I Wish We Could Ignore Bill Gates on the Environmental Emergency. But He's a Billionaire, So We Can't.
LWe must start with the core issue: Bill Gates is a politics denier. Though he came to it late, he now recognizes environmental science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about how politics works. His new piece on climate, published last week, discusses the topic as though politics didn't matter. He composes text ignoring political influence, and no such thing as billionaires.
The Main Contention
His key position states that funds are very limited, so the delegates at this month's climate summit in Brazil should redirect resources from "short-term pollution targets" towards climate resilience and spending on poverty and disease.
Admittedly, resources for positive initiatives are insufficient, but that's not because of some natural law, an unavoidable reality of communities. This results from wealthy interests attacking on public welfare investments, causing the dismantling of aid agencies and severe reductions in assistance funding of additional nations. Financial restraint stems from policy choices. The choice to implement it comes from leaders submitting to the preferences of extremely wealthy individuals.
Existing Wealth
There are truckloads of money available. Shortly following Gates' latest publication, data indicated that the combined assets of America's wealthiest ten individuals expanded by hundreds of billions over the last year. These funds independently, the increase in a handful of billionaires' net worth, is almost 10 times the money needed each year to stop deep deprivation 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 appropriate revenue collection? The explanation involves their transformation of wealth into policy-making authority. The richer they become, the more they can bend the state and economic system to their preferences, guaranteeing continued wealth accumulation. 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.' The billionaire alongside Trump at an exclusive meal for business leaders in Washington DC.
Wealth Inequality Relationship
A clear connection exists between the poverty Gates claims to care so much about and the riches he overlooks. In the US, housing insecurity is achieving unprecedented levels, and so is the share of assets owned by the top 0.1%. While this might not be Gates's own business model, by suppressing salaries, racking up rents, weakening labor organizations and securing tax reductions and budget decreases, the ultra-rich thrive on impoverishing other people.
Study Results
A notable research in Perspectives on Politics, among limited studies accessing this exclusive domain, found that the ultra-rich have radically different political views from the great majority. The multimillionaires it interviewed, sharply different from average people, considered fiscal shortfalls as critical of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were significantly more prone to argue 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 stricter rules for petroleum corporations, banking entities and medical coverage companies. They were strongly against wealth 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 extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than regular individuals. What about currently? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.
Omissions and Assumptions
That's another telling absence in Bill Gates's essay: across extensive text, the former president receives no reference. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to admit that another key premise is questionable: 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 The former president and comparable figures are doing everything they can to impede the transition.
In part due to these factors, oil and gas continue generating substantial profits. This could be why, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, truly expanded.
Psychological Factors
To Gates, overthrowing the power of the ultra-wealthy may be unthinkable. This isn't just about conflicting with his perspective. Based on his notable omissions regarding this topic, he may actually be unable to conceptualize it. This might indicate "wealth-induced cognitive distortion": a profound incapacity to see the world from other people's point of view. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that obtaining enormous fortunes compares to cognitive damage. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, especially those involving compassion and viewpoint.
Political Calculations
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. The billionaire has acknowledged his complete error. This demonstrated nerve, and we're thankful. MAGA!!!"
Previous Positions
Gates has always been completely WRONG on the issue, though not for the reasons Trump imagines. He has repeatedly been behind current understanding, echoing petroleum industry talking points (green technologies could reduce global CO2 emissions only at a "beyond astronomical" cost) long after they've been discredited. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, including the unsupported claim in his recent writing that the objective of Sri Lanka's catastrophic restriction on artificial fertilizers aimed at pollution decrease.
Additional Tough Truths
Gates names his article Three Challenging Environmental Facts. Therefore, here's another challenging fact he deliberately overlooks. Should, as appears probable, vital planetary systems reach critical thresholds and suddenly collapse, the consequences for people, let alone the survival of other life forms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but through rapid shifts, the potential effects on human welfare are very difficult to forecast. His argument that we should align all funding to current "data-based analysis" of improvements in human welfare, although it may appear reasonable, creates significant illogic when confronting systemic transformation, {prompting us to ignore the greatest