Richest 1% Emit As Much Carbon As 5 Billion People

[Parsad]

No idea how exactly they calculated this, but those jets, yachts and certain companies aren't good for the environment.  Kind of like how Leo and Bono fight against global warning but sit on gas guzzling yachts all summer!  Cheers!

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/worlds-richest-1-emit-much-215000375.html

[Spekulatius]

1 hour ago, Parsad said:

No idea how exactly they calculated this, but those jets, yachts and certain companies aren't good for the environment.  Kind of like how Leo and Bono fight against global warning but sit on gas guzzling yachts all summer!  Cheers!

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/worlds-richest-1-emit-much-215000375.html

This is based on questionable methodology. Note they seem to be counting emissions from investments. What that means is that if you buy an oil stock for example, the proportional carbon emissions from this oil business count towards your carbon footprint. No doubt that this results in the majority of Carlos Slim’s or Bill Gates carbon footprint.

 

So if you had large investments, you could live like a Hermit crab in cave in a mountain with no electricity and you would have a large carbon footprint by that methodology. This makes no sense to me.

[RichardGibbons]

8 hours ago, Parsad said:

No idea how exactly they calculated this, but those jets, yachts and certain companies aren't good for the environment.  Kind of like how Leo and Bono fight against global warning but sit on gas guzzling yachts all summer!  Cheers!

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/worlds-richest-1-emit-much-215000375.html

 

The headline on this one is nicely deceiving. The implication is "yachts and jets", but they're actually referring to you, Sanjeev.  Their cutoff is U$140K in income (and I imagine that's likely household income.)  Though, to be fair, I guess you did take a jet to Europe....

 

So, while, based on your headline, you're supposed to think yachts, you should really be thinking about the upper middle class family in Canada, America, or Europe driving to work and heating their home.

 

I suspect the headline is deceiving because the math doesn't work if you just include the yacht club. There aren't enough billionaires to make the carbon numbers impressive, so it's necessary to talk about the global 1% instead, so you can scoop up the top 10-15% of North American emitters.

Spek is also bang-on with his analysis.  To me, it feels like Oxfam/SEI started out by wanting to blame wealthy elites for climate change. But then they did the math, and realized their thesis wasn't convincing, so they had to start playing tricky with the numbers and massaging definitions.

 

(I think it's actually a terrible tactic by progressives, trying to tie climate change to unequal outcomes. I think climate change is a big problem, but by trying to tie it to world inequalities, they lose credibility. It suggests to me that they don't actually see climate change as a real problem, but rather just another tool for advancing Marxist views.)

[Cigarbutt]

2 hours ago, RichardGibbons said:

...

(I think it's actually a terrible tactic by progressives, trying to tie climate change to unequal outcomes. I think climate change is a big problem, but by trying to tie it to world inequalities, they lose credibility. It suggests to me that they don't actually see climate change as a real problem, but rather just another tool for advancing Marxist views.)

-submitted only as food for thought, not to argue.

There is a growing movement to put a price tag on "carbon" and the price tag will be "progressive" (mathematical definition as in progressive form of taxation) within a specific country. This concept also seems to apply between countries as 'rich' countries are expected to pay more (absolutely and relatively) compared to less rich countries.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Cigarbutt
minor spelling

[james22]

The issue isn't the issue. The issue is always the revolution.