It Would Be Nice to Ignore the Tech Mogul on the Environmental Emergency. But His Wealth Matters, So We Must Listen.

Let's begin with the fundamental problem: Bill Gates denies political realities. 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, discusses the topic as though politics didn't matter. He composes text ignoring political influence, and pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

The Main Contention

His primary argument suggests that financial resources are scarce, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should redirect resources from "short-term pollution targets" towards climate "adaptation" and spending on poverty and disease.

Yes, the funds available for any good cause are scarce, 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, leading to the destruction of USAID and severe reductions in assistance funding of additional nations. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The selection to enforce it originates with governments bowing to the wishes of the ultra-rich.

Existing Wealth

There are truckloads of money available. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, data indicated that the combined assets of the 10 richest US billionaires increased by nearly $700 billion in the past year. This amount by itself, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is almost 10 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 appropriate revenue collection? The answer is their translation of financial influence into governmental control. The richer they become, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system to their preferences, ensuring that they become richer still. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both environmental measures and economic assistance could be found.

'His writing appears primarily as reconciliation with Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for corporate executives in the capital.

Wealth Inequality Relationship

There's a direct link between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the wealth he fails to mention. In the US, homelessness is breaking records, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. Although this may not describe Gates' personal approach, by suppressing salaries, racking up rents, busting trade unions and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.

Investigation Conclusions

A significant investigation in Perspectives on Politics, among limited studies accessing this exclusive domain, found that extremely wealthy individuals hold vastly distinct political perspectives from most people. The wealthy respondents in the study, sharply different from average people, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and environmental collapse as unimportant. They were much more inclined to demand that public retirement benefits and government medical care should be reduced, and far less likely to believe that jobless individuals deserve adequate living conditions, or that there should be increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Political Influence

Which perspectives dominate? The tiny minority or the great majority? Even though the investigation happened under Obama, it found that the very rich had far more access to politicians and officials than regular individuals. What about currently? The current reality seems obvious.

Omissions and Assumptions

That's another telling absence in Bill Gates's essay: across extensive text, the former president receives no reference. Were Gates to do so, he'd have to recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. Of course it helps that wind, solar and other green technologies are becoming radically cheaper than traditional energy sources. But Trump and like-minded politicians are employing every method to hinder the change.

Partly as a result, oil and gas continue generating substantial profits. This could be why, even though Gates states his organization sold all direct fossil fuel investments in 2019, its oil and gas financial assets have, actually grown.

Psychological Factors

For Gates, challenging billionaire influence might seem impossible. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, he might be literally incapable of thinking about it. This might indicate "wealth-induced cognitive distortion": a fundamental failure to comprehend alternative viewpoints. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, inferring from investigations about money's effect on mental processes could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Political Calculations

Yet, political maneuvering could be present: his essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump. Trump definitely understood it as such: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Gates has confessed his total mistake. This demonstrated nerve, and we're thankful. MAGA!!!"

Background Information

Gates has always been completely WRONG on climate matters, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, reciting fossil fuel claims (clean technology could decrease pollution only through enormous spending) well after their refutation. He has spread confusion and misinformation, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the purpose of Sri Lanka's disastrous ban on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.

Additional Tough Truths

The billionaire titles his piece Three Difficult Climate Realities. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. Should, as appears probable, vital planetary systems reach critical thresholds and rapidly fail, the impact on humanity, not to mention the existence of other species (a subject he consistently omits), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. Since ecological transformation probably won't occur slowly and predictably, but through sudden changes of state, the possible impacts on human wellbeing are extremely hard to predict. His argument that we should align all funding to current "data-based analysis" of improvements in human welfare, even if it seems logical, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest