Americas richest 10% is responsible for 40% of its planet heating pollution
journals.plos.org
journals.plos.org
Yeah so the editorialized title is ignorant at best and deliberately misleading at worst. I've flagged it.
So the highest income have the highest emissions from income flows.
Did the authors somehow think this wasn’t true?
It's great because the top 10% are bad and the rest of us are good.
I'll hide under my bed (where I recycle my straw wrappers) if you show me global numbers.
USA total CO2 emissions are less than 14% of global emissions. You aren't doing the environment any favors by pretending that it's by targeting a subset of US population, that you are going to change anything relevant on global emissions.
Honestly though, limiting harmful things and/or pushing people towards the better solution is one of the roles of government. This is how we beat the prisoner paradoxes of modern life. For example I don't believe we should ban cars (nobody does), but I welcome good, affordable and available public transport. People living in places with good public transport don't have to depend so heavily on their car, and everyone is happier.
Yes, climate change is very real. But my current opinion is that 'solutions' are not. Especially while we're still fighting/escalating/anticipating wars between nations.
Solutions would take a truly global effort, but people generally don't want to sacrifice their democracies and have a 'new world order/world government' imposed upon them, let alone have their elected leaders puppeteered by shadowy forces 'above' them.
I'm surprised how many people have double-thinking. Bother about climate change and also fully support war production.
Cars, meat, heating and AC are not rights, and banning them - at at least moderating them within reason - is not totalitarian. And when it comes to the difference between living and at least cars and meat it's actually not such a hard choice.
Heating and AC are more complex: those can be life savers, especially when the climate gets more extreme. But there are other options: migrate to places where it isn't that hot or cold. And that's where we have a nice little feedback loop: on account of climate change the temperate zone where you are not expected to require much heating or much cooling is shrinking so you'll need more heating and more AC which will cause more energy to be pumped into the atmosphere.
Those 'little people' are still by and large the richest fraction of the world population (they have cars, eat meat, have heated houses and AC). It's the real poor who pay the price for all this.
According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, some things that aren't rights, are: - Gay marriage; - Abortion; - Self Determination of Gender; - Education above the fundamental level.
What if gas taxes were higher in the US (maybe a bit proportional to income?), and after 20 years there were instead lots of subways, and streets were bike and pedestrian friendly ... (like here where I live)
We have no right to prerequisites for being a productive worker (safe shelter, food, the ability to travel to a workplace)
But we have to maintain the right for people to breed a dozen kids if they feel like it, despite population being the multiplier that scales every single problem the world faces.
That's the big one which people don't understand. The poor that has five kids is doing more harm to the planet than the rich who has only one kid.
Wife and I decided, on purpose and for that reason, to have only one kid.
And no matter what we do during our lifetime, we're polluting less than people having more than one kid. It's a fact and a simple one. Yet people simply don't understand.
My father had four kids. Today's world problems are his fault and nobody is changing my mind on that.
And don't even get me started on people having many kids for religious purposes, to conquer the world with the women's bellies (as they say): they'll get the planet they deserve.
Btw don't know if you've seen: Mouse Heaven or Mouse Hell, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31905218
Targeting that subset in the US and other countries, seems to have real effects, the opposite to what you said.
(if whatever methods chosen to influence their behaviour, actually worked).
USA is a huge country, and compared to many Asian countries, it's not polluting anywhere near the same amount compared to their available natural resources.
The same way you may feel it's acceptable to tell Americans: "well, consume less", others else should feel acceptable to tell China and others: "well, procreate less".
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/270164/fertility-rate-in...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/269941/fertility-rate-in...
Look at the population pyramid - look at how much fewer people there are, below 30 (a sharp dip), and a small shortage of women on top of that.
That's 30 years lag
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China (from 2020)
Surely if an American citizen buys a product from China, the emissions involved in producing that product and shipping it over are counted against America, right?
If the US ships rubbish to a foreign country where it's burnt (because they were the cheapest option), are those emissions counted against the US?
(Btw there are now some sibling comments)
First of all, such things are of the top 0.1%, not the 10%. You need to be thinking of more mundane things. As someone on this forum you very likely belong to the top 10%.
How often do you order on Amazon? How often do you dine out? Do you have a heated pool? How often do you fly? How often do you eat beef or pork? How long is your daily commute?
Those are the sort of things that influence your CO2 expenditure. Sure you could 10x that with flying private jets, but almost no one does that so it's not as significant.
When my boss's boss's boss spends 4 hours on a private jet he creates as much CO2 as I do in a year.
I need a house. He doesnt need a jet. His jet should be banned yesterday.
Between banning private jets and banning parking lots, guess which one would be better for the environment?
Americans really don't understand (a) how wealthy they all are and (b) how a lot of this wealth is based on completely wasteful spending.
(Discussing pros and cons, with links to the research.) https://humantransit.org/2010/03/does-highdensity-life-have-...
High density destroys plant life, increases traffic delays for delivery of goods, and increases the number of goods that are delivered. Transporting humans to their jobs is a very small fraction of our carbon footprint overall. And there are more pressing environmental concerns than just carbon emissions.
Larger homes promote sharing. One vacuum cleaner for example.
Stop parroting high density marketing. Stop destroying the environment to enrich investors.
So to answer, money determines needs.
According to who?
So it doesn't matter what he does, it's not statistically significant.
Sidebar: your boss's boss's boss's should be allowed his private jet - he should just pay a fair price for the fuel that reflects the damage he is doing. Like 10x the current price.
If flying private incurs 10x or 100x the externality costs of flying coach, it should be priced (taxed really) to reflect that a significant portion of those externality costs are an unnecessary luxury benefit.
You dont think they need to take personal responsibility for their actions? That we dont need to hold them accountable?
It's not about accountability, it's about stopping climate change so our current biomes don't degrade.
Directing your anger and energy at some small group of people that have an insignificant impact as small as the country of Uganda is simply not worth it or even relevant.
While you're whining about rich people, wealthy people in general are destroying the fucking planet. It's them who should be held responsible. It's them who complain when gas prices get high, it's them who vote against participating in the Paris accord. It's them who vote against stopping trade with China. It's them who should have been educated, who should have taken it seriously.
Commercial flight is not great for CO2 emissions either. Because a small group of people flies instead of walking or bicycling, a lot of CO2 emissions are produced.
I bet the sum total CO2 of commercial flight is way higher the sum total of CO2 from private flights. Neither is necessary.
I tried walking across the Atlantic once but didn't get very far.
Yesterday I also couldn't find any commercial flights to the grocery store either, so I had to bike there.
> I bet the sum total CO2 of commercial flight is way higher the sum total of CO2 from private flights. Neither is necessary.
The notion that flying is "unnecessary" ignores those of us who immigrated across an ocean. Unless I never want to see my aging family again I will have to fly every now and then.
I would love to know why/how you believed that line makes any sense.
Which then leads to who deserves first class rather than coach, which then leads to who deserves a private jet versus a plane. Or even who deserves a personal car rather than using the bus or having to carpool.
Why is it even worth discussing then?
Neither house nor private jet is an environmentally conscious choice. Either way you've both told every other inhabitant on the planet to suck it, you're getting yours.
You took the bait. Swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
I bought shrimp the other day, they were farmed locally, transported to Malaysia, peeled there and transported back. I bought canned pears, they traveleled the world too.
So while you are arguing and pointing fingers at other consumers over irrelevant cocempts like eating out, industry continues its destructing practices that are actually responsible for majority of emissions
Industry and consumers will continue these destructive practices until they're forced to not engage in them.
By the way, not that it's relevant. But the locally produced tomatoes that I buy in the super market have a way higher CO2 footprint than your shrimp that have been shipped to Malaysia and back. But that might be a quirk of the country I'm in.
edit: eh unless the shrimp have been cultured in heated pools, that might be even worse than our heated tomato farms.
But your point about carbon footprint of tomato vs shrimp perfectly ullustrates that the issue is too complex to lay on the consumer.
You can't be expected to do hours of research on every grocery item you buy. And most people don't even have the required knowledge for this kind of analysis. And the companies mislead consumer on purpose.
Recently relatives sent me a viseo which claims avocados are terrible because they need much more nutrients per kilo of product than tomato does. Which is not a reasonable comparison because avocado has fats and calories and tomato is mostly water. But they were convinced by this misinformation.
So I think the responsibility lies with the industry first, and consumer second.
Exactly, the 0.1% are part of the 10%
I suspect house size is mostly to blame.
But the solution is simple, tax everything the amount it costs to clean up the pollution it causes, and then use that money to clean up the pollution. If importing from a country that does not to this, tax the imports.
The only realistic storage option is solid carbon and that is why I put the price tag so high.
I don't think it's investment in real estate, but more: a 0.05% stake in GM for instance. If the 40% is as a result of investments in companies that pollute, then I fail to see the point of the article. It makes little difference if those positions are held by the richest 10% or the poorest, the environmental impact is the same.
There is a question of whether climate change is a minor concern for the wealthiest individuals, compared to the middle class. Most evidence seems to show that the rich simply do not care or at least do not feel like they should make changes to their lifestyle.
Currently taxing seems like the only viable solution, but can we really tax a private jet enough that those who use them the most would scale back? I doubt it. What would a flight from San Jose to San Francisco need to cost to stop someone like Elon Musk from firing up the jet?
The money that these things cost to the public health service is easily quantified. I expect the taxes to reflect that.
>making low CO2 alternatives much more attractive
If there were "low CO2 alternatives" you wouldn't have to tax stuff, you could just force people to use them, and no one would really complain. Like it happened with CFCs. But taking a train instead of driving your car is not an alternative, it's rubbish.
Bikes aren't an alternative because instead of adding bike infrastructure that costs 10% of car infrastructure, the freaking 6 lane stroad needs a 7th lane, because that's going to solve traffic!
Walking isn't an alternative because US cities and suburbs are largely devoid of trees and any sort of protection from the sun or rain along their sidewalks, if they even have sidewalks to begin with. Oh, trees also make for a nice view and protect pedestrians from bad drivers, instead of lawns everywhere (!!!!). Plus trees and some bushes contain the crazy, deafening, ear damaging levels of noise cars make at speeds higher than about 70kmph.
Worse, it is common to actually subsidise fossil fuels.
Most of the worlds large forests are no more, many European countries are stripped of their old forests, so replanting those are required anyway, for other environmental concerns. They could on a permanent basis capture some percentage of the CO2. It is permanent if you view it as a forest and not individual tree.
I think that's basically correct on the scale that's needed. I don't even think turning trees into building materials is enough.
Planting a lot of trees and letting forests grow has the advantage that it's obviously possible with current tech, while the forest is expanding in mass that CO2 is being scrubbed, and it's conspicuously visible to people (garnering feelings of goodwill and participation), but I don't believe the relatively small amount of incremental forest that we could reasonably create will make a meaningful change on a 100-year basis.
There are other reasons to plant trees (well, plant plants in general), notably around rehabilitating land that is on the verge of desertification or the like.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/10/pentagon-cli...
https://theconversation.com/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter...
Its easy to forget - after all, this particularly heinous polluter of the world operates in near-total secrecy - but it must be taken into account in all of these assessments.
When you add its military pollution, the numbers for the American people are even more atrocious.
(Disclaimer: I've worked on products designed to reduce these emissions .. I know full well how monumental the task is ..)
Still, there aren't that many of them and we can probably create an overconsumption tax that would handle most of it. At least we could get money from them to repair the damage.
[0]Which the wealthy do more of by definition.
It's not essential that the rich have a greater impact. Similarly, rich nations are in a better position to take action.
The gist of the study that Kelly performed showed that many, if not most, companies with good E values are companies who never had environmental impact in the first place. They exist in well trodden spaces whose biggest impacts were office space and data centers. The net action of divesture causes less money available to be able to innovate, doesn't provide the kind of momentum an activist investor like Engine Number 1 can, and works by proliferating the idea that change can be claimed by effectively ignoring that problematic companies exist and will continue to exist. The last bit, for those unaware, comes from the fact that even if all cars today were made fully electric there is still a huge line of demand for essential products, like fertilizer, that include oil derivatives.
My point more broadly being in order to judge consumers you can't just look at holdings, you need to see what they're materially supporting. If they materially support the indefinite expansion of oil extraction and not trying to innovate away from oil then they're doing harm. Simply investing in a company is not indication of how an investor would vote when presented an opportunity to change the company direction by a group of activists. Engine Number 1 did exactly this with Exxon and shareholders voted as I described.
If wealth was redistributed, some people would be able to start affording rent and groceries (instead of have to choose one or the other): they would not necessarily be able to start flying on private jets. If wealth was redistributed, some folks may be able to afford to buy a newer more fuel efficient car (or hybrid/EV) instead of limping along in their 2004 Chevy.
I was hoping for a tally of extensive air travel, multiple homes, helicoptering in and out of burning Man, and similar follies.
Amazon's emissions are created by producing and shipping the crap you buy. You triggered the bad action.
So at least, going by the logic of "who triggers" _(not going into sensibility or customer IQ/EQ, but purely sticking to the point that was OP described clearly – "who triggers")_ – the company's Marketing departments are definitely a direct trigger, and at least that portion (% of non-organic) should be held accountable by the company.
We in India know tragedy of commons too well: blame everybody and nothing significant happens. It's not a solution, it's a rant.
The producers of pollution would be irrelevant if they had no customers.
If you're intelligent enough to read and comment on HN, you should be capable of thinking about things in a more nuanced way.
This is such a well formulated response and I just wanted to include part of it that I feel clicked with me. If I understand correctly, one entity cant take all blame because that entity also depends on actions from another entity.
It depends, in some (rare?) cases, they can.
Could depend on, for example, who knew about it but ignored it, who did it intentionally, who didn't know about it.
Getting away with not paying your externalities is the reason things are cheaper than your competition. Tax pollution correctly.
I mean, does customers/people while buying something from big company should check big company logistic, partners, technologies,travel records to define climate impact of this company?
No one did anything illegal, and that's the only standard that really counts. Whether something is legal is society's agreed level of whether something is wrong or not. Otherwise it can only be described as disagreeable or maybe immoral. That's why the government are partly responsible - they failed to legislate well enough.
Neither would be. That's just how markets work. If you think the market produces more harm than good, than that is a government issue, and what you want is more regulation. Which fairly impacts both profit and consumption equally.
> I was hoping for a tally of extensive air travel, multiple homes, helicoptering in and out of burning Man, and similar follies.
Yea, I prefer a little more entertainment in my class warfare, too.
Whyy are not the externalities owned by the owner of the product?
I can think of only 2 reasons:
- the consumer was forced to purchase the product without an option with dire consequences. In this case, the dominator is responsible. This is pretty much anything your taxes buy.
- the producer lied or hid something about the product. In this case, the liar is responsible. E.g., the lies about recycling plastic, the outcome of using internal combustion engines, the safety of leaded gasoline. The list of that is simply enormous.
What other complications do you see?
Fixing the problem of climate change requires deep economic restructuring, and much of the responsibility there lies with those who have the most power to enact these changes (i.e. politicians, ceos, large shareholders). Treating climate change as an issue of individual consumer responsibility has been a long term tactic of large polluters (e.g. oil firms) to shift attention and blame from their damaging activities.
You can give up your trips to Bali and use the money to live closer to work, for example.
You can use a bicycle instead of a car for short trips.
You can decide not to eat food that it's been shipped halfway around the world unless that is the most responsible option available to you.
You can use the disposable grocery bags and not those environmentally damaging reusable ones.
And do on...
> Results suggest an alternative income or shareholder-based carbon tax, focused on investments, may have equity advantages over traditional consumer-facing cap-and-trade or carbon tax options and be a useful policy tool to encourage decarbonization while raising revenue for climate finance.
You're not an active participant functionally in society - as a shareholder/investor I'm pretty sure you can directly influence company policy if you extend yourself. You may not be able to dictate it if you do not have decision-making power, but nevertheless your words would most likely be more valued than the average person's.
People are assaulted by ad campaigns. Advertisement companies and corporations have subverted or even hacked the average person's brain - you are convinced in 50+ different directions to buy X product, get the latest version, or get a new subscription. It's easy to depend on corporations to solve all your problems. It's a carefully crafted dopamine rush; seeing the ad(s), buying the product, using unsustainable services like Amazon or even the major shipping companies to ship your item from wherever with copious amounts of emissions.
Do the people want a new iPhone every year? Well, even if they didn't, they are coerced to upgrade by the cellular phone companies (who probably recycle to some degree if you trade-in, but I digress). Or - they are convinced by Apple themselves - which is some sort of cult in its own right.
Planned obsolescence should be illegal, and I'm sure these mostly wasteful practices are not necessary in the grand scheme of things.
Apple has done a lot of harmful things to the phone to perpetuate this business model: removing the ability to easily replace the battery as a consumer/non-licensed repairman (which is probably a major cause of failure/new phone purchases) and AFAIK not allowing aftermarket/third-party components with a DRM restriction (e.g. screens). Why get your phone repaired (or mess around with their self-repair kit) when you can get yet another phone that was senselessly made because one thing got a little better. I wonder how many phones exist currently in the United States vs. our population. Something to look into I suppose.
But regardless, the biggest sickness (in my mind) of the US with how we do business is the fact that we choose to clog the highways with trucks loaded to the brim/airplanes to ship products domestically/commercially.
I'm only a layman, but I can't imagine that's an efficient use of energy when compared to alternatives like high speed rail - which is something we absolutely need to consider investing in as a society if we ever want to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. For transportation we need to consider this, and most assuredly for freight. If we could lay rail way back then; we can now + we can 1) plan it exponentially better with many technology advancements 2) fully power these services with renewable energy.
The best I can do as a non-investor, as somebody who has little resources/no clout, is this post right here. In a world of unelected corporations (read: anti-competitive monopolies) who essentially govern over me (legalized bribery/lobbying), rape the environment and make people dependent on them, and nobody in "power" is truly playing hardball with them and their unlimited greed -- I'm pretty helpless to do anything, but go with the flow (besides, though very unlikely, get filthy rich from a lottery ticket and emulate Musk). That's what the average American does, even the average voter who votes blue.
If you have money, you can effect change. If you know people with money, you can effect change.
How's your record go on this. Even with family members (not rich, but much richer than me) my influence is essentially zero versus the influence advertising has on them.
That probably pales against the influence those who pay them have.
Perhaps you meant "if you know people, with money, who are already won over to your cause; then you can effect change by partnering with them". Which is effectively "rich people can use they're influence on poor people, and their resources, to effect change".
Just as strikes by employees cause major companies to bend, I'd imagine the same would be true if there was a consensus among those who have a stake in the company/work there. I'm not suggesting that there necessarily needs to be strikes or market manipulation, just that applying focused, intense pressure collectively would cause the companies to bend. It may not be the smartest thing to do with your money in the short-term, but we desperately need to (yesterday) rally behind things like green energy and sustainability.
Changing hearts, moving minds, changing policy individually is hard. I do agree with you. I personally choose to reject the learned helplessness instilled by only voting correctly by calling people to action - to encourage discourse among their peers. If you're knowledgeable or have specific insight, speak out, make appearances or encourage and lift up those who are willing/capable to be in the spotlight.
I do absolutely realize that whatever I do is a drop in the bucket because I am essentially a nobody and am physically unwell. My heart is hardened by this backwards world, and I probably don't do many favors for the things I am passionate about because I rarely sugarcoat how I express myself. Still, I do what I can when I think can be a rational voice.
Putting yourself out on a limb - being gutsy and inspiring others, is something that has been forgotten largely in part (in my mind) due to the shattering of the middle class and because of mainstream media (and the divisiveness they instill).
But I'd like to say that moving forward as a society, in a way that makes everybody happy - with plentiful benefits to our economy, is something that only people with stakes in absolutely unethical companies (e.g. companies involved with fossil fuels) would openly take issue with.
The research is pretty clear: we need to shed this dirty habit if we want the Earth to be a good place.
Customers/the many should be more active in their purchases/the way they vote. But as I explained, advertisements largely brainwash people, and there aren't enough alternatives to simply boycott these companies.
Intelligent people, skilled people, (edit:) and people with money need to take the stage and move this world forward.
To be honest, America decided long ago the rest of the world would suffer as long as America could afford it.
There are many comments in this thread that are just blame shifting from one side to another. That is why there is not going to be done anything about it. There is always someone else to blame.
... close to the ocean
If Elon Musk owns 30% of Tesla, and Tesla produces 1 Gigaton of CO2 each year the study would assign 300 Megatons to Musk, even though the cars are produced for someone else(!).
It's all unnecessary stuff, you don't need a collosal mansion, that's the sort of thing which contributes to these figures. Their extremely vapid, "luxurious" lives ... It's sad
Western/industrial human civilisation has long since surpassed most human needs and moved on to human wants.
And that’s a good thing.
A family of 6 living in a single room could be thinking the same watching Home Improvement.
Space itself is a luxury (it has a knock on effect of increasing the distance everything within and around that space has to travel).
I might define multiple unused houses as not being a waste just like someone with multiple unused bedrooms defines it as not being waste. A “spare” house and an “spare” bedroom. And vice versa.
Greed and self interest trumps all.