Colour me shocked, Mr Gates!

Bill Gates’s latest declaration about global warming is splashed everywhere—every newspaper, every outlet. According to him, yes, it will be a monumental challenge, absolutely. But we should all calm down, because humanity won’t actually vanish. There is, he assures us, no real risk of extinction. Scientists have apparently been saying this all along, and we somehow missed it. So, in essence, we’re invited to stay positive and stop fretting: humanity will survive. No need for panic—just keep smiling while the planet slowly turns into an oven. It's a nice oven.

What’s suspicious about Gates’s reassuring tone is simple: yes, we all know humanity as a species won’t vanish because of climate change. Fine. Some people will survive. But the real question—the one he never addresses—is: who, exactly, gets to survive?

Suppose sea levels rise and New York ends up underwater. Where do New Yorkers go? You might say, “Well, there’s always plenty of room in the Appalachians—they’re nice and high.” Indeed. Lovely views, excellent elevation. One tiny detail, though: who can actually afford to move there?

At current prices, a ranch in the Appalachians costs about as much as a dog kennel in Manhattan, so theoretically any New Yorker could relocate. But something tells me—very quietly, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball—that property prices in the Appalachians will skyrocket the moment climate migration becomes a trend. The usual real-estate barons will have snapped up everything within the first two minutes, and in the end only the wealthy will be able to afford a climate-proof house in the newly fashionable, global-warming-resistant Appalachians.

The “white trash” currently living there? They’ll be bought out, pushed out, or simply swept aside. And knowing how things go, being able to swim won’t hurt.

The same suspicious logic applies to food. As desertification spreads, the percentage of arable land shrinks, crops fail and food becomes scarce. But don’t worry: food won’t vanish. It will simply become far more expensive.
And for the wealthy, that’s not a problem. They’ll continue wrestling with obesity, as usual—too many calories, too little shame.

The problem, as always, falls on everyone else.
The poor will be gently “encouraged” to switch to cheaper sources of protein—cockroaches, perhaps, conveniently farmed using the waste of the wealthy. We’ve already had a preview in Soylent Green. First the insects, then the pellets, then whatever passes for edible.

But even that will only postpone the inevitable—physics is a brutal accountant, and thermodynamics always wins. At some point, the food supply collapses entirely. Malnutrition becomes widespread. Civilisation gets ugly. People start eating each other—figuratively at first, then literally once options run out.

And when the dust settles, guess who’s still around?

Only the rich.

So in the end, what Bill Gates is really saying is this: don’t worry, we’re not all going to die — the rich will be fine. Sure, the poor will be wiped out, but apparently that’s a sacrifice Bill Gates is perfectly willing to make.

Every catastrophic climate scenario says the same thing: resources won’t disappear entirely — they will just become scarcer. And when resources become scarce, market rules take over. Prices rise. Access shrinks. The wealthy hoard what remains, and everyone else is left to starve.

That’s why, Mr Gates, you’re not nearly frightened enough. You don’t have to be. People like you will make it through.

It won’t be humanity that survives, dear Mr Gates — and you know that perfectly well.
It will be the rich.
And for you, that’s probably the same thing.

Actually, to be precise, not all the poor will die.
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: how can you feel rich if there are no poor people left?

Years ago, an Italian newspaper ran a story about a teenager from the Gulf who was tormented by an inferiority complex. His problem? The swimming pool in his family mansion wasn’t Olympic-sized, whereas all of his friends had Olympic pools.
That’s the point. Wealth, in itself, doesn’t mean anything. What makes you feel rich is the gap — the difference.

And so, even in the rosy post-apocalyptic world imagined by Gates and friends, there will still need to be poor people. A baseline. A reference point.
At first, the distinction will be simple: the poor will be those starving in the open air while the rich enjoy climate-controlled luxury bunkers.

But give it a generation or two. Suppose only the wealthy remain. How would people like Gates recognise they’re wealthy if there’s no one beneath them?
They wouldn’t. They’d need a new underclass — a tiny group of designated “poor” kept around as a reminder, solely to preserve the hierarchy.

Because for people like Gates, riches aren’t measured by what they have.
They’re measured by what others don’t.

Did we really need Bill Gates to tell us that, in the end, the rich will save themselves?

Are we honestly expected to be shocked when, while ordinary people are reduced to eating ground-up cockroaches, the wealthy are dining on lobster and fillet steak? Absolutely not.

And will anyone be surprised when, once the new climate-proof “arks” are built, only the wealthy get a ticket on board? Again: absolutely not.

So what exactly is Gates telling us that we didn’t already know?

The truth is simple: he’s selling us a comforting rearrangement of words.
He offers the soothing thought that when the coastlines flood, humanity — by which he clearly means people like himself — will simply purchase a lovely estate on higher ground. A fresh view, a new mountain home, and problem solved.

Thank you, Mr Gates.

You’re too kind.