Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
Does this include the emissions of the companies that they own?
Edit: it includes companies they own
"the super-rich continue to squander humanity’s chances with their lavish lifestyles, polluting stock portfolios and pernicious political influence. This is theft —pure and simple― a tiny few robbing billions of people of their future to feed their insatiable greed.”
Oxfam calls on governments to:
- Reduce the emissions of the richest. Governments must introduce permanent income and wealth taxes on the top 1%, ban or punitively tax carbon-intensive luxury consumptions —starting with private jets and superyachts— and regulate corporations and investors to drastically and fairly reduce their emissions.
- Make rich polluters pay. Climate finance needs are growing rapidly, especially in Global South countries bearing the brunt of climate impacts. While rich countries agreed to mobilize $300 billion a year to help Global South countries cope with warming temperatures and switch to renewable energy, this amount falls drastically short from the $5 trillion climate the Global North owes in climate debt and reparations.
/ENDS
Daymn oxfam is based
Oxfam’s research shows that the richest 1% —comprising 77 million individuals, including billionaires, millionaires, and those earning over $140,000 per year in PPP terms— were responsible for 15.9% of global CO2 emissions in 2019. The bottom 50% (3.9 billion people with an average annual income of $2,000 in PPP terms) accounted for 7.7%
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Where do i not believe in the truth?
Would you say if someone else murders a million people its fine for you to murder 3?
One Luigi per 100 persons, if there are no cops, we will need less Luigis
It would seem we have a pathway to save the planet, if this is the extant of their transgressions already.
Reminds me that Ben Elton's "This other Eden" imagined (decades ago) an innovative capitalist solution to lock away the 1% in their bubbles ...
To be fair, I have already failed to properly recycle an item or two, as well.