It Would Be Nice to Ignore Bill Gates on the Environmental Emergency. But He's a Billionaire, So We Must Listen.
Let's address the central dilemma: Bill Gates denies political realities. While he was slow to accept it, he now acknowledges climate change facts. But he operates in blatant, cringeworthy denial about how politics works. His recent article on climate, shared days ago, discusses the topic as though politics didn't matter. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.
Central Claim
His main contention is that financial resources are scarce, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should redirect resources from "short-term pollution targets" towards environmental adjustment and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.
Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but that's not because of some natural law, some implacable truth about human society. It's because oligarchic power has waged war on benign state spending, resulting in the elimination of development assistance and drastic cuts to the aid budgets of additional nations. Budget cuts represent political decisions. The choice to implement it comes from governments bowing to the wishes of the ultra-rich.
Available Resources
There are truckloads of money available. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, research showed that the total wealth of the 10 richest US billionaires increased by nearly $700 billion over the last year. This amount by itself, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is nearly tenfold 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? And why can't we get it back through proper tax policies? The answer is their translation of wealth into policy-making authority. With growing fortunes, the more they can bend government and financial structures to their will, securing ongoing financial growth. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about ways and locations for more resources for both climate solutions and hardship alleviation could be identified.
'His essay reads like nothing so much as a peace offering to Donald Trump.' Gates photographed with the former president for corporate executives in the capital.
Wealth Inequality Relationship
There's a direct link between the deprivation Gates says concerns him and the riches he overlooks. 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 suppressing salaries, driving up rental prices, undermining worker collectives and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, billionaires prosper while others experience hardship.
Study Results
A significant investigation in academic political journals, among the very few to have penetrated this secretive world, 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 environmental collapse as unimportant. They were significantly more prone to argue that social security and federal healthcare should be cut, and far less likely to believe that the unemployed should have a "decent standard of living", or that there should be increased oversight of energy firms, financial institutions and insurance providers. They were vehemently anti-taxation and redistribution.
Political Influence
Which perspectives dominate? The tiny minority or the great majority? Although the research occurred during the Obama administration, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than average citizens. And now? The situation hardly requires explanation.
Omissions and Assumptions
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 admit that another key premise is questionable: reductions in the cost of new green technologies lead inexorably to environmental progress. Certainly, it's positive that clean technology prices are falling dramatically than traditional energy sources. But Trump and similar demagogues are taking all possible actions to block the shift.
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 oil and gas financial assets have, truly expanded.
Mental Aspects
To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. I mean that, judging by his remarkable silences on the issue, he could genuinely find it impossible to consider. 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 acquiring huge amounts of money is like taking a blow to the head. Wealth seems to scramble certain cognitive functions, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.
Political Calculations
However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his writing appears primarily as reconciliation with the former president. The former president clearly interpreted it this way: "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 always been completely WRONG on this topic, although not for Trump's stated reasons. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, echoing petroleum industry talking points (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) well after their refutation. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, like the baseless statement in his latest article that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on synthetic fertilisers was "to cut emissions".
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 suddenly collapse, the effects on human life, let alone the survival of other life forms (an issue he regularly neglects), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. Given that climate alteration may not happen incrementally and steadily, but via abrupt transitions, the conceivable consequences for people's quality of life are nearly impossible to anticipate. 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