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Let's start with the core issue: The Microsoft founder is a politics denier. Though he came to it late, he now recognizes environmental science. But he operates in blatant, cringeworthy denial about the realities of power. His new piece on climate, published last week, approaches climate change without political context. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and no such thing as billionaires.

Primary Argument

His key position states 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 resilience and allocating funds for economic hardship and illness.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but this isn't due to universal principles, some implacable truth about human society. The reason is elite influence has declared war on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and substantial decreases in support money of additional nations. Austerity is a political choice. The decision to impose it is driven by leaders submitting to the preferences of billionaire class.

Existing Wealth

There are truckloads of money available. Shortly following Gates' latest publication, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the 10 richest US billionaires expanded by hundreds of billions in the past year. This amount by itself, the growth in ten individuals' fortunes, is almost 10 times the yearly funding needed to eliminate severe poverty worldwide. What methods enabled such concentration of the world's money into their pockets? What prevents redistribution through effective taxation? The explanation involves their transformation of financial influence into governmental control. As their wealth increases, the stronger their capacity to shape government and financial structures to their preferences, securing ongoing financial growth. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both environmental measures and economic assistance could be identified.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to 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 fortunes he ignores. 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 keeping pay low, increasing housing costs, weakening labor organizations and winning tax and spending cuts, the ultra-rich thrive on impoverishing other people.

Investigation Conclusions

A significant investigation in political science publications, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, found that billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions from the general population. The wealthy respondents in the study, in stark contrast to mere earthlings, 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 welfare programs and national health services should be decreased, and significantly less prone to accept that the unemployed should have a "decent standard of living", or that there should be more regulation of oil companies, banks and health insurers. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.

Governmental Access

Which perspectives dominate? The small elite or the vast population? 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. How about today? The current reality seems obvious.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

Here's another crucial exclusion from the billionaire's article: throughout thousands of words, Trump goes unmentioned. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to admit that another key premise is questionable: reductions in the cost of new green technologies lead inexorably to environmental progress. Of course it helps that wind, solar and other green technologies are becoming radically cheaper than fossil fuels. But The former president and comparable figures are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

Partly as a result, oil and gas continue generating substantial profits. This potentially clarifies why, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its investments in traditional energy securities have, in fact, increased.

Cognitive Considerations

For Gates, challenging billionaire influence might seem impossible. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. I mean that, judging by his remarkable silences on the issue, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. This might indicate "wealth-induced cognitive distortion": a fundamental failure to comprehend alternative viewpoints. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that gaining massive wealth resembles experiencing brain trauma. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.

Strategic Considerations

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 demonstrated nerve, and we're thankful. MAGA!!!"

Previous Positions

Gates has always been completely WRONG on the issue, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, repeating traditional energy arguments (clean technology could decrease pollution only through enormous spending) long after they've been discredited. He has spread confusion and misinformation, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on synthetic fertilisers was "to cut emissions".

More Challenging Facts

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. Should, as appears probable, vital planetary systems reach critical thresholds and quickly deteriorate, the consequences for people, let alone the survival of other life forms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, 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, creates significant illogic when confronting systemic transformation, {prompting us to ignore the greatest