe that the unemployed should have a "decent standard of living", or that there should be stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were fiercely opposed to redistribution.

Governmental Access

What opinions win out? The tiny minority or the great majority? Though the study was conducted in the Obama years, it found that the very rich had far more access to politicians and officials than ordinary people. And now? The current reality seems obvious.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: at no point in its 5,000 words does it mention Donald Trump. If Gates included this, he'd have to recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. Naturally, it's beneficial that renewable energy costs are dropping significantly than traditional energy sources. But Trump and similar demagogues are taking all possible actions to block the shift.

In part due to these factors, traditional energy sources stay very profitable. This might explain, 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. I don't mean only that it clashes with his worldview. 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. Although extremely wealthy individuals are difficult to research, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.

Tactical Elements

But perhaps there's also calculation here: 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!!!"

Previous Positions

Gates has always been completely WRONG on the issue, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, echoing petroleum industry talking points (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) significantly following their debunking. He has disseminated uncertainty and false information, such as the groundless assertion in his new essay that the purpose of Sri Lanka's disastrous ban on synthetic fertilisers was "to cut emissions".

More Challenging Facts

The billionaire titles his piece Three Difficult Climate Realities. Therefore, here's another challenging fact he deliberately overlooks. Should, as appears probable, vital planetary systems reach critical thresholds and suddenly collapse, the impact on humanity, let alone the survival of other life forms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Since ecological transformation probably won't occur slowly and predictably, but through rapid shifts, the possible impacts on human wellbeing are extremely hard to predict. 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