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Let's start with the core issue: The Microsoft founder denies political realities. While he was slow to accept it, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he exists in stark, awkward denial about how politics works. His new piece on climate, shared days ago, approaches climate change without political context. He composes text ignoring political influence, and pretending massive fortunes aren't relevant.

Central Claim

His key position states that financial resources are scarce, so the representatives at the environmental conference in Brazil should direct money away from "immediate carbon reduction objectives" towards climate resilience and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.

Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, an unavoidable reality of communities. 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. Austerity is a political choice. The decision to impose it is driven by governments bowing to the wishes of extremely wealthy individuals.

Existing Wealth

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 grew by $698bn over the last year. That money alone, the increase in a handful of billionaires' net worth, is nearly tenfold the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of economic resources into private hands? What prevents redistribution through effective taxation? The explanation involves their transformation of economic power into political power. With growing fortunes, the more they can bend political and economic frameworks to their preferences, securing ongoing financial growth. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about methods and sources for additional funds for both environmental measures and economic assistance could be located.

'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' The billionaire alongside Trump at an exclusive meal for industry figures in Washington.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

There's a direct link between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the wealth he fails to mention. In the US, unhoused populations are reaching new highs, and so is the portion of wealth controlled by the wealthiest fraction. While this might not be Gates's own business model, by suppressing salaries, driving up rental prices, busting trade unions and achieving lower taxes and diminished public funding, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Research Findings

A notable research in political science publications, 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, in stark contrast to mere earthlings, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were much more inclined to demand that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and far less likely to believe that jobless individuals deserve adequate living conditions, or that there should be stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were strongly against wealth redistribution.

Political Influence

So whose views prevail? The tiny minority or the great majority? Though the study was conducted in the Obama years, it found that billionaires maintained closer relationships with government figures than ordinary people. And now? The current reality seems obvious.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: across extensive text, the former president receives no reference. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than conventional power. But Trump and similar demagogues are doing everything they can to impede the transition.

Partly as a result, oil and gas continue generating substantial profits. This might explain, even though Gates states his organization sold all direct fossil fuel investments in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, truly expanded.

Psychological Factors

Regarding Gates, confronting extreme wealth power could appear inconceivable. 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 profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. Although extremely wealthy individuals are difficult to research, 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.

Political Calculations

However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. Trump certainly took it that way: "We've defeated the climate change falsehood." The billionaire has acknowledged his complete error. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

Gates has always been completely WRONG on climate matters, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, repeating traditional energy arguments (clean technology could decrease pollution only through enormous spending) long after they've been discredited. He has disseminated uncertainty and false information, like the baseless statement in his latest article that the purpose of Sri Lanka's disastrous ban on synthetic fertilisers was "to cut emissions".

Further Difficult Realities

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and suddenly collapse, the effects on human life, ignoring the persistence of additional organisms (a subject he consistently omits), would ruin the consistent development he anticipates. 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, while it might sound rational, generates substantial unreasonableness when addressing fundamental change, {prompting us to ignore the greatest