Wealthiest 10% of US Households Responsible for 40% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Study
Wealthiest 10% of US Households Responsible for 40% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Study
"Without policies such as regulations or taxes on very polluting investments, it's unlikely that wealthy individuals making a lot of money from fossil fuel investments will stop investing in them," says one economist.
Do your part and recycle your plastics, peasants!
Flies away in private jet
A valid critique, but also worth mentioning, as discussed in the article, much of the GHG emissions for the top 10% (which includes households down to ~$200k) comes from passive income.
Friendly reminder to check who you bank with and what's in your 401k if you find yourself in that group.
Those "peasants" are responsible for the remaining 60 percent. And since those "peasants" also give these wealthy individuals money by buying useless stuff from them, you could even say that it's higher than that.
I’d like to see it divided up even more on the top 10%. To be in the top 10% of household income in the US, you would need to earn $184,000/year. That’s just two people earning $92k/year, which is reasonable for mid career or early mid career in or near a city.
TIL I'm in the top 10%. Yeah I can't believe I pollute any more than the other 90%. I work 100% from home, only my wife commutes 3 days a week. House is a modest 2200 sq ft. I don't have a boat or RV or plane or anything. I have some modest investment in hotels, cruise lines, and airlines (like under $5k all in). So yeah, this study leaves a lot to be desired.
EDIT: I guess my 401k or other managed investment accounts may have money in fossil fuels, but I'm not sure how I would know that or what exactly I would do about it. I have zero choice for the 401k as it's through my company. Other accounts maybe but how would one even track down managed investment accounts that don't include the largest pollution contributors?
Like lots of data, it's an average. There are lots of people, similar to you, who are not absolute gas guzzlers I'm the top 10%. The top 10% also includes the 1% and the .1%, which will greatly increase the average for the entire category.
Similarly to how an average doesn't tell the whole story, neither does how you invest. Assumptions have to be made to come up with these articles, such as how much carbon emissions are created through investments, which isn't exactly cut and dry.
TL;DR just because an article says that a group of people are the cause of something, it doesn't mean that everyone in the group is causing it.
What I got from the study is source of your wage and investments have more to do with how much of a high polluter you are than what you choose to do individually. So you could be a high wage earner who lives in a tent and bikes and invests a majority of their money that grows in profit, and that because of the growing investments and employer make you a higher polluter than someone who lives in a huge house and drives suvs and pick ups and doesn't see their net worth grow due to so much of their stuff being financed.
With the money source being weighted this kind of feels more like an industry analysis despite the individual focus with how indirect it is, and based on some of comments here I guess people didn't read the article either not realizing it has less to do with individual efforts like solar or private jets. At least that's what I got from my attempt to understand the study.
Conclusion seems to be more that companies that pollute pay higher wages than a study of direct household pollution.
I’d like to see it divided up even more on the top 10%.
Well the boy howdy do I have good news for you! If you read the article linked (and even better, the open access Journal article linked) you may find some cool nuggets like:
"Among the highest-earning 1% of households (whose income is linked to 15-17% of national emissions), investment holdings account for 38-43% of their emissions,"
And
Then there were "super-emitters" with extremely high overall greenhouse gas emissions, corresponding to about the top 0.1% of households. About 15 days of emissions from a super-emitter was equal to a lifetime of emissions for someone in the poorest 10% in America.
Clicking into the journal article you may even find cool figures like this one, showing breakdown of emissions by category for each income group:
https://journals.plos.org/climate/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000190.g001
Or this table showing the share of national emissions for each percentile:
https://journals.plos.org/climate/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000190.t001
Every time I read about the ultra rich the exceed my negative expectations. 15 days = 1 lifetime is waaay more than I thought. My guess would have been like 1 year to build up that much. Wtf are they doing
Kind of confusing study. I thought it would outline how specifically those 10% are emitting that many gasses, so doing breakdowns like how much it costs to operate their homes and breakdowns of their methods of travel.
But, it is taking into consideration stuff like company they work for so like someone who lives without electricity in a tent and bikes but gets a high wages from a petroleum factory while investing most of their money as an engineer would be considered to be a higher gas emitter than someone who works in insurance while driving suvs and pickup trucks and living in a huge house.
It's pretty abstract. Makes for a catchy headline, but not the direct picture I was hoping for when it comes to a household because it's more an industry revenue analysis.
For those that want to skip straight to the study here it is
https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000190
Yeah and if the head of an oil company decides to just stop producing then the price will jump for a bit but then others will fill it's place since demand didn't change.
I feel as if this study is only trying to make people angry and have a scapegoat while making them not change anything relevant.
Sure the use of jets and yachts by the richest is a huge asshole move but the biggest leverage is when everyone would stop eating meat or using bikes instead of cars whenever possible
Yeah, because of the revenue and investment source focus of the study what I found interesting is that two people who work at the same place and earns the same salary could lead to the one who invests the money becoming the higher polluter according to the study. Even though the other person is the stereotypical polluter eating meat, mortgage on a huge house, and driving huge cars in contrast to the more minimalistic lifestyle of the other person being the stereotypical green individual who doesn't eat meat and opts for public transport and a modest home.
Like this study is formulated in a way where the numbers are more appropriate for industry analysis than individual household analysis. Data is set in a way that it could be said it's better in the long run to drive suvs than it is to invest, or high polluting companies pay more livable wages. Or if you have million dollars it's less damaging to the environment in the long run to spend that money buying Suvs for your neighbors over investing it with the risk of the assets increasing in valuation leading to bigger polluter stats.
something something eating the rich shold be considered vegan
The people will die of thirst and starvation, to ensure the perpetual growth and gluttony privilege of the rich is protected at all costs.
Compost the rich.
So we can start to save the earth by eating the rich right?
I kind of dislike studies like this. Because something like 70% of global greenhouse emissions is because around 20000 specific people that have names and addresses are choosing wealth over sustainability, these are people who literally have the power to stop what they are doing tomorrow and make a larger difference then 100 million voters. When you make things abstract and use terms like 1% you are hiding the real villains of the story.
Also market-based solutions like this:
The study asserts that "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."
Will never provide a solution to climate change, because market based solutions are designed to help the rich, not save the planet.
Thats actually waaaay lower than I would have guessed. Still not acceptable though.
No shit. Lol. I know it’s not me just running a computer & charging my phone.
Cool, switch to solar.
Saw a documentary about that. They don't give a dime.
Two questions :
40% of global emissions or domestic emissions?
What is a good recipe for billionaire stew?
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Mostly the latter, but more specifically 40% of the emissions generated by US household spending and activities. These emissions may not be strictly "domestic" as they can be produced abroad to support purchased goods and services.
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I don't know any good stew recipes, but I can make a mean billionaire sandwich.
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You don't say!