I Wish We Could Dismiss Bill Gates on the Environmental Emergency. But He's a Billionaire, So We Can't.
Let's address the central dilemma: The Microsoft founder ignores the role of politics. Though he came to it late, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he operates in blatant, cringeworthy denial about political realities. His latest essay on climate, released recently, approaches climate change without political context. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and as if extreme wealth didn't exist.
Central Claim
His key position states that funds are very limited, so the representatives at the environmental conference in Brazil should redirect resources from "near-term emissions goals" towards climate resilience and investing in poverty reduction and healthcare.
Certainly, money for worthy projects is limited, but this isn't due to universal principles, an unavoidable reality of communities. It's because oligarchic power has waged war on benign state spending, causing the dismantling of aid agencies and substantial decreases in support money of various states. Financial restraint stems from policy choices. The choice to implement it comes from authorities yielding to the demands of the ultra-rich.
Current Funds
Substantial financial resources are present. Soon after the billionaire released his essay, research showed that the total wealth of the 10 richest US billionaires expanded by hundreds of billions during the previous twelve months. This amount by itself, 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 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. As their wealth increases, the greater their ability to influence the state and economic system to their will, ensuring that they become richer still. But the philanthropist discusses nothing in his essay about methods and sources for additional funds for both climate action and poverty relief could be found.
'His writing appears primarily as reconciliation with Donald Trump.' Gates photographed with the former president for corporate executives in the capital.
Wealth Inequality Relationship
A clear connection exists between the economic hardship Gates professes to address and the fortunes he ignores. 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 holding down wages, driving up rental prices, weakening labor organizations and winning tax and spending cuts, extremely wealthy individuals benefit from others' economic struggles.
Research Findings
A significant investigation in academic political journals, one of the rare examinations of this private sphere, found that billionaires maintain completely separate political opinions from the general population. The multimillionaires it interviewed, sharply different from average people, saw budget deficits as the most important of the issues it listed, and climate breakdown as the least. They were significantly more prone to argue that public retirement benefits and government medical care should be reduced, and significantly less prone to accept that unemployed people merit reasonable生活质量, or that there should be more regulation of oil companies, banks and health insurers. They were fiercely opposed to redistribution.
Political Influence
So whose views prevail? The small elite or the vast population? Even though the investigation happened under Obama, it found that extremely wealthy individuals enjoyed greater political access than average citizens. How about today? I scarcely think I need to spell it out.
Omissions and Assumptions
This represents another significant omission in Gates' writing: throughout thousands of words, Trump goes unmentioned. Should the billionaire address this, he'd have to recognize that an important foundation of his argument is unstable: reductions in the cost of new green technologies lead inexorably to environmental progress. Naturally, it's beneficial that renewable energy costs are dropping significantly than conventional power. But Trump and like-minded politicians are doing everything they can to impede the transition.
In part due to these factors, traditional energy sources stay very profitable. This might explain, notwithstanding Gates' assertion about eliminating petroleum company stocks in 2019, its fossil fuel stock and bond holdings have, actually grown.
Cognitive Considerations
Regarding Gates, confronting extreme wealth power could appear inconceivable. It's not merely incompatible with his outlook. I mean that, judging by his remarkable silences on the issue, he might be literally incapable of thinking about it. Possibly this represents "extreme wealth mentality": a deep inability to understand others' perspectives. While the ultra-rich are notoriously hard to study, extrapolating from research into how gaining wealth and status affects cognition could suggest that gaining massive wealth resembles experiencing brain trauma. Riches appear to disrupt specific mental processes, particularly those related to empathy and perspective.
Political Calculations
However, strategic thinking might also be involved: his article seems designed as appeasement toward Trump. Trump definitely understood it as such: "We've defeated the climate change falsehood." Gates has confessed his total mistake. This required bravery, and we appreciate it. MAGA!!!"
Background Information
Gates has always been completely WRONG on this topic, even if not for the explanations Trump provides. He has continually trailed scientific consensus, reciting fossil fuel claims (renewable energy could lower carbon output only with massive expenses) long after they've been discredited. He has propagated misunderstanding and inaccuracies, like the baseless statement in his latest article that the purpose of Sri Lanka's disastrous ban on chemical fertilizers involved emission reduction.
Further Difficult Realities
Gates names his article Three Challenging Environmental Facts. So here's another tough truth he studiously ignores. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and suddenly collapse, the consequences for people, not to mention the existence of other species (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would eliminate the gradual advancement he predicts. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but through sudden changes of state, the conceivable consequences for people's quality of life are nearly impossible to anticipate. 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