[mslansn]

Don't know what rich assholes have to do with it, when all things I've seen proposed hurt poor people the most. Make meat unaffordable, make private transportation unaffordable, make travelling by plane unaffordable, make new clothes unaffordable, and the list goes on forever.

[MildlySerious]

That's exactly what rich assholes have to do with it. Why do you believe all the consequence falls onto the working class and the poorest, when the richest have per capita the largest emissions, by whole orders of magnitude?

Yeah, the changes required are systemic and go from the top all the way to the bottom, and the things you mention are part of that process, but pricing people out of everything without offering an off-ramp is sadistic bullshit, and the only reason it's a thing is because rich people and stock prices have more representation in politics than the poor and the environment.

[IncreasePosts]

Who cares about per capita emissions? Billionaires could have 1000x the emissions as normal people, but there are so few of them, cutting their emissions down to zero would have absolutely no impact on climate change.

[MildlySerious]

You could cut the emissions of the top 1% in half, or reduce the emissions of the bottom 4 billion to 0. Same result.

Which do you believe is likely the lower hanging fruit, has a higher return per dollar spent and is likely to be more ethical and less invasive?

So yeah. I care about per capita emissions on the grounds that things need to change fast, and adjusting the lifestyle of a few million is radically easier than wiping half the planet off the emissions map.

[IncreasePosts]

You're not actually looking at per capita emissions, you're looking at overall emissions. It isn't that the 1% to .1% are the biggest emitters, it's their emission levels multiplied by the size of the class.

Billionaires aren't the 1%, they're the 0.00003%.

Top 1% globally is basically anyone making more than $100k/yr.

If you deleted all billionaires from existence, it would make no impact on climate change. If you deleted all 1% ers and left the billionaires, there will be a huge improvement in climate changing emissions

[phatskat]

Do you consider the factories, farms, etc that they own to be part of the equation? I do, and so if you were to “cut the emissions down to zero” of the owner of a large chicken processing company, all those factory farms disappear and that’s not peanuts for climate change.

[tonyedgecombe]

Do you think carbon emissions are coming from poor people’s consumption?

Even in the US only half the population will fly in any year and you can be sure it’s not the poorer half.

It’s not the rich half using public transport, they are only going to benefit from a transition away from private car ownership.

[throwaway5752]

Yes. Poorer people buy things made overseas that requires a lot of shipping, and are lower quality that require more frequent replacement. They tend to have more children. They usually have more polluting energy sources. And there are many orders of magnitude more of them than rich people.

None of this is their fault, but ignoring it isn't good either.

All aircraft emissions are just 3% of US total. If all rich people (either the top 1% or 10%) reduced their emissions to zero tomorrow we would still not reach reduction targets needed to avoid catastrophic warming.

Everyone needs to contribute.

[sorcerer-mar]

Shipping the things that poor people buy is almost unfathomably eco-friendly.

Gargantuan slow ships are actually a great way to move stuff.

[tonyedgecombe]

>Yes. Poorer people buy things made overseas that requires a lot of shipping, and are lower quality that require more frequent replacement. They tend to have more children. They usually have more polluting energy sources. And there are many orders of magnitude more of them than rich people.

A few cheap gadgets are dwarfed by a flight to Bali, new SUV or large house.

Aircraft emissions are 3% of the global total, for the US it is much higher (~9%)[1] and for the richest 10% it is higher again.

You can't get away from the fact that emissions are going to be reasonably well correlated with spending [2] and the poor don't spend very much.

>Everyone needs to contribute.

If we get a real handle on our carbon emissions then the lives of the poor will improve.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/transportation-sector-emiss...

[2] https://climatefactchecks.org/worlds-richest-10-linked-to-tw...

[trollbridge]

I'm a little sceptical of claims like "poor people cause more pollution because they have more children than rich people do".

[tonyedgecombe]

Besides anything else although the birth rate varies according to income the variation isn't that big. It's dwarfed by the difference in income and hence consumption.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

[throwaway5752]

Having a child is on of the most carbon intensive actions any given person can make.

The numbers are what they are. Rich people have much greater obligation to reduce their emissions. They benefit most from economic activity and they cause the most emissions per capita.

If there were zero rich people tomorrow we would still have an emissions problem for the climate.

[adolph]

> Having a child is on of the most carbon intensive actions any given person can make.

What about continuing to live at all? That is a decision people make every moment of the day and are not being held accountable for it at all.

If there were zero people tomorrow there would be still be an ongoing problem for the climate from the changes wreaked already.

[throwaway5752]

I indelicately started a contentious topic that didn't have to exist. If I were given a fresh chance, I'd have just said that carbon emissions and the changes they are causing to the planet are a bigger problem than any single economic class or nation.

That might have caused some controversy, too, but is closer to what I meant. Your point is well taken, but maybe if I posted differently the ensuing discussion would have been less acrimonious.

[thejazzman]

You're correct that 24h is not enough time, but wrong to suggest that the world would remain perfectly static instead of changing.

There would be dramatic reforestation, algae growth, etc.

[bilsbie]

What if the child is a climate activist?