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Let's address the central dilemma: Bill Gates denies political realities. Though he came to it late, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about political realities. His latest essay on climate, released recently, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He composes text ignoring political influence, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.

Central Claim

His primary argument suggests that money is insufficient, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should shift funding from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards climate "adaptation" and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, an unchangeable fact of civilization. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and severe reductions in assistance funding of other countries. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The choice to implement it comes from authorities yielding to the demands of billionaire class.

Current Funds

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 during the previous twelve months. That money alone, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is almost 10 times the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. Through what means did they accumulate of the world's money into their pockets? And why can't we get it back through effective taxation? The explanation involves their transformation of wealth into policy-making authority. As their wealth increases, the greater their ability to influence the state and economic system to their desires, 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 found.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for business leaders in Washington DC.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

A clear connection exists between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the fortunes he ignores. In the US, housing insecurity is achieving unprecedented levels, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. Even if this doesn't characterize Gates' specific methods, by suppressing salaries, driving up rental prices, undermining worker collectives and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Investigation Conclusions

A significant investigation in Perspectives on Politics, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions from most people. The rich participants surveyed, sharply different from average people, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and ecological crisis as insignificant. 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 fiercely opposed to redistribution.

Governmental Access

What opinions win out? The tiny minority or the great majority? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, 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

That's another telling absence in Bill Gates's essay: across extensive text, the former president receives no reference. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to acknowledge that the second of his major assumptions is shaky: decreasing expenses for eco-friendly innovations automatically creates ecological advancement. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than conventional power. But Trump and like-minded politicians are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

To some degree because of this, 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, truly expanded.

Psychological Factors

Regarding Gates, confronting extreme wealth power could appear inconceivable. 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. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. Even though billionaires present research challenges, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.

Tactical Elements

But perhaps there's also calculation here: his essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump. Trump definitely understood it as such: "We've defeated the climate change falsehood." 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!!!"

Historical Context

Gates has historically been mistaken on the issue, although not for Trump's stated reasons. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, reciting fossil fuel claims (clean technology could decrease pollution only through enormous spending) well after their refutation. 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 chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

More Challenging Facts

The billionaire titles his piece Three Difficult Climate Realities. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and quickly deteriorate, the consequences for people, ignoring the persistence of additional organisms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Given that climate alteration may not happen incrementally and steadily, but through sudden changes of state, the potential effects on human welfare are very difficult to forecast. His argument that we should align all funding to current "data-based analysis" of improvements in human welfare, while it might sound rational, creates significant illogic when confronting systemic transformation, {prompting us to ignore the greatest