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LWe must begin with the fundamental problem: Bill Gates is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he operates in blatant, cringeworthy denial about political realities. His recent article on climate, published last week, approaches climate change without political context. He pens words that disregard governmental authority, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

The Main Contention

His main contention is that financial resources are scarce, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should direct money away from "near-term emissions goals" towards climate resilience and allocating funds for economic hardship and illness.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but this isn't due to universal principles, an unchangeable fact of civilization. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, causing the dismantling of aid agencies and substantial decreases in support money of additional nations. Austerity is a political choice. The decision to impose it is driven by governments bowing to the wishes of billionaire class.

Current Funds

Substantial financial resources are present. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, data indicated that the combined assets of America's wealthiest ten individuals grew by $698bn over the last year. This amount by itself, 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? Why can't society reclaim it through proper tax policies? The explanation involves their transformation of wealth into policy-making authority. The richer they become, the greater their ability to influence government and financial structures to their preferences, securing ongoing financial growth. 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.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' The billionaire alongside Trump at an exclusive meal for corporate executives in the capital.

Rich-Poor Dynamic

An obvious relationship appears between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the wealth he fails to mention. 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 keeping pay low, racking up rents, undermining worker collectives and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Investigation Conclusions

A remarkable study in Perspectives on Politics, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, 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, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were significantly more prone to argue that public retirement benefits and government medical care should be reduced, and significantly less prone to accept that jobless individuals deserve adequate living conditions, or that there should be increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Policy Impact

What opinions win out? The few wealthy or the many citizens? Though the study was conducted in the Obama years, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than average citizens. What about currently? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.

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. Were Gates to do so, he'd have to recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: decreasing expenses for eco-friendly innovations automatically creates ecological advancement. Of course it helps that wind, solar and other green technologies are becoming radically cheaper than fossil fuels. But Trump and like-minded politicians are employing every method to hinder the change.

In part due to these factors, 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, in fact, increased.

Psychological Factors

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, 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. Even though billionaires present research challenges, drawing conclusions from studies about wealth's impact on thinking could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.

Strategic Considerations

However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. 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 demonstrated nerve, and we're thankful. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

The billionaire has consistently been incorrect on this topic, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, reciting fossil fuel claims (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 intention behind Sri Lanka's failed prohibition on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

Further Difficult Realities

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. If, as currently expected, essential environmental mechanisms pass turning points and rapidly fail, the consequences for people, not to mention the existence of other species (an issue he regularly neglects), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but through sudden changes of state, 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, even if it seems logical, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest