this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime (www.oxfam.org)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
35 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

“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.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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?".

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If she was a good billionaire, she wouldn't have hoarded wealth to this degree! Yes, Bezos is 200x worse, but I would bet (less than $1B) that she will catch up in the next decade and we'll all still be apologizing for her.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I ain't apologizing for her now. My point is to work on the ones that are more easily hated by more people in order to raise awareness.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I disagree, this flip-flop logic is what drags down the movement and allows "no billionaires except the ones I like" idea to poison the public discourse. If we collectively stick to a unified view we have much more power in changing things.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes let's take the most wildly liked billionaire and make them our example. Surely that will convince people to join us.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Personally, my goal is to challenge people to think critically about billionaires. Taylor Swift is a great example precisely because fans have put her on a pedestal where she can do no wrong. If the goal is to gather an angry mob, then sure, it's more effective to focus on Bezos, the guy they already dislike.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

The point is that there is no "better ones". The billionaire should not be socially acceptable concept ever. Full stop.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

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.

[–] ogmios 34 points 2 weeks ago

We must all do our part to curb carbon emissions.

No not like that!

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Billionaires are a problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Billionaires are a problem.

Always has been

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There are obvious, executable solutions.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

I mean murdering people is extremist.

Taking their money would achieve the same.

[–] JohnDClay 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Here's the actual study

https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621656/bp-carbon-inequality-kills-281024-en.pdf?sequence=1

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Im beginning to give up on lemmy. Thanks for trying.

[–] themoonisacheese 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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?

[–] JohnDClay 10 points 2 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago

If we eliminate all the billionaires the rest of us will continue to live for at least another century.... It is worth doing.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

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.

[–] kambusha 10 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Including investments seems a bit disingenuous. I'm sure their personal carbon footprint is already huge without having to include that.

[–] JohnDClay 20 points 2 weeks ago

If you don't include investment emissions, they'd emit more in 22 days than the average person does in their life.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] kambusha 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

I think people should have some responsibility for the emissions of their investments. If I'm exclusively investing in fossil fuel companies I'd be directly investing in emitting carbon. In the case of the billionaire class, some companies would have never attempted certain projects or even stayed in business without their billionaire supporters. They may have even been able to take losses and coast on investments while they grab their share of the market then shift to being more profitable.

The manipulation some billionaires do with their money is insane. Jeff Bezos managed to shuffle his assets and investments around just right one year that he was "poor enough" income wise to collect a tax benefit for his kid. We absolutely need to include investments when we are judging billionaires, it is often their investments that keep them rich, not some massive pile of cash or gold stashed away somewhere.

[–] Disaster 3 points 2 weeks ago

Not really, unless you directly purchase the shares, you get no proxy voting rights on corporate governance.

When you have an investment account, do you know who does take your money and hold the corporate governance rights? The fund managers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Who should be responsible for the pollution of the investments if not the one profiting off them?

[–] Kecessa -1 points 2 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

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

[–] JohnDClay 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Man the more u hear about this Mr. Billionaire fellow the more I don't like him

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

that which is eaten cannot emit carbon pollution