this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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Billionaires and the other 0.01% (not 1%) account for a ludicrously outsized amount of Carbon spend. However the Oxfam research really calls out how outsized even a much Carbon even a much more modest American lifestyle is. $140k/year is a lot even in the US, but still well within what many would call "normal", especially in pricier areas. We spend a lot of time attacking billionaires for their lifestyles (and don't get me wrong -- fuck them all), but the problem is a lot larger than that.
My counter is they are the ones preventing any major changes at the political level. Climate change doesn't impact the wealthy and powerful.
Don't discount the impact of middle- to upper-class NIMBYs preventing political changes locally. Billionaires aren't necessarily the ones demanding that we continue to massively subsidize single-family housing (by using the zoning code to artificially inflate its supply at the expense of multifamily) and exacerbate car-dependency.
It also shows how incredible the impact of the wealth gap on climate issues is even in rich countries like the US. The 1% having per capita emissions of 76t, whereas US average is at 17.6t. It is even starker in Europe with a lot of rich people, but lower per capita emissions.
But remember, it's YOUR responsibility to recycle.
If you rephrase these stats, the group from top 50% to top 1% is responsible for 76,4% of Co2. pretty sure you are in that group.
I'm not anywhere in that group. I haven't even had a car in over ten years.
You probably are, that bottom 50% is emitting 0.6 tons of co2 per year per person according to that research.
Heating and cooling an average American home emits 2 tons of co2 if your using electric, even more for natural gas
One cross country flight emits 0.6 tons of co2
Eating meat is about 2 tons a year
Idk your lifestyle but you probably consume more than that bottom 50% earning $5 a day.
So you are below 2000$ per year?
Well below that, yes.
If you're arguing that anyone making over 2k a year is part of the problem, then why even argue anything? You're missing the point that there's a much much smaller group of people causing much much more pollution.
"If you take every adult alive into consideration then they are responsible for all the pollution". Yeah, no shit.
Is blaming a worse group an excuse for a larger group to ignore everything?
If the worse group is responsible for the overwhelming majority, yes. Not many people in the other group are ignoring it.
Do you always concern troll so ineffectively? ...Ori and the Blind Reasoning over here.
As i stated before, they are not responsible for the overwhelming majority, they are just much higher per person.
Even if you fix the top 1% to 0 you are still left with 84,1% of the previous emitted Co2.
I do agree that there should be reductions but not just to the top 1% and definitely dont blame someone as an excuse to be bad yourself.
Cool story. Fortunately just because you don't believe in the truth, it didn't make it any less true.