Last Tuesday, as the strongest Atlantic storm in 90 years slammed the western coast of Jamaica with 185-mph winds, Bill Gates was downplaying climate change.
The billionaire does not appear to have publicly addressed the disaster in Jamaica, which extended throughout the Caribbean, with Melissa having killed dozens across Cuba, Haiti, the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic. And his overall point, frankly, does not hold up to scrutiny.
Gates isn’t alone; climate change has slipped down the world’s priority list in the past few years—and it shows. Governments and corporations are shelving emissions goals, budgets are being redirected from climate initiatives to warfare, the media is pivoting away from climate journalism, and even activists are urging a softer, more “hopeful” tone. It all signals a vibe shift in how we talk about climate change, reframing it from the existential risk it actually poses to a less urgent, peripheral issue—even as the floodwaters reach our front doors.
By all means do so then, please. An asshole spending millions on charity helps way more people than a nice guy receiving government aid.
You so understand that people as rich as him didn’t get to be that rich by being all ethical and having good morals, right?
And you do understand that being a nice guy doesn’t mean you rely on government assistance?
You’re not dumb, are you?
I never said he was ethical in every way. I said he helps people more than someone who doesnt have the resources he has. You said you could spend a million on charity to seem nice andd I said do it. I dont care if youre an asshole in every other aspect, if you spend a million on charity thats still a good deed. Judging someone based on the idea of them being a hypocrite instead of accepting their good deeds as such is a little pathetic, its like hating vegans because they ‘think theyre morally superior’.
I also never said being a nice guy means receiving government aid, I just said Id rather have an asshole helping millions. There are enough nice guys that dont have a positive impact on poverty around the world.
Capitalism is pretty good at creating wealth, its been successfully increasing the average living conditions of people for centuries. The problem we currently have is that, while the average is still growing well, the median is decreasing because the richest hold most of the wealth and most of its gains, so the poor effectively get poorer. Why hate on the one guy that uses capitalism to help millions? If every billionaire donated most of their wealth, this system could actually work out pretty well.
A guy receiving government aid has a MUCH smaller climate footprint than this asshole.
And a car has a smaller climate footprint than a ship transporting solar panels, or the factory producing them. What is your point?
What exactly is your point
That his carbon footprint being way higher than that of an average person is outweighed by the positive impact. If every billionaire spent a majority of their wealth on charity we would live in a completely different world.
We would also live in a different world if we taxed them, or stopped believing in fake borders and just started helping people regardless of which side of an invisible line two people fucked on. There’s lots of low carbon high value things that could be done, none of which involves one billionaire having life or death decision making power from his private jet.
While all of that is true, I dont understand how it contradicts my statement that a person spending billions on helping people has higher impact than another person that doesnt.