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Part 1 of a 2-part essay. Part 2 is here.

(The Pipeline) — In a 2020 Ted Talk, Bill Gates famously argued that world population is approaching an unsustainable level of 9 billion, a looming catastrophe that needed to be addressed by finding ways to significantly reduce population growth. The route to this end, apparently, is to make people healthier. The solution he proposed included a three-part plan, which he described as “doing a really great job on Vaccines, Health Care and Reproductive Health Services,” which could “lower [world population] by perhaps 10 to 15 percent.” Many have accused Gates of proposing genocide. In my estimation, that is plainly a bridge too far, but it usefully highlights the dark underbelly of much of his acclaimed philanthropy and his undoubted globalist intiatives.

Gates’ terms are troubling. Vaccines are the core issue, triggering a profound controversy that has polarized entire nations, yet he staunchly supports and has invested heavily in these experimental therapies. “Health care” is an abstract term that can mean anything one chooses it to mean; indeed, it has been used as a rationale for eugenics in its most criminal forms. And “reproductive health” is quite obviously code for abortion. It is clear why many people consider Gates a dangerous man. He is indescribably wealthy, influential and powerful, and also persuasively glib in furthering his various agendas. Obviously, no one can determine absolutely what his underlying motives might be. Is he philanthropist or exploiter, hero or villain, savior or eugenicist? But there is ample warrant to remain skeptical of his bona fides.

To be sure, his Ted Talk was framed in the context of global warming and the obligation to reduce CO2 emissions, a challenge that could be met by reducing the planetary census. According to his formula, CO2 = P x S x E x C, where P = People, S = Services per person, E = Energy per service, and C = CO2 per energy unit, fewer people in a congested world means less atmospheric carbon and the consequent decline in the rate of (ostensibly) rising global temperature.

The problem here is that a reduced population does not necessarily entail a reduction in manufacturing and industry. Major polluting countries like China and India give no indication of scaling down carbon-emitting coal plants. Moreover, Green technology—the wind farm/solar array nexus—is notoriously expensive, unreliable, landscape defiling, and fossil-fuel dependent with its inevitable and frequent outages. Similar drawbacks are true of the half-ton, non-disposable, toxic EV lithium batteries now all the rage in the plans of quantitative futurists. The Green solution is a neon green figment, largely unworkable in the long run. Energy extraction remains essential. Fracking and nuclear are the most feasible alternatives but are ruled out by ecological enthusiasts.

Another discrepancy in Gates’ argument involves his claim that population can be reduced by making people healthier. In defending Gates, Maarten Schenk at Lead Stories points to arguments that wealthier and healthier people produce fewer children since they don’t have to adjust for massive child mortality. “So, what about the remarks about ‘new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services’?” Schenk asks rhetorically, and answers:

That is just what specialists studying population growth are saying. As people get richer, they get more access to better healthcare so they stop having lots of babies because the risk of their children dying at an early age takes a steep dive. This means the total population stabilizes and stops growing after a while.

On the surface, this looks like a strong argument, especially with respect to underdeveloped countries. The problem is that advantaged people may enjoy having more children—perhaps not in the decadent West at this time in history, but possibly in the future, and certainly as we see now in countries like Hungary and Poland, which are returning to their ancestral traditions, restoring the sanctity of marriage, re-establishing the vitality of the Christian faith and financially incentivising procreation. The result is rapidly growing families. In such countries, healthy people produce more, not fewer, children. The formula could be: H=V=C. Health equals Vitality equals Children. Gates’ X may conceivably turn out to be non-X.

Apart from the question of his un-thought-through contradictions, Gates is deeply implicated in problematic enterprises. His preposterous plan to spray tons of dust into space to dim the sun’s rays would be a prelude to disaster, a telling instance of the ignorance and naiveté of the supposedly super-brilliant. And as is well known, Gates is an active proponent of Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset, which promises to transform the free-market democratic West into an oligarchic model of centralized social control, a sequel characterized by increased market and technological integration, corporate control of natural resources, the elimination of private property, the colossal transfer of wealth to the patrician class, and expanded state surveillance—Build Back Worse. Schwab in turn credits Gates for his input and vision. Reset or space dust, the upshot is not a welcoming blueprint for the future.

A comprehensive and damning report issue by Navdanya International spares no details about Gates’ “various initiatives, sub-organizations, development schemes and funding mechanisms… a complicated web of international power and influence.” For example, “central to the Gates Foundation’s agricultural strategy is the program to consolidate the 15 largest seed collections in the world… looking to copy all the genetic information of the seeds in storage. Effectively, this allows them to take out patents on the genetic information collected, resulting in biopiracy through seed patents.” Gates is also the largest private farmland owner in the U.S. One wonders why.

The essay goes on to point out that Gates provides nearly 20 percent of the funds supporting the staff of the World Health Organization, “thus serving to merge the interests of the WHO with those of the Gates Foundation.” This is not encouraging news, especially as the WHO has released contradictory information and recommendations over the course of the pandemic, operates as an arm of the CCP, and has as its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an ardent Marxist with no medical expertise.

Part 2 is here.

David Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. His most recent volume of poetry, The Herb Garden, appeared in spring 2018. His manifesto, Reflections on Music, Poetry & Politics, was released by Shomron Press in spring 2016. He has produced two CDs of original songs: Blood Guitar and Other Tales and Partial to Cain, on which he was accompanied by his pianist wife Janice Fiamengo. His latest book is Notes from a Derelict Culture.

Reprinted with permission from The Pipeline.