Comment by mancerayder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mancerayder | Hacker News Reader

I came to the article thinking I might have found something interesting to learn, and then I came across this:

Starr and his colleagues analyzed income data across U.S. households from 1990 to 2019 and linked it to emissions generated directly and indirectly from that income. They included income tied to emissions related to the operation of a business, such as from a coal-fired power plant. But they also included income, such as from investments, that supported services or products from those industries.

“As you move up the income ladder, an increasing share of emissions is associated with investments,” said Starr

So this reads almost like an implicit tautology, if I can phrase it like that. Basically, investments are tied to climate emissions -> wealthier people have more of these (because wealth is defined this way, hence tautology) -> wealthy are tied to carbon emissions.

Not useful. I was hoping to read about air travel or large homes or such.

It's worse than that. It neglects that investments only are associated with emissions because they are one side of a trade that results in emission producing activities. While willing investment could be argued to be a necessary precursor of greater emissions, willing labor, amongst other factors, is also a necessary ingredient without which the emissions don't happen. Allocating some of that responsibility to those on the other side of that trade is appropriate for a more complete accounting.

However, if you read Dr. Starr's self-description I suspect there's a specific narrative he's looking for:

"My research analyzes how economic inequality – particularly at the very top of the income distribution – shapes the distribution of environmental benefits and harms through the global economy." (https://www.jaredstarr.com/about)

Yeah, there is willing investment, willing labour, and willing consumption, and this article seems to put all criticism on the first, which is heavily skewed to the 1%, while not looking at second and third, which is skewed towards the bottom 99%.

I'm not saying you can't criticize the 1% for being massively wasteful consumers, it's entirely legitimate to criticize them. But as most consumption is by the 99%, the companies owned by the 1% mainly serve the consumption of the masses, not of the 1%.

There should be a term for social science clickbait, which is a lot of what these social science 'studies' seem to turn into.

Given the replication crisis, it's safe to assume pretty much everything from the social sciences at this point in time is outright false, if not deliberate propaganda -- because if you're funded by the Muppets Are Better At Everything Foundation, you sure aren't going to publish a paper titled "Actually, Muppets Are Just Puppets With Extra Proctology".

Rich landowning cattle ranchers generate more greenhouse gas emissions than vegan college graduates that recycle.

It all comes down to attribution of emissions to producers vs consumers, and has been debated adnauseum.

Is the rancher emitting or the hamburger consumer. Is the plane passenger emitting, or a shareholder. Ect

> rich

> cattle ranchers

The fact that you think these two things go together really highlights how blinded by ideology you are.

i should have added /s

apologies if you are joking too

It's called "lysenkoism".

> In time, the term has come to be identified as any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically or socially desirable.

Well, if investing in coal plants is more profitable than investing in other investments, then we would expect people who invest in coal over solar to make more money and be richer.

And if it's not, we'd expect people to be investing in solar capacity instead, the manufacture of which has significant associated emissions.

I disagree. The attribution of money/credits/wealth points to a person or entity follows the exact same logic as the attribution of these hazardous emissions. You can’t have one and not the other.

What do you mean by 'same logic'?

I produce emissions from electricity, car, airplanes, etc. My stocks do not produce emissions. My emissions wouldn't go down if I sold all my stocks.

There are two ways to account for emissions and this study uses the wrong one. The first, the one that is produces the quote about how a few companies produce all the emissions, attributes emissions to the producer. The second attributes them to the consumer because they consume the energy.

The CO2 from gallon of gas isn't made by Exxon (excluding all the production) but from burning it in my car. The CO2 for electricity is produced at the plant but it is being used in my AC.

Exactly. And if consumers stopped purchasing gasoline, Exxon would be gone. Exxon is just serving consumer demand. The problem isn't Exxon, it's the consumers who want to burn enormous quantities of fuel in their gigantic SUVs.

While this is true to some extent, companies also play a major role at shaping the desires of the public, through advertising and lobbying etc. Look for example at the enormous impact of the car lobby on American cities, leading to much more cars on the roads and more emissions.

Cars are a necessity in America not because of car advertisements, but because of the low density of American towns and cities. Things are built that way because Americans want them like that, and it's nothing new: Americans started moving to the suburbs in the 1950s, partially because of the availability of inexpensive automobiles and fuel (mostly thanks to the post-war economic boom), and also because they didn't want to live near the black people in the inner cities. Outright racism drove a huge amount of why America looks the way it does now, as far as infrastructure and urban planning go. And it hasn't changed: just look at what Americans on online forums say when you try to suggest they live in dense, walkable cities and use subways. It'll either be comments about how they like having such a huge house and yard, or comments about the people living in inner cities.

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