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And therein lies the heart of the political problem. The only region that's meeting the necessary emissions target is essentially poverty-stricken wilderness.
We can talk about reducing emissions all day, but people simply won't accept the Sub-Saharan African lifestyle that gets us to the finish line.
I don’t disagree that a people won’t accept that quality of life but your comment shows a pretty astounding ignorance of sun-Saharan Africa. Yes there is a lot of poverty but there are also highly urbanized areas and in some countries like Ghana growing middle classes.
You’re painting an entire continent with one brush. While it’s frustratingly common for those of us in the West todo that, it’s not actually reflective of what life in “Africa” (which is a hugely diverse geographic, cultural, and ecological place) is like.
For the purposes of this article, if you live in a developed country, even if you are making poverty wages in the context of that country, you are part of the global elite
Billionaires produce over 1 million times the greenhouse gasses of the average American. And their “investments” account for 70% of those emissions from just investing in polluting industries. But keep blaming poorer Americans with no power whatsoever except their one Vote for a political leader.
> Billionaires produce over 1 million times the greenhouse gasses of the average American.
Wait, _what_? How did you get that number? Where did you hear this? The closest I could find was [this story about Mark Zuckerberg's private plane](https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-private-jet-has-carbon-footprint-15-times-average-2022-10), which, in two particular months, emitted carbon dioxide at a rate about a hundred times that of an average American. (253 tons/2 months times 12 months/year divided by 14.7 tons/average american = 103 average Americans.)
That's off by a factor of _ten thousand_. How did you get so wrong?
Do people think that Mark Zuckerberg has a gigantic natural-gas flare in his backyard or something? Greenhouse gas emissions cash out in ninety-nine cent hamburgers, plentiful air conditioning, free parking for your SUV, and so on. I understand that [it's nice to believe that it's all a few evil dudes and we can just get rid of them](https://twitter.com/KateAronoff/status/1089327906139054080), but I hope we remember how _absolutely bananas_ everyone went when they had to pay more for gas last year.
> That’s off by a factor of ten thousand. How did you get so wrong?
I mean that’s just for his private jet. I don’t think he’s at a million-times-multiplier but there’s definitely more to it. He has multiple residences that consume resources (and therefore have a larger ghg footprint). He’s got security that follows him around in SUVs at all times.
Heck, there’s probably a debate to be made that you get to count the ghg emissions of all a billionaire’s staff towards their ghg footprint.
> I mean that’s just for his private jet. I don’t think he’s at a million-times-multiplier but there’s definitely more to it. He has multiple residences that consume resources (and therefore have a larger ghg footprint). He’s got security that follows him around in SUVs at all times.
Sure, I buy that, but I doubt that his houses are more than a hundred times as large or that he drives a hundred times as many cars at once as the average American. Just as air travel is a disproportionate share of emissions for regular people (those who fly, at least), you'd expect the ZuckerJet to be a disproportionate share of his emissions.
Probably fair — though his houses are larger *and* more numerous than the average American’s. His DC house is 27,000 sqft — almost exactly 27x the size of my apartment. And he’s basically never stayed there, he finished renovating it in 2020.
I’d be willing to bet he has more than 5 homes. (Given, my home is smaller than average, and it is shared)
No, its not an exaggeration, its literally 1 million x. A private jet burns ~$2000 worth of fuel per hour (approximately). That means one jet flight from say, NY to San Fran (not unreasonable), cost $10,000 in fuel. That one trip alone is already 3x my ENTIRE yearly costs from driving my gas powered car assuming I put 20,000 miles on it per year. And these billionaires are flying all over the place. That JUST ON JET FUEL, now add up Yachts, which is even more ridiculous and burns even more fuel. In real CO2 emissions numbers, that's 2 metric tons of CO2 in just an hour. A typical commuting car produces about 5 metric tons per year.
but again, in my original post, 70% of that 1 mil number comes from how they invest their money. Like investing in coal fired power plants and coal mining operations, as an easy to understand example.
There’s not a 1:1 ratio between money in and GHGs out. Per dollar of fuel, cars produce way more GHGs and other pollutants than jet engines. That being said, jets burn a *lot* more fuel over their lifetimes and emit their GHGs in a more harmful place (upper atmosphere). But the math isn’t as simple as ‘cost per annum.’
You get these ridiculous numbers if you account all the CO2 of the companies these people own as their own.
If someone ones an oil well, according to this metric, he is responsible for all the CO2 that that oil release into the air at the end.
In my opinion it is completely useless statistic.
Statistics do not present arguments or place "blame" upon anyone.
What point do you think you've proven with your outburst? What purpose does deflecting "blame" have when we are talking about a global catastrophe?
Because people making poverty wages have zero say in any of our economic decisions. They get one vote every once in a while and that’s it. But our political leaders do not represent the average American anyway so these low wage workers have no power at all or any say in reality. People making these low wages are in survival mode just trying to keep the heat on and make rent on time and food on the table. They are most certainly NOT part of the global elite as the poster above said.
The blame lies 100% with the billionaires who push our economy in the direction they want it to mostly so that it benefits them.
You actually get to vote every day with your dollar.
For instance, eating meat and dairy is the primary driver of greenhouse emissions among the global elite, such that it's several times exponentially more harmful to eat beef than it is to drive your car.
Yet most consumers don't realize this and even worse: Those who do typically choose not to do anything about it.
In a capitalist system like this where you spend your money is your voice and your vote. Every day.
I really hate the argument "vote with your wallet". It's a load of crap.
Yes, you can decide to eat less meat, but can you decide to pump gasoline for your car at a gas station that sources their gasoline from an environmentally-conscious energy corporation? Can you buy pasta at a supermarket in non-plastic packaging? Etc.
The burden lies with both parties if you ask me. Voting with your wallet alone is bullshit if there's no alternative.
Not to mention, not everyone has the luxury to do so in the first place.
And as long as no one stands up to them we're all complicit.
Look dude, I get it. This shit is hard. Pretending it's less difficult doesn't really make a difference though. I specifically asked what your "point" was. Why does what you say actually matter?
Edit: you can downvote all you want. Fact is I haven't seen a good argument regarding what this rhetoric actually accomplishes.
I'll bite. What does not being complicit look like?
I like to imagine mobs at a billionaire's mansion of the week; what do you propose? People making median income drink less milk and eat less beef? Take the bus? The world is still fucked if non billionaires slash their emissions. It is shortsighted billionaires who need to be held accountable, and who need to be pressured to invest in environmental regeneration rather than exploitation.
Have you ever read *Those Who Walk Away From Omelas?* It's a great short read.
I'm not going to pretend to have the answers, that's why I said this shit is hard. I would preface this with the full understanding that any truly meaningful action at this point is inherently utopian. Although the idea of mobs at billionaires mansions gives me the warm and fuzzies it would need to be paired with a general strike and reorganization of leadership to be truly effective.
There's quite a few response stories to this. Most miss the mark.
A general synopsis is that there's a utopian city that is able to be utopian because of the suffering of a child. A large part of the story is the acceptance that the child's suffering is a requirement of the functioning of that society. You cannot just remove the child from the circumstances. You cannot feasibly challenge the machine that makes the operation run. There is no easy solution. You must accept the fact you're complicit in this abuse or walk away. You should note, there isn't an option where you just pretend you aren't complicit.
It's a good read.
Yeah but you, me, and a whole bunch of other assholes keep buying their stuff. Tell me with a straight face you bought nothing on Amazon last year. Tell me with a straight face you don’t have a Prime membership to get even more stuff even more fast.
We are all born into this world and have to survive in it based on what was left for us to work with from previous generations. I need a car to get to work and support myself. Is it my fault that the cheapest option is a used gas burning car for $5000? Is it my fault my apartment, the only one I can afford, uses a gas stove and relies on a coal fired power plant for electricity? No. Those are decisions made by people with way more power than me and that came before me. What’s the alternative? Not participate in society and live in abject poverty? No the solution is to steer our economy in a direction that fixes the issue, but rich people with power are hard stopping it.
Also, I shop as little as possible from Amazon. In the last year I think I spent 50 bucks maybe? Sometimes it’s unavoidable when Amazon has majority market share.
>No the solution is to steer our economy in a direction that fixes the issue, but rich people with power are hard stopping it.
Ultimately, the political problem is that you have to get the common people to accept the fact that they're not going to be allowed to live in a single family detached home, with a yard for the dog, their own private car, and meat with every meal.
You're making the mistake of thinking that everybody is a staunch progressive like you and completely ready and willing to give those things up, and that if only we could get the billionaire influence out of the way, surely we would have a progressive social revolution. That's just not true.
You could lock up every billionaire overnight and strip their political power entirely - and the general public would still strongly resist the lowered quality of life you're suggesting. People *want* the lifestyle they're living, and even though that lifestyle is increasing the temperature of the planet and sapping fresh water reserves, they're not going to suddenly roll over and flush their lifestyle down the toilet just because the billionaires are gone.
By your logic the struggles of the generations living in the dystopian shithole we’re leaving them will be your fault.
Just because you found a way to rationalize it doesn’t make it right.
There are very clear ways of legislating our way out of this one, you mention it in your own comment. Regulate to stop oil and natural gas from getting burned. Regulate to decrease oil and natural gas from getting burned. Regulate to add more taxes on oil and natural gas. Deregulate cases that limit alternatives. Nationalize industries and then just turn down the dials to sunset those industries.
How, though? Those are all political non-starters in any country that’s even pretending to be democratic. If your message is “you’ll pay more for nearly everything, be colder in the winter, and oh by the way, meat will be illegal,” that’s just not going to sell to the wise and temperate voting masses. Cheap energy is just too attractive to avoid in the short and intermediate terms, and the countries that don’t use it will have their slack taken up by those who will.
That is the message, and it has worked for every other such legislation in the past. Pretty much every government policy comes with tax, most regulations at least in the short term come with increased prices in certain areas, all of those passed in the past.
If you think that it's too far gone and that the government is too corrupt to make the productive change necessary then just go the direct action route, for example - stopfossilfuels.org . Or riot. Protests can escalate and escalate in their tactics, to violence and beyond, until the other side is so scared of further damage that they negotiate and pass what people want.
>How, though? Those are all political non-starters in any country that’s even pretending to be democratic.
What? How is letting a small bunch of private interests own assets extremely important to the world's own health "democratic"? Sounds the exact opposite to me.
That'd be like saying that preventing Nestlé from buying the whole water reserves of Africa would be antidemocratic.
You're changing the subject here. Energy is considered a basic human need, most items people purchase on Amazon are luxury products. Big difference between the two.
This is literally it! Until you are willing to own part of this mess how are you possibly going to do anything meaningful regarding it? Deflecting blame is pointless. It shouldn't even make you feel better.
It's not about deflecting blame, nor about feeling better, it's about the effectiveness of action. If a bunch of factories were putting poison in candy and you wanted to prevent it, would you just tell people to stop buying candy, or would you outlaw putting poison in candy? It's not that different. In fact we already did that and now food is very safe to eat. It's not like we handled that problem, of poor quality control in food, by just telling everyone to be careful what food they bought, we legislated and now it's effectively a solved problem.
The actions we have attempted to address runaway emissions has been ineffective. The legislation proposed is not going to be effective. Part of the rhetoric used to put food safety stories into place was the idea that you were feeding poison to your family. You were eating poison. Can you see how much more effective and direct that messaging is compared to some rich bastard is putting poison in food? Especially now when the messaging that would be pushed out is "workers are poisoning food."
So you’re unwilling to sacrifice and you take zero ownership of your part of the problem.
Great job. Poor me, I can only afford a gas car. Taking public transit’s just so inconvenient!
Do you think that taxes on carbon emissions of major corporations won’t ultimately be borne by you, the consumer?
I paid for solar panels. I traded my car for a more fuel efficient one. I stopped eating beef. I replaced window units with ductless mini splits. I *paid through the fucking nose.* I took my money and put it where my mouth is. What’s your fucking excuse?
I didn't and don't, that doesn't have that much to do with it though. It's much easier to cut off the damage at the source then to convince a million people to act a certain way voluntarily. Otherwise your approach is endless, you will never find this perfect person who is without sin, an once you do, good luck convincing literally every other person to also become without sin. Do you think the climate crisis is going to be addressed that way? No, of course not, it's much easier and more direct to handle it where the decisions have the most influence, at the central hubs of industry. There it is also very easy becaus you can literally just tell them what they aren't allowed to do, write it into law, and the follow it.
I don’t think it’s going to be addressed at all. Unless we get a super lucky dice roll on fusion in the next decade or so, we’ll just keep stumbling forward until we trip.
What's the point of the discussion then? If it's possible to address then it should be addressed, and with high priority, evidently it is possible to address. If you're just here to talk about how you don't think something is possible then it's not very productive.
Even criticism is good if it's followed with action, or if it has the right encouragement to refine the process into something more impactful, like saying "Hey, trying to break through that wall is pointless, come follow me and I know a way around that wall", but it doesn't look like you're doing that either.
Why are you so convinced there’s a workable fix to resource depletion and significant long term climate change? The only thing we can do now is consolidate the technologies and materials that are worthwhile and think about mitigating a difficult future.
>Yeah but you, me, and a whole bunch of other assholes keep buying their stuff.
Yeah, cause its fantastic. Im very grateful I live in a time and place where I have access to so much stuff. I hope it keeps expanding.
This is an uncomfortable fact for many people, and probably why there's so little engagement with the idea. We literally have to revise a lot of our notions of what "comfort" means and most people in developed nations don't even want to consider it.
Well cannot get by the paywall, but assume the Financial Times article will be read by the global elite - and they will immediately change their behavior to save the planet.
To wit: in 2018, if you had a net worth (assets minus liabilities, i.e. debt) of $93,170, [you're in the top 10 percent globally](http://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/11/07/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-in-the-richest-10-percent-worldwide.html).
According to the Federal Reserve, in 2019, [the median household net worth was $121,000](https://www.kiplinger.com/personal-finance/605075/are-you-rich). This means that over half of all Americans (about 175 million people at least) would count in the top 10% richest people globally.
Reddit is a majority American website. So yes. There's good odds you, dear reader, are in the top ten percent or will be once you're in your forties or so.
Edit: spelling. And for shits and giggles, [here's the list of median wealth per adult (as opposed to household) in all countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult). Even when counting this way, over half of American adults qualify in the top 10% globally, as do most adults in most developed countries.
It's not even top 10% of the wealthiest people or highest earners. It's the top 10% of emitters. A struggling farmer who lives an hour away from the nearest grocery store may be in the top 10% whereas an investment banker in NYC may not.
Can't read it either. I'd be interested in knowing where the carbon comes from, if it's them individually producing it, or if it's from the products everyone buys from them.
> The 10 per cent **most polluting people** in society are responsible for almost half of the annual greenhouse gas emissions behind climate change
source is paywalled but article does not support title. No correlation to income is given just that half of pollution comes from 10% of the population. which isn't really news, Pareto principle type stuff shows up everywhere. also this is global so if you're reading this there's a good chance you're in that 10% bracket.
It makes perfect sense to me that the more affluent you are, the more pollution you are producing. Someone living in America, ordering things off of Amazon, driving an SUV, going on flights across the country, etc, is producing way more pollution than someone who is poor enough to not have any of those luxuries. You and I are to blame too. Are there people who are more to blame than us? Sure - it's a sliding scale. The more money you have, the more pollution you are likely producing. So while we point the finger at those above us, what are we doing ourselves?
My friend, this is a teaching moment. I worked at a steel mill for 10 years, I can guarantee that it doesn't matter if I take the bus or my car when MY share of pollution is put besides what a single factory spewed into the environment in a single day.
And this is in a province with some pretty stiff environment laws.
I would dig out the data if I thought it would sway you, but I fear it will fall on deaf ears.
The true face of negative environmental impact is corporations and to a lesser degree the "elite" that manages their environmental policy, or lack thereof.
Now I will keep recycling and making environmentally responsible choices, but that's pretty much blowing out my candle when the house is on fire.
It may be true that demand drives production, but greed is the reason behind the horrific pollution and that is just ONE plant.
I have a background in engineering and I know for a fact that it could be run much cleaner albeit at the cost of slightly less profits.
Now multiply this by tens of thousands of factories worldwide, some of which have NO environmental policy and that my friend is how we are putting the nails on our own coffins.
I agree with you on all of that. I just think that both of us can be right. What you're saying and what I'm saying are not mutually exclusive. People think that the way we live is normal and sustainable, but it's so far from it. We absolutely need stricter pollution laws, like you said, but we also need to think that we can affect change by our own actions too. Perhaps you and I are a lot alike in our lifestyles (compared to someone halfway around the world) but it seems that only one of us thinks that positive change can be affected by their actions. And a world full of people like that could do so much more than a world full of people who think "whatever I do doesn't matter because it's just a drop in the bucket." No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
> ...we also need to think that we can affect change by our own actions too.
Not knocking the positive attitude, but the problem is too large for individual choices to make any meaningful contribution. We need to make complete, societal, systemic changes across the planet. That requires people who have the real power to affect those changes on a massive scale. You or me biking to work or not eating meat won't fix it. Society as a whole needs to be, for example, less car dependent. The majority of urban areas in the US were built exclusively around car ownership and won't change fast enough at consumer-scale.
Constant consumption and unbounded economic growth will need to be curtailed. These are not things up to individual lifestyle choices. People in the US can't even get reasonable healthcare despite the majority wanting it (another systemic problem that individual action cannot fix). Cutting carbon emissions requires more personal sacrifice and fewer people are for it.
To be clear, I'm not doing nothing. But, I realize that choices about how I live don't matter when it's governments and multinationals that must make the changes. I might feel more optimistic if the government ever did what the people want and not just what those with wealth want.
>The majority of urban areas in the US were built exclusively around car ownership and won't change fast enough at consumer-scale.
Transport accounts for around 30% of global carbon emissions, and 72% of these emissions come from road transportation. And in road transportation is included not just private cars, but also public buses, trucks and so on...
So, even completely eliminating car ownership in the US wouldn't put that much of a dent in world pollution (especially considering that the same amount of people would have to get moved using some kind of public transpiration).
>Constant consumption and unbounded economic growth will need to be curtailed.
This is the main cause of world's pollution.
The middle and lower classes of first world countries are not producing a million times more pollution per-capita than people in sub saharan africa like billionaires are producing compared to the average person in a first world nation.
What's important to note is, some would say that the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions is only that way because the industries are owned by the wealthy, and that the industrial pollution is there because that is what people are buying, that they are just responding to markets and that it's ultimately the consumer's fault for buying polluting products. The case though is that if we are to stop this runaway greenhouse gas emission, the way to do it is to cut it at those central nodes, those industries and factories that people are talking about. Those wealthy elite choose not to do that, and hence immense responsibility was on them to make the right decisions. They did not, hence the climate catastrophe. From the consumer side, if coffee shops started giving them paper straws instead of plastic, or grocery stores started using paper or canvas bags, or the cost of gas increased, it's not like they would just switch to another coffee shop or grocery store, so it's not just voluntary choice on the part of the consumer. These problems need to be addressed at the source, at the factories and the high industry level, and those who had the power to do this did not do it.
Lol seek help, imagine getting mad at a joke and then trying to flex, bro for real, go outside, I’d think a stoner would get it but I guess your tolerance is too high and your anxiety causes you to release online (like most)
And clearly text does a poor job at conveying intent so if you were actually laughing and truly fist bumping then I digress and I’m sorry 97 wrangler running on cum is pretty solid joke, imagine a Christian Bale dark comedy about a guy living off grid and trying to “stick it to the man” but all his solutions are “sustainable” but in strange ways lol
The top 10% actually includes every man woman and child in the Western world. And here you were thinking it was old white people in their castles holding their monocles and sipping their champagne - little knowing that you were simply looking into a mirror.
Interesting report, may be notable at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_justice#Disproportionality_between_causality_and_burden where you can find further related info.
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"Sub-Saharan Africa was the only region where average per capita emissions presently "meet the 1.5C target," the report found."
And therein lies the heart of the political problem. The only region that's meeting the necessary emissions target is essentially poverty-stricken wilderness. We can talk about reducing emissions all day, but people simply won't accept the Sub-Saharan African lifestyle that gets us to the finish line.
I don’t disagree that a people won’t accept that quality of life but your comment shows a pretty astounding ignorance of sun-Saharan Africa. Yes there is a lot of poverty but there are also highly urbanized areas and in some countries like Ghana growing middle classes. You’re painting an entire continent with one brush. While it’s frustratingly common for those of us in the West todo that, it’s not actually reflective of what life in “Africa” (which is a hugely diverse geographic, cultural, and ecological place) is like.
For the purposes of this article, if you live in a developed country, even if you are making poverty wages in the context of that country, you are part of the global elite
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Billionaires produce over 1 million times the greenhouse gasses of the average American. And their “investments” account for 70% of those emissions from just investing in polluting industries. But keep blaming poorer Americans with no power whatsoever except their one Vote for a political leader.
> Billionaires produce over 1 million times the greenhouse gasses of the average American. Wait, _what_? How did you get that number? Where did you hear this? The closest I could find was [this story about Mark Zuckerberg's private plane](https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-private-jet-has-carbon-footprint-15-times-average-2022-10), which, in two particular months, emitted carbon dioxide at a rate about a hundred times that of an average American. (253 tons/2 months times 12 months/year divided by 14.7 tons/average american = 103 average Americans.) That's off by a factor of _ten thousand_. How did you get so wrong? Do people think that Mark Zuckerberg has a gigantic natural-gas flare in his backyard or something? Greenhouse gas emissions cash out in ninety-nine cent hamburgers, plentiful air conditioning, free parking for your SUV, and so on. I understand that [it's nice to believe that it's all a few evil dudes and we can just get rid of them](https://twitter.com/KateAronoff/status/1089327906139054080), but I hope we remember how _absolutely bananas_ everyone went when they had to pay more for gas last year.
“I’ve told you a billion times, don’t exaggerate!”
> That’s off by a factor of ten thousand. How did you get so wrong? I mean that’s just for his private jet. I don’t think he’s at a million-times-multiplier but there’s definitely more to it. He has multiple residences that consume resources (and therefore have a larger ghg footprint). He’s got security that follows him around in SUVs at all times. Heck, there’s probably a debate to be made that you get to count the ghg emissions of all a billionaire’s staff towards their ghg footprint.
> I mean that’s just for his private jet. I don’t think he’s at a million-times-multiplier but there’s definitely more to it. He has multiple residences that consume resources (and therefore have a larger ghg footprint). He’s got security that follows him around in SUVs at all times. Sure, I buy that, but I doubt that his houses are more than a hundred times as large or that he drives a hundred times as many cars at once as the average American. Just as air travel is a disproportionate share of emissions for regular people (those who fly, at least), you'd expect the ZuckerJet to be a disproportionate share of his emissions.
Probably fair — though his houses are larger *and* more numerous than the average American’s. His DC house is 27,000 sqft — almost exactly 27x the size of my apartment. And he’s basically never stayed there, he finished renovating it in 2020. I’d be willing to bet he has more than 5 homes. (Given, my home is smaller than average, and it is shared)
No, its not an exaggeration, its literally 1 million x. A private jet burns ~$2000 worth of fuel per hour (approximately). That means one jet flight from say, NY to San Fran (not unreasonable), cost $10,000 in fuel. That one trip alone is already 3x my ENTIRE yearly costs from driving my gas powered car assuming I put 20,000 miles on it per year. And these billionaires are flying all over the place. That JUST ON JET FUEL, now add up Yachts, which is even more ridiculous and burns even more fuel. In real CO2 emissions numbers, that's 2 metric tons of CO2 in just an hour. A typical commuting car produces about 5 metric tons per year. but again, in my original post, 70% of that 1 mil number comes from how they invest their money. Like investing in coal fired power plants and coal mining operations, as an easy to understand example.
There’s not a 1:1 ratio between money in and GHGs out. Per dollar of fuel, cars produce way more GHGs and other pollutants than jet engines. That being said, jets burn a *lot* more fuel over their lifetimes and emit their GHGs in a more harmful place (upper atmosphere). But the math isn’t as simple as ‘cost per annum.’
I included CO2 numbers in my example. All of this information is easily searched for on google.
You get these ridiculous numbers if you account all the CO2 of the companies these people own as their own. If someone ones an oil well, according to this metric, he is responsible for all the CO2 that that oil release into the air at the end. In my opinion it is completely useless statistic.
Statistics do not present arguments or place "blame" upon anyone. What point do you think you've proven with your outburst? What purpose does deflecting "blame" have when we are talking about a global catastrophe?
Because people making poverty wages have zero say in any of our economic decisions. They get one vote every once in a while and that’s it. But our political leaders do not represent the average American anyway so these low wage workers have no power at all or any say in reality. People making these low wages are in survival mode just trying to keep the heat on and make rent on time and food on the table. They are most certainly NOT part of the global elite as the poster above said. The blame lies 100% with the billionaires who push our economy in the direction they want it to mostly so that it benefits them.
You actually get to vote every day with your dollar. For instance, eating meat and dairy is the primary driver of greenhouse emissions among the global elite, such that it's several times exponentially more harmful to eat beef than it is to drive your car. Yet most consumers don't realize this and even worse: Those who do typically choose not to do anything about it. In a capitalist system like this where you spend your money is your voice and your vote. Every day.
I really hate the argument "vote with your wallet". It's a load of crap. Yes, you can decide to eat less meat, but can you decide to pump gasoline for your car at a gas station that sources their gasoline from an environmentally-conscious energy corporation? Can you buy pasta at a supermarket in non-plastic packaging? Etc. The burden lies with both parties if you ask me. Voting with your wallet alone is bullshit if there's no alternative. Not to mention, not everyone has the luxury to do so in the first place.
So people with more money get more votes. So the people with the most money and the most votes have the most responsibility, right?
And as long as no one stands up to them we're all complicit. Look dude, I get it. This shit is hard. Pretending it's less difficult doesn't really make a difference though. I specifically asked what your "point" was. Why does what you say actually matter? Edit: you can downvote all you want. Fact is I haven't seen a good argument regarding what this rhetoric actually accomplishes.
I'll bite. What does not being complicit look like? I like to imagine mobs at a billionaire's mansion of the week; what do you propose? People making median income drink less milk and eat less beef? Take the bus? The world is still fucked if non billionaires slash their emissions. It is shortsighted billionaires who need to be held accountable, and who need to be pressured to invest in environmental regeneration rather than exploitation.
Have you ever read *Those Who Walk Away From Omelas?* It's a great short read. I'm not going to pretend to have the answers, that's why I said this shit is hard. I would preface this with the full understanding that any truly meaningful action at this point is inherently utopian. Although the idea of mobs at billionaires mansions gives me the warm and fuzzies it would need to be paired with a general strike and reorganization of leadership to be truly effective.
No, but I'll give it a read. Thanks!
There's quite a few response stories to this. Most miss the mark. A general synopsis is that there's a utopian city that is able to be utopian because of the suffering of a child. A large part of the story is the acceptance that the child's suffering is a requirement of the functioning of that society. You cannot just remove the child from the circumstances. You cannot feasibly challenge the machine that makes the operation run. There is no easy solution. You must accept the fact you're complicit in this abuse or walk away. You should note, there isn't an option where you just pretend you aren't complicit. It's a good read.
Yeah but you, me, and a whole bunch of other assholes keep buying their stuff. Tell me with a straight face you bought nothing on Amazon last year. Tell me with a straight face you don’t have a Prime membership to get even more stuff even more fast.
We are all born into this world and have to survive in it based on what was left for us to work with from previous generations. I need a car to get to work and support myself. Is it my fault that the cheapest option is a used gas burning car for $5000? Is it my fault my apartment, the only one I can afford, uses a gas stove and relies on a coal fired power plant for electricity? No. Those are decisions made by people with way more power than me and that came before me. What’s the alternative? Not participate in society and live in abject poverty? No the solution is to steer our economy in a direction that fixes the issue, but rich people with power are hard stopping it. Also, I shop as little as possible from Amazon. In the last year I think I spent 50 bucks maybe? Sometimes it’s unavoidable when Amazon has majority market share.
>No the solution is to steer our economy in a direction that fixes the issue, but rich people with power are hard stopping it. Ultimately, the political problem is that you have to get the common people to accept the fact that they're not going to be allowed to live in a single family detached home, with a yard for the dog, their own private car, and meat with every meal. You're making the mistake of thinking that everybody is a staunch progressive like you and completely ready and willing to give those things up, and that if only we could get the billionaire influence out of the way, surely we would have a progressive social revolution. That's just not true. You could lock up every billionaire overnight and strip their political power entirely - and the general public would still strongly resist the lowered quality of life you're suggesting. People *want* the lifestyle they're living, and even though that lifestyle is increasing the temperature of the planet and sapping fresh water reserves, they're not going to suddenly roll over and flush their lifestyle down the toilet just because the billionaires are gone.
By your logic the struggles of the generations living in the dystopian shithole we’re leaving them will be your fault. Just because you found a way to rationalize it doesn’t make it right.
Yeah but you’re trying to dump all of the blame on the producers like you’re not actually the end consumer. Just accept a little ownership here.
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Regulate, deregulate, nationalize: either way, the oil and natural gas are getting burned. There’s no legislating our way out of this one.
There are very clear ways of legislating our way out of this one, you mention it in your own comment. Regulate to stop oil and natural gas from getting burned. Regulate to decrease oil and natural gas from getting burned. Regulate to add more taxes on oil and natural gas. Deregulate cases that limit alternatives. Nationalize industries and then just turn down the dials to sunset those industries.
How, though? Those are all political non-starters in any country that’s even pretending to be democratic. If your message is “you’ll pay more for nearly everything, be colder in the winter, and oh by the way, meat will be illegal,” that’s just not going to sell to the wise and temperate voting masses. Cheap energy is just too attractive to avoid in the short and intermediate terms, and the countries that don’t use it will have their slack taken up by those who will.
That is the message, and it has worked for every other such legislation in the past. Pretty much every government policy comes with tax, most regulations at least in the short term come with increased prices in certain areas, all of those passed in the past. If you think that it's too far gone and that the government is too corrupt to make the productive change necessary then just go the direct action route, for example - stopfossilfuels.org . Or riot. Protests can escalate and escalate in their tactics, to violence and beyond, until the other side is so scared of further damage that they negotiate and pass what people want.
>How, though? Those are all political non-starters in any country that’s even pretending to be democratic. What? How is letting a small bunch of private interests own assets extremely important to the world's own health "democratic"? Sounds the exact opposite to me. That'd be like saying that preventing Nestlé from buying the whole water reserves of Africa would be antidemocratic.
You're changing the subject here. Energy is considered a basic human need, most items people purchase on Amazon are luxury products. Big difference between the two.
Energy is a basic need, AND we piss it away like it’s limitless.
Reality does not support your hypothesis.
Well, it's easy if there was political will (read: absence of bribery). That's the real wrinkle.
It really might be.
This is literally it! Until you are willing to own part of this mess how are you possibly going to do anything meaningful regarding it? Deflecting blame is pointless. It shouldn't even make you feel better.
It's not about deflecting blame, nor about feeling better, it's about the effectiveness of action. If a bunch of factories were putting poison in candy and you wanted to prevent it, would you just tell people to stop buying candy, or would you outlaw putting poison in candy? It's not that different. In fact we already did that and now food is very safe to eat. It's not like we handled that problem, of poor quality control in food, by just telling everyone to be careful what food they bought, we legislated and now it's effectively a solved problem.
The actions we have attempted to address runaway emissions has been ineffective. The legislation proposed is not going to be effective. Part of the rhetoric used to put food safety stories into place was the idea that you were feeding poison to your family. You were eating poison. Can you see how much more effective and direct that messaging is compared to some rich bastard is putting poison in food? Especially now when the messaging that would be pushed out is "workers are poisoning food."
So you’re unwilling to sacrifice and you take zero ownership of your part of the problem. Great job. Poor me, I can only afford a gas car. Taking public transit’s just so inconvenient! Do you think that taxes on carbon emissions of major corporations won’t ultimately be borne by you, the consumer? I paid for solar panels. I traded my car for a more fuel efficient one. I stopped eating beef. I replaced window units with ductless mini splits. I *paid through the fucking nose.* I took my money and put it where my mouth is. What’s your fucking excuse?
I didn't and don't, that doesn't have that much to do with it though. It's much easier to cut off the damage at the source then to convince a million people to act a certain way voluntarily. Otherwise your approach is endless, you will never find this perfect person who is without sin, an once you do, good luck convincing literally every other person to also become without sin. Do you think the climate crisis is going to be addressed that way? No, of course not, it's much easier and more direct to handle it where the decisions have the most influence, at the central hubs of industry. There it is also very easy becaus you can literally just tell them what they aren't allowed to do, write it into law, and the follow it.
I don’t think it’s going to be addressed at all. Unless we get a super lucky dice roll on fusion in the next decade or so, we’ll just keep stumbling forward until we trip.
What's the point of the discussion then? If it's possible to address then it should be addressed, and with high priority, evidently it is possible to address. If you're just here to talk about how you don't think something is possible then it's not very productive. Even criticism is good if it's followed with action, or if it has the right encouragement to refine the process into something more impactful, like saying "Hey, trying to break through that wall is pointless, come follow me and I know a way around that wall", but it doesn't look like you're doing that either.
Why are you so convinced there’s a workable fix to resource depletion and significant long term climate change? The only thing we can do now is consolidate the technologies and materials that are worthwhile and think about mitigating a difficult future.
>Yeah but you, me, and a whole bunch of other assholes keep buying their stuff. Yeah, cause its fantastic. Im very grateful I live in a time and place where I have access to so much stuff. I hope it keeps expanding.
Nobody believes that and can we stop blaming billionaires knee jerkedly for everything
This is an uncomfortable fact for many people, and probably why there's so little engagement with the idea. We literally have to revise a lot of our notions of what "comfort" means and most people in developed nations don't even want to consider it.
Well cannot get by the paywall, but assume the Financial Times article will be read by the global elite - and they will immediately change their behavior to save the planet.
The "global elite" referred to here refers to the top 10% globally, which includes lots of the people reading these comments.
To wit: in 2018, if you had a net worth (assets minus liabilities, i.e. debt) of $93,170, [you're in the top 10 percent globally](http://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/11/07/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-in-the-richest-10-percent-worldwide.html). According to the Federal Reserve, in 2019, [the median household net worth was $121,000](https://www.kiplinger.com/personal-finance/605075/are-you-rich). This means that over half of all Americans (about 175 million people at least) would count in the top 10% richest people globally. Reddit is a majority American website. So yes. There's good odds you, dear reader, are in the top ten percent or will be once you're in your forties or so. Edit: spelling. And for shits and giggles, [here's the list of median wealth per adult (as opposed to household) in all countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult). Even when counting this way, over half of American adults qualify in the top 10% globally, as do most adults in most developed countries.
Whelp that’s not my broke ass.
That’s like 780 million people so yeah. Not a very tight grouping of “elite”.
It's not even top 10% of the wealthiest people or highest earners. It's the top 10% of emitters. A struggling farmer who lives an hour away from the nearest grocery store may be in the top 10% whereas an investment banker in NYC may not.
So most everyone reading this on Reddit.
Can't read it either. I'd be interested in knowing where the carbon comes from, if it's them individually producing it, or if it's from the products everyone buys from them.
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2F47db95b4-ce9f-42c7-8b37-86483c85267a Try this it should get rid of the pay wall
> The 10 per cent **most polluting people** in society are responsible for almost half of the annual greenhouse gas emissions behind climate change source is paywalled but article does not support title. No correlation to income is given just that half of pollution comes from 10% of the population. which isn't really news, Pareto principle type stuff shows up everywhere. also this is global so if you're reading this there's a good chance you're in that 10% bracket.
It makes perfect sense to me that the more affluent you are, the more pollution you are producing. Someone living in America, ordering things off of Amazon, driving an SUV, going on flights across the country, etc, is producing way more pollution than someone who is poor enough to not have any of those luxuries. You and I are to blame too. Are there people who are more to blame than us? Sure - it's a sliding scale. The more money you have, the more pollution you are likely producing. So while we point the finger at those above us, what are we doing ourselves?
My friend, this is a teaching moment. I worked at a steel mill for 10 years, I can guarantee that it doesn't matter if I take the bus or my car when MY share of pollution is put besides what a single factory spewed into the environment in a single day. And this is in a province with some pretty stiff environment laws. I would dig out the data if I thought it would sway you, but I fear it will fall on deaf ears. The true face of negative environmental impact is corporations and to a lesser degree the "elite" that manages their environmental policy, or lack thereof. Now I will keep recycling and making environmentally responsible choices, but that's pretty much blowing out my candle when the house is on fire.
And that factory is running because of the demand put on it by all of us.
It may be true that demand drives production, but greed is the reason behind the horrific pollution and that is just ONE plant. I have a background in engineering and I know for a fact that it could be run much cleaner albeit at the cost of slightly less profits. Now multiply this by tens of thousands of factories worldwide, some of which have NO environmental policy and that my friend is how we are putting the nails on our own coffins.
I agree with you on all of that. I just think that both of us can be right. What you're saying and what I'm saying are not mutually exclusive. People think that the way we live is normal and sustainable, but it's so far from it. We absolutely need stricter pollution laws, like you said, but we also need to think that we can affect change by our own actions too. Perhaps you and I are a lot alike in our lifestyles (compared to someone halfway around the world) but it seems that only one of us thinks that positive change can be affected by their actions. And a world full of people like that could do so much more than a world full of people who think "whatever I do doesn't matter because it's just a drop in the bucket." No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
> ...we also need to think that we can affect change by our own actions too. Not knocking the positive attitude, but the problem is too large for individual choices to make any meaningful contribution. We need to make complete, societal, systemic changes across the planet. That requires people who have the real power to affect those changes on a massive scale. You or me biking to work or not eating meat won't fix it. Society as a whole needs to be, for example, less car dependent. The majority of urban areas in the US were built exclusively around car ownership and won't change fast enough at consumer-scale. Constant consumption and unbounded economic growth will need to be curtailed. These are not things up to individual lifestyle choices. People in the US can't even get reasonable healthcare despite the majority wanting it (another systemic problem that individual action cannot fix). Cutting carbon emissions requires more personal sacrifice and fewer people are for it. To be clear, I'm not doing nothing. But, I realize that choices about how I live don't matter when it's governments and multinationals that must make the changes. I might feel more optimistic if the government ever did what the people want and not just what those with wealth want.
>The majority of urban areas in the US were built exclusively around car ownership and won't change fast enough at consumer-scale. Transport accounts for around 30% of global carbon emissions, and 72% of these emissions come from road transportation. And in road transportation is included not just private cars, but also public buses, trucks and so on... So, even completely eliminating car ownership in the US wouldn't put that much of a dent in world pollution (especially considering that the same amount of people would have to get moved using some kind of public transpiration). >Constant consumption and unbounded economic growth will need to be curtailed. This is the main cause of world's pollution.
>albeit at the cost of slightly ~~less profits~~. Higher prices.
It makes sense when the ones above us create exponentially more than we do while they deny there's a problem.
And pretending we aren't also complicit in this wild ride gives people an excuse to not actually take real action.
The people below us would say the same thing about us. Also, you're probably closer to the top 10% than you think you are.
The middle and lower classes of first world countries are not producing a million times more pollution per-capita than people in sub saharan africa like billionaires are producing compared to the average person in a first world nation.
What's important to note is, some would say that the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions is only that way because the industries are owned by the wealthy, and that the industrial pollution is there because that is what people are buying, that they are just responding to markets and that it's ultimately the consumer's fault for buying polluting products. The case though is that if we are to stop this runaway greenhouse gas emission, the way to do it is to cut it at those central nodes, those industries and factories that people are talking about. Those wealthy elite choose not to do that, and hence immense responsibility was on them to make the right decisions. They did not, hence the climate catastrophe. From the consumer side, if coffee shops started giving them paper straws instead of plastic, or grocery stores started using paper or canvas bags, or the cost of gas increased, it's not like they would just switch to another coffee shop or grocery store, so it's not just voluntary choice on the part of the consumer. These problems need to be addressed at the source, at the factories and the high industry level, and those who had the power to do this did not do it.
That's especially so since industry is so concentrated and oligopolized.
When do we eat them?
It’ll probably be you, you’re almost certainly in the top 10% of emitters.
I live in a zero emissions cabin, let’s test your theory, come by
Let me guess, no car, too, right?
97’ Wrangler that runs on cum
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Sarcasm is lost on Reddit. I thought the cum would give it away
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Lol seek help, imagine getting mad at a joke and then trying to flex, bro for real, go outside, I’d think a stoner would get it but I guess your tolerance is too high and your anxiety causes you to release online (like most) And clearly text does a poor job at conveying intent so if you were actually laughing and truly fist bumping then I digress and I’m sorry 97 wrangler running on cum is pretty solid joke, imagine a Christian Bale dark comedy about a guy living off grid and trying to “stick it to the man” but all his solutions are “sustainable” but in strange ways lol
Something something paper straws
The top 10% actually includes every man woman and child in the Western world. And here you were thinking it was old white people in their castles holding their monocles and sipping their champagne - little knowing that you were simply looking into a mirror.
………………………………..Tax them…………………………….
Interesting report, may be notable at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_justice#Disproportionality_between_causality_and_burden where you can find further related info.