5 ms·

Super-rich US households emit +2000x CO2 as avg low-income households

67 points by cmarschner 4y ago

klyrs 4y ago
> we tend to underestimate the extent of area-based comparisons compared to length-based ones. so the disparity is even larger than our brains perceive from this figure. but I couldn't find a way to fit a line 2,000 times longer than another in the same image! Psst, somebody tell twitter about log-log scaling. I can't be arsed to make an account.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613895888992190465.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613895888992190465.html https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107698 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107698
funstuff007 4y ago
Reminded me of when I found out Al Gore spent $30K a year on utilities. Not posting to call out hypocrisy, but posting to show how the rich are different from you and me. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=2906888&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=29068...
- atonse 4y ago
  Yeahhh I’m going to give Al Gore a pass on this one because the net result of the work he’s done on the topic adds up to negative eleventy trillion saved. Let’s focus on maybe the other billionaires that haven’t.
credit_guy 4y ago
When the title of a study starts with "Super-rich", you can bet dollars to donuts that it does not end in "do some nice thing". "Study" shows the super-rich do something. If I can posit my own hypotheses, I can show anything. Of course, if they hear that Bill Gates buys carbon offsets for everything he does, another "study" will show that carbon offsets are just whitewashing.
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  Was just a matter of time 'till the usual people use global warming to push the same tired Commie revolution ideas - there's definitely enough useful idiots already. All that's left is a catchy term for the people whose money you're looking to steal - the co2 bourgeoisie?
bushbaba 4y ago
I fear we are nearing towards the next revolution where the Uber wealthy are removed from their wealth.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cmarschner 4y ago
  Different topic, but have you ever computed return on interest over 1000 years? Even 2%? It makes it immediately clear that wealth connected with the ability to compound interest can only ever be a short-term anomaly.
  - eaenki 4y ago
    2% is just inflation. so you’d have the same $1 buying power in 900 bc as today. 5% and your argument would make sense. but besides revolutions, I think it’s hard because of variance to hit +5% 1000 times in a row and never -99%. you only need 10 bad years at -10% to go down 99%. from there to get back up you need a 10.000% and that’s not gonna happen. the best bet as a theoretical thought, would be to buy useful natural resources and hide it in many different jurisdictions, as well as buying land.
- somedude895 4y ago
  It wouldn't change anything for the rest of the population. It's pure envy that drives this sentiment.
tetromino_ 4y ago
I'm confused about why this is unexpected or controversial. The point of money is to be able to buy, rent, or experience things. Virtually all things that can be bought, rented, or experienced require energy as input. Usually, the nicer, more prestigious, and more expensive the thing, the more energy. So saying that "rich households emit much more carbon than poor ones" is largely synonymous with saying that "rich households spend much more money than poor ones" which is largely synonymous with "rich households are much richer than poor ones". Water is wet, sky is blue.
- cmarschner 4y ago
  I don‘t think it is clear to everybody. What it is also saying is: More money means you are a greater liability for society. So in addition to having greater power you cause these additional costs for everyone - unless we finally manage to price in all external costs into CO2-producing consumption. Which is often estimated at somewhere between $100 and $250 per ton.
  - cschwarm 4y ago
    Trying to estimate the total costs of the externalities, like most economists currently suggest, is complete non-sense, in my opinion. Their methods are dubious to put it mildly [1], and they also replace the politically accepted goal with their own. The politically accepted goal is to prevent dangerous levels of climate change. For this, we need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050, according to the climatologists. Since there is no way to reduce emissions to zero until then (or possibly ever), we need negative emissions. Right now, getting a metric tonne of CO2 out of the atmosphere costs about US$ 600 per tonne (with a sufficiently long or large contract). These costs may drop in the future if scaled-up but US$ 600 per tonne is the best estimate we have right now. This is what emitters need to pay. Something around US$ 175 per tonne (+/- 75) would only buy about 30 percent of the negative emissions needed to reach net-zero. In other words, it's insufficient. And of course this applies to everybody, not just rich people. [1] https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1807856 https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1807856
    - 4y ago
WeylandYutani 4y ago
Well yeah. I'm in favour of a CO2 budget but for obvious reasons the rich prefer to lecture the poors rather than cut down on their own city trips.

67 points by cmarschner 4y ago

> we tend to underestimate the extent of area-based comparisons compared to length-based ones. so the disparity is even larger than our brains perceive from this figure. but I couldn't find a way to fit a line 2,000 times longer than another in the same image! Psst, somebody tell twitter about log-log scaling. I can't be arsed to make an account.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613895888992190465.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613895888992190465.html https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107698 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107698

funstuff007 4y ago

Reminded me of when I found out Al Gore spent $30K a year on utilities. Not posting to call out hypocrisy, but posting to show how the rich are different from you and me. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=2906888&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=29068...

atonse 4y ago
Yeahhh I’m going to give Al Gore a pass on this one because the net result of the work he’s done on the topic adds up to negative eleventy trillion saved. Let’s focus on maybe the other billionaires that haven’t.

credit_guy 4y ago

When the title of a study starts with "Super-rich", you can bet dollars to donuts that it does not end in "do some nice thing". "Study" shows the super-rich do something. If I can posit my own hypotheses, I can show anything. Of course, if they hear that Bill Gates buys carbon offsets for everything he does, another "study" will show that carbon offsets are just whitewashing.

pxmpxm 4y ago
Was just a matter of time 'till the usual people use global warming to push the same tired Commie revolution ideas - there's definitely enough useful idiots already. All that's left is a catchy term for the people whose money you're looking to steal - the co2 bourgeoisie?

bushbaba 4y ago

I fear we are nearing towards the next revolution where the Uber wealthy are removed from their wealth.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cmarschner 4y ago
Different topic, but have you ever computed return on interest over 1000 years? Even 2%? It makes it immediately clear that wealth connected with the ability to compound interest can only ever be a short-term anomaly.
- eaenki 4y ago
  2% is just inflation. so you’d have the same $1 buying power in 900 bc as today. 5% and your argument would make sense. but besides revolutions, I think it’s hard because of variance to hit +5% 1000 times in a row and never -99%. you only need 10 bad years at -10% to go down 99%. from there to get back up you need a 10.000% and that’s not gonna happen. the best bet as a theoretical thought, would be to buy useful natural resources and hide it in many different jurisdictions, as well as buying land.
somedude895 4y ago
It wouldn't change anything for the rest of the population. It's pure envy that drives this sentiment.

tetromino_ 4y ago

I'm confused about why this is unexpected or controversial. The point of money is to be able to buy, rent, or experience things. Virtually all things that can be bought, rented, or experienced require energy as input. Usually, the nicer, more prestigious, and more expensive the thing, the more energy. So saying that "rich households emit much more carbon than poor ones" is largely synonymous with saying that "rich households spend much more money than poor ones" which is largely synonymous with "rich households are much richer than poor ones". Water is wet, sky is blue.

cmarschner 4y ago
I don‘t think it is clear to everybody. What it is also saying is: More money means you are a greater liability for society. So in addition to having greater power you cause these additional costs for everyone - unless we finally manage to price in all external costs into CO2-producing consumption. Which is often estimated at somewhere between $100 and $250 per ton.
- cschwarm 4y ago
  Trying to estimate the total costs of the externalities, like most economists currently suggest, is complete non-sense, in my opinion. Their methods are dubious to put it mildly [1], and they also replace the politically accepted goal with their own. The politically accepted goal is to prevent dangerous levels of climate change. For this, we need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050, according to the climatologists. Since there is no way to reduce emissions to zero until then (or possibly ever), we need negative emissions. Right now, getting a metric tonne of CO2 out of the atmosphere costs about US$ 600 per tonne (with a sufficiently long or large contract). These costs may drop in the future if scaled-up but US$ 600 per tonne is the best estimate we have right now. This is what emitters need to pay. Something around US$ 175 per tonne (+/- 75) would only buy about 30 percent of the negative emissions needed to reach net-zero. In other words, it's insufficient. And of course this applies to everybody, not just rich people. [1] https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1807856 https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1807856
  - 4y ago

WeylandYutani 4y ago

Well yeah. I'm in favour of a CO2 budget but for obvious reasons the rich prefer to lecture the poors rather than cut down on their own city trips.