As you get wealthier, you believe you need things, like a 3 br home where each kid has their own room. If money gets tight, you realize a 2 br is actually fine. Problem is, when you consider downgrading you feel that need a lot more than if you’d never had it. Same goes for the jet. That 2 hr trip suddenly feels really critical compared to just planning your travel better. Wasn’t there a post here recently where Musk redirected his cousin’s plane to go unplug some servers? Where was he going that was so important in the middle of the night? And could that detour have waited for a normal flight booking? And apparently the decision turned out do be a mistake according ti Musk himself.

So to answer, money determines needs.

People pushing this agenda, obviously. Think about the regulatory capture poosibilities!

Credit rating agencies, who never done their job properly.

Statistics do.

I don’t think the argument being made is that the cost should be proportionate to wealth, but proportionate to impact or alternatives.

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.

"Based on the damage he is doing" is not " based on the money he has"

Sure, tax the 0.1% in proportion to the damage they are doing, but don’t use that as an excuse for the rest of us to sit back and think we’ve made much of a difference to the overall problem.

Climate change is not some game where the goal is to enact petty revenge on people who are trying to lose the game.

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.

> Because a small group of people refuses to fly commercial, more CO2 emissions are produced than the entire country of Uganda.

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.

It’s not, it’s a massive distraction that makes people feel like they’re doing righteous class warfare, while barely making a dent on climate damage.

I think the reason it's discussed is "if I cannot destroy the planet in your country, I'll do that in another country (which won't change anything for the planet) where I'll go invest my money too (which means less money for your country)". And politians seem to buy on the threat, either because they truly believe it, or because they don't want to piss of the rich guys so they can get an overpaid job in one of their companies after their political career.

Because it creates an easy scapegoat for our problems. It's much easier to point to the behaviors of a very tiny group of individuals and lay all the blame on the them than it is to grapple with the real truth of climate change: that our modern society is unsustainable. Barring some grand technological revolution, reversing climate change means bringing us all back to a pre-modern society. And that really sucks.

Taking a train isn't an alternative because train tracks were literally torn from the ground. As were tram tracks.

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.

I mean you're not wrong, but if we take that view the only permanent solution if to capture the CO2 and stuff it back into the ground, preferably as a relatively stable substance such as coal or oil.

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.

Trees also cool their environments through evapotranspiration as well as literally converting sunlight into sugars. There's more benefit than just carbon capture per se.