this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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Your numbers are way off here. (https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/research-report-carbon-inequality-era.pdf ) in 2025, the top 1% only accounted for 15% of global emissions. The rest are still generated by the general public. Sure, per person, the richest 1% have a disproportionally higher impact, but on a large scale, they dont matter that much.
Pushing this narrative takes the incentive of reducing your own impact away.
That study doesn’t account for what their money and influence does. These people use their money to, sure, fly private jets and heat massive houses and drive big luxury cars and eat exotic foods. But they also use it to prop up massive businesses, push for outsourcing, drill, mine. We don’t. That’s what I’m talking about.
That is what needs to change. And that isn’t quantified. It can’t be. But that is insurmountable.
But then you look at things like this and we can start to understand how massive the imbalance is.
They dont drill and mine for fun. They do it because people consume their products. Sure, they do a lot of manipulating and lobbying to ensure that doesnt change, but the decision stilllies with the consumer.
'I wont change my behaviour because the rich manipulate us not to change our behaviour so the system has to change' will never bring any change.
Politics does not know what inside the populations heads. They wouldnt know if 90% of the population wants automobile companies banned when everyone is still using cars. Sure, there are questionnaires and statistics but thats not what drives politics. Its where the moneys at.
I think you missed the part where I said I have changed my behavior to be kinder to the environment. I don’t drive, I ride my bike most places or use PT, I rarely eat meat, I don’t order things online, especially from Amazon and major retailers like that. Doing what we can is always great.
My entire point is that we are responsible for 20% of emissions and massive corporations are responsible for 80%. And then when you factor in the fact that the richest 1% account for an inordinate amount of individual emissions—I mean, it feels like you’re going way out of your way to throw yourself over the puddle of blame so the poor, poor wealthy elite don’t get their farragamo loafers a little damp.
No shit companies need customers, but that just feels so incredibly disingenuous of an excuse when you factor in the decades—centuries of lobbying, covering scientific reports on the subject, recklessness with environmental safety to save a few thousand dollars, the endless outsourcing to bring profits up, the endless greenwashing.
It’s pretty goddamn tough to shield your eyes from the truth that the wealthiest among us are largely responsible for the current climate catastrophe, but you’re somehow finding a way and don’t see how ridiculous it is to throw yourself between the truth and them.