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Let's begin with the fundamental problem: The Microsoft founder ignores the role of politics. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about how politics works. His latest essay on climate, shared days ago, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He pens words that disregard governmental authority, and pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

Central Claim

His primary argument suggests that financial resources are scarce, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should shift funding from "near-term emissions goals" towards climate "adaptation" and spending on poverty and disease.

Admittedly, resources for positive initiatives are insufficient, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, an unchangeable fact of civilization. It's because oligarchic power has waged war on public welfare investments, causing the dismantling of aid agencies and severe reductions in assistance funding of various states. Austerity is a political choice. The choice to implement it comes from governments bowing to the wishes of the ultra-rich.

Current Funds

Substantial financial resources are present. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the top ten US fortune holders increased by nearly $700 billion in the past year. These funds independently, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is almost 10 times the yearly funding needed to eliminate severe 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 explanation involves their transformation of economic power into political power. With growing fortunes, the greater their ability to influence political and economic frameworks to their will, ensuring that they become richer still. But the billionaire mentions nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both climate action and poverty relief could be found.

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

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

A clear connection exists between the deprivation Gates says concerns him and the fortunes he ignores. In the US, homelessness is breaking records, 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, weakening labor organizations and winning tax and spending cuts, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Research Findings

A significant investigation in Perspectives on Politics, among limited studies accessing this exclusive domain, found that billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions 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 ecological crisis as insignificant. They were far more likely to insist that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and far less likely to believe that unemployed people merit reasonable生活质量, or that there should be increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Political Influence

What opinions win out? The small elite or the vast population? Though the study was conducted in the Obama years, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than ordinary people. What about currently? The situation hardly requires explanation.

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: decreasing expenses for eco-friendly innovations automatically creates ecological advancement. Naturally, it's beneficial that renewable energy costs are dropping significantly than fossil fuels. But Trump and like-minded politicians are employing every method to hinder the change.

Partly as a result, fossil fuels remain highly lucrative. This potentially clarifies why, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, actually grown.

Psychological Factors

For Gates, challenging billionaire influence might seem impossible. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. 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 deep inability to understand others' perspectives. Even though billionaires present research challenges, inferring from investigations about money's effect on mental processes could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Tactical Elements

However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. Trump definitely understood it as such: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

Gates has always been completely WRONG on climate matters, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, repeating traditional energy arguments (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) well after their refutation. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the intention behind Sri Lanka's failed prohibition on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

More Challenging Facts

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. Therefore, here's another challenging fact he deliberately overlooks. If, as currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and suddenly collapse, the consequences for people, not to mention the existence of other species (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. Since ecological transformation probably won't occur slowly and predictably, but via abrupt transitions, the potential effects on human welfare are very difficult to forecast. His claim that financial support should match current analytical approaches to quality of life, while it might sound rational, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest