“When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.”
— Jean-Paul SartreBill Gates shocks world with climate change u-turn
Dear Bill, Have You Lost It? A Billionaire’s Guide to Pretending the Planet Isn’t on Fire
By adaptationguide.com | November 2025
Dear Bill,
Have you lost it?
This week, Bill Gates — the same man who spent billions warning us about climate change, who wrote How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, who built an empire on algorithms and monopolies — now wants us to take a deep breath and stop being so “doomsday” about the planet literally catching fire.
“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” Gates wrote in his latest memo.
Translation: Don’t worry, rich folks — humanity will survive. By “humanity,” he means you — the ones with air conditioning, private jets, and carbon offsets.
When Billionaires Tell You Not to Panic, That’s When You Should Panic
Let’s call this what it is: a calculated retreat.
Bill Gates isn’t suddenly enlightened. He’s repositioning. As the Trump administration tears up climate policy like a toddler with a coloring book, Gates’ new “optimism” is a survival strategy — not for humanity, but for philanthrocapitalism.
By shifting the conversation from cutting emissions to helping the poor adapt, Gates is quietly conceding that decarbonization is off the table — at least for those profiting from oil-soaked tech stocks and AI data centers sucking down terawatt-hours like milkshakes.
Because let’s be honest: AI is the new oil, and Microsoft is the new Exxon.
Those “clouds” that make ChatGPT and Copilot hum? They’re not made of vapor — they’re coal, gas, and lithium. Data centers are set to consume as much energy as Japan by 2027 (IEA report, 2024). But sure, let’s talk about “thriving in most places on Earth.”
The Rich Will Adapt. The Poor Will Die.
Gates is technically correct: humanity won’t vanish. The problem isn’t extinction — it’s attrition.
Rising seas won’t drown the billionaires in their hillside estates. Droughts won’t empty the wine cellars in Napa. It’s the slums of Karachi, the deltas of Bangladesh, the farms of Sudan — places that never emitted much to begin with — that will burn, starve, and migrate.
We’re not talking about “inconvenience.” We’re talking about hundreds of millions of preventable deaths over the next century, driven by the consumption of the few and the compliance of the many.
So when Gates says, “It will not lead to humanity’s demise,” what he really means is: the right kind of humans will survive.
The Great Climate Pivot: From Action to Acceptance
What Gates is doing is dangerous because it sounds reasonable. He’s not denying the science — he’s diluting the urgency.
It’s the same rhetorical trick used by oil companies, tech giants, and political centrists who say, “Yes, climate change is real, but let’s be pragmatic.”
Pragmatism, in this context, is a synonym for surrender.
Dr. Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton called it out clearly: Gates is “setting up a false dichotomy… that pits efforts to tackle climate change against foreign aid for the poor.” That’s the exact language the fossil lobby has been using for years — a moral Trojan horse that disguises exploitation as compassion.
De-Growth: The Billionaire’s Forbidden Word
Let’s get real: you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet. But no billionaire whose fortune depends on exponential consumption — whether oil, software, or AI — will ever admit that.
De-growth isn’t a political slogan. It’s math. The planet doesn’t care about your quarterly earnings. It only cares about physics.
And yet, every billionaire “solution” to climate change somehow involves buying more stuff: more solar, more carbon credits, more AI, more “green capitalism.” But capitalism’s carbon footprint is built into its bloodstream.
You don’t fix an engine that’s overheating by pushing the accelerator.
Artificial Intelligence, Real Emissions
Let’s not ignore the timing: Gates’ memo comes just as Microsoft doubles down on AI — an industry already responsible for an explosive rise in carbon emissions (MIT Technology Review, 2024).
Training one large AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars over their entire lifetimes. Multiply that by the thousands of models being trained every year — and you start to see why Gates suddenly wants you to “reframe” the climate discussion.
Because climate panic is bad for AI stocks.
The Great Distraction: Billionaires as False Prophets
Here’s the ugly truth: we wouldn’t need billionaire philanthropists if billionaires paid their fair share of taxes.
Every “philanthropic” gesture — every Gates Foundation grant, every climate fund, every malaria campaign — exists because the ultra-rich successfully gutted public systems, then returned crumbs with a smile.
That’s not altruism. That’s image management.
If you want to help the developing world, stop lecturing us about optimism and start dismantling the system that made you rich while others baked, starved, and drowned.
Compassion Can’t Replace Decarbonization
Gates calls for “improving lives in the developing world.” A noble goal — except compassion without emissions cuts is just hospice care for the planet.
We don’t need comfort. We need confrontation.
Because every time a billionaire reframes “the conversation,” another oil company opens a new well, another forest gets cut for data centers, another election gets bought to delay the inevitable.
The Billionaire Firewall
Here’s what’s coming, Bill:
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Climate migration in the hundreds of millions
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Food and water wars by mid-century
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Mass desertification across the equator
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Collapse of insurance systems
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Private security for the rich, scarcity for everyone else
Humanity may not “collapse,” but democracy might. Civilization might. And the ones who survive will do so behind walls built with the profits of denial.
Dear Bill, You’re Not the Voice We Need
Bill, you’ve done some good. You’ve done some harm. But right now, you’re doing something worse: you’re normalizing despair wrapped in optimism.
You’ve traded urgency for comfort. Truth for diplomacy. Leadership for brand management.
You say humanity will survive. Maybe. But the question isn’t whether humanity survives — it’s which parts of it you think deserve to.
And if that’s the moral compass of our so-called leaders, then humanity’s demise won’t be climatic — it’ll be ethical.
Further Reading
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International Energy Agency: Data Centers and Emissions, 2024
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Oxfam Inequality Report, 2024: Billionaires’ Carbon Footprints
Final Word:
Dear Bill — you may not believe humanity will end.
But if we keep following your kind of optimism, we’ll make damn sure justice does.
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