Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime
Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime
“The super-rich are treating our planet like their personal playground, setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit. Their dirty investments and luxury toys —private jets and yachts— aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.
Try mentioning this to Tailor Swift fans and you'll get immediately crucified. We should normalize the idea that THERE ARE NO ETHICAL BILLIONAIRES. Period.
It's a staggering amount of wealth that allows to do shit like this and why do we tolerate this is will be eternally confusing to me.
Not only is this an issue of equality but it's a social issue as well. People stop taking public responsibility issues like pollution or climate change seriously because "if private jets are legal then why should I do anything?".
Try mentioning this to Tailor Swift fans and you'll get immediately crucified. We should normalize the idea that THERE ARE NO ETHICAL BILLIONAIRES. Period.
While I agree with your sentiment, I don't think she's the place to start bitching. She's one of the "better" ones in that she's not out here actively hunting the poor on an island somewhere. You start with folks like Musk, Bezos, and Murdoch, and by shining a light on the billionaires that are stealing the wealth and resources of entire countries but staying out of the limelight by keeping their fucking mouths shut. Then we start moving towards Swift. Otherwise the message will just get drowned out by fans.
The point is that there is no "better ones". The billionaire should not be socially acceptable concept ever. Full stop.
You can add Gaben to that list. Steam can do no wrong even though Gaben spend between 75 and 100 million per year on maintenance for his yatch fleet.
Billionaire simps disgust me.
We must all do our part to curb carbon emissions.
No not like that!
Billionaires are a problem.
Billionaires are a problem.
Always has been
There are obvious, executable solutions.
Why is "death for billionaires" so taboo though? Clearly they're damaging our society much more than a single murderer or marijuana carrier and yet we have no problem accepting that these people should be punished socially but if you mention guillotines for billionaires then suddenly you're an extremist.
I mean murdering people is extremist.
Taking their money would achieve the same.
Here's the actual study
This number is almost entirely investment emissions, how much the companies they own emit.
Oxfam’s analysis found that investment emissions are the most significant part of a billionaire’s carbon footprint. The average investment emissions of 50 of the world's richest billionaires were around 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) each. That is around 340 times their emissions from private jets and superyachts combined. Each billionaire’s investment emissions are equivalent to almost 400,000 years of consumption emissions by the average person, or 2.6 million years of consumption emissions by someone in the poorest 50% of the world.44
Im beginning to give up on lemmy. Thanks for trying.
Aren't they responsible for the risk their investments carry? Isn't that part of the value proposition?
If they have so much investments in companies producing CO2, why aren't they using their weight to push for lower emissions?
You could assign company emissions to the consumers, the employees, or the owners. Without any one of those the company wouldn't emit. I just wanted to make it clear that this study assigns it to the owners.
If we eliminate all the billionaires the rest of us will continue to live for at least another century.... It is worth doing.
I'm vegetarian for the climate, but I'm willing to eat the rich for the climate too
This is bad. Reminder that there's just ~2000 of them known, though, so it only takes 8 seconds for everyone else to pass their annual emissions collectively.
It's not an excuse to not care about your own impact.
Including investments seems a bit disingenuous. I'm sure their personal carbon footprint is already huge without having to include that.
If you don't include investment emissions, they'd emit more in 22 days than the average person does in their life.
The power their money has when invested is far different than yours or mine. They could single handedly ensure certain companies do not fail, get specific contracts, bypass regulations and many other shady things.
Perhaps, but think of it this way: you likely have money invested or money that is invested on your behalf, whether that's personal, 401k, IRA, or government pension. Those are likely investments spread across many companies - so should your carbon footprint take into account what those companies are doing?
I'd suggest that companies should be responsible for their carbon footprint, and legislated accordingly. Pushing it to investors, or on their customers, just seems like passing the buck.
Rig elections
Who should be responsible for the pollution of the investments if not the one profiting off them?
Yep, these companies wouldn't stop existing if their shares were distributed evenly between people and the clients should be considered responsible for the emissions considering they're the ones requesting the product.
There are so many better climate change comparisons than this yet I keep hearing this stupid one repeated over and over. Ultimately it doesn't matter than billionaires personally emite more carbon than "the average person" because even if they dropped that stat to match the average there would be absolutely no difference.
Target the biggest carbon emitters which is businesses. Every time carbon emissions is brought up it should be in the context of making businesses emit less carbon. Make them pay for emitting carbon, give tax credits for green technology that stuff will be infinetly more effective that targeting specific people.
I don't care that Taylor swift took a jet to her concert its not her issue to fix. Its the responsibility of the government to solve this through strong environmental policy. Government policy changing incentives will flow down to the individual and adjust their behaviour instead of a mob trying to shame individuals into changing their behaviour.
Billionaires usually are business leaders.
Musk and Bezos etc. There's a few exceptions like Swift but for the most part you're talking about the same people.
I know they are the same people but it's still two different things. A persons carbon footprint is different to the business even if that person is the ceo
Almost all of these emissions in the headline are from the businesses they own shares in. So this is saying business emissions, just in a non-intuitive roundabout way.
Man the more u hear about this Mr. Billionaire fellow the more I don't like him
that which is eaten cannot emit carbon pollution