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Let's begin with the fundamental problem: The Microsoft founder is a politics denier. While he was slow to accept it, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about the realities of power. His recent article on climate, published last week, approaches climate change without political context. He pens words that disregard governmental authority, and no such thing as billionaires.

The Main Contention

His main contention is that funds are very limited, so the participants in the upcoming climate meeting in Brazil should shift funding from "short-term pollution targets" towards climate "adaptation" and allocating funds for economic hardship and illness.

Admittedly, resources for positive initiatives are insufficient, but it's not caused by inevitable rules, an unavoidable reality of communities. It's because oligarchic power has waged war on public welfare investments, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and severe reductions in assistance funding of other countries. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The selection to enforce it originates with authorities yielding to the demands of extremely wealthy individuals.

Current Funds

Massive amounts of wealth exist. Shortly following Gates' latest publication, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the top ten US fortune holders expanded by hundreds of billions in the past year. That money alone, the growth in ten individuals' fortunes, is approximately ten times the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of global wealth into personal accounts? And why can't we get it back through proper tax policies? The solution lies in their conversion of economic power into political power. As their wealth increases, the stronger their capacity to shape the state and economic system to their desires, ensuring that they become richer still. 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 writing appears primarily as reconciliation with Donald Trump.' Bill Gates, right, with the Trumps at a private dinner for industry figures in Washington.

The Poverty-Wealth Connection

There's a direct link between the poverty Gates claims to care so much about and the wealth he fails to mention. In the US, housing insecurity is achieving unprecedented levels, and so is the percentage of resources held by the ultra-rich. Even if this doesn't characterize Gates' specific methods, by keeping pay low, racking up rents, weakening labor organizations and winning tax and spending cuts, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.

Research Findings

A remarkable study in Perspectives on Politics, among limited studies accessing this exclusive domain, found that extremely wealthy individuals hold vastly distinct political perspectives from the great majority. The rich participants surveyed, completely unlike ordinary citizens, viewed government debt as paramount of the issues it listed, and ecological crisis as insignificant. They were significantly more prone to argue 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.

Governmental Access

So whose views prevail? The small elite or the vast population? 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.

Missing Elements and Presumptions

This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: across extensive text, the former president receives no reference. If Gates included this, he'd have to acknowledge that the second of his major assumptions is shaky: lower prices for sustainable technology inevitably produces environmental improvement. Naturally, it's beneficial that renewable energy costs are dropping significantly than fossil fuels. 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 could be why, despite Gates's claim that his foundation had divested all its "direct holdings in oil and gas companies" in 2019, its investments in traditional energy securities have, in fact, increased.

Psychological Factors

To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. I mean that, judging by his remarkable silences on the issue, he might be literally incapable of thinking about it. This might indicate "wealth-induced cognitive distortion": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. Even though billionaires present research challenges, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that acquiring huge amounts of money is like taking a blow to the head. Fortunes seem to disturb particular brain operations, notably those concerning understanding and outlook.

Tactical Elements

But perhaps there's also calculation here: his article seems designed as appeasement toward Trump. Trump definitely understood it as such: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Gates has confessed his total mistake. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!"

Historical Context

Gates has always been completely WRONG on this topic, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has consistently lagged behind the curve, echoing petroleum industry talking points (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) long after they've been discredited. He has spread confusion and misinformation, like the baseless statement in his latest article that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.

More Challenging Facts

Gates names his article Three Challenging Environmental Facts. Thus, here's another difficult reality he carefully avoids. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and rapidly fail, the consequences for people, not to mention the existence of other species (a subject he consistently omits), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but via abrupt transitions, the potential effects on human welfare are very difficult to forecast. His position that all resources should follow existing data-driven assessments of human betterment, while it might sound rational, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, {prompting us to ignore the greatest