>Contrary to public popular myths, the team found that population size is not the prime driver of exceeding planetary boundaries such as climate change. Rather,

>Contrary to public popular myths, the team found that population size is not the prime driver of exceeding planetary boundaries such as climate change. Rather, it is extremely high material footprint levels among the world’s richest 10% that is destabilising the planet. “Humanity’s main problem is luxury carbon and biosphere consumption, not population. The places where population is rising fastest have extremely small environmental footprints per person compared with the places that reached peak population many decades ago.” said Jorgen Randers, one of leading modelers for Earth4All and co-author of The Limits to Growth. Btw world's richest 10% among the world's adult population (~ 5.2bn) means a net worth of about only $140.000; defined as “the value of financial assets plus real assets (principally housing) owned by households, minus their debts.”[0] So, Jørgen Randers talks - almost exclusively - about the middle class in developed nations. If one follows the 90/10 distribution through: The threshold in being included to the top 1% is at about $1.15m. Or seen from the $1m landmark there are about 62.5m adult millionaires in the world. About 90% (55m adults) of those have wealth of $1-$5m. 9% (4.5m adults) between $5m-$10m. This leaves us with 3m adults having a net worth of over $10m. Following the same pattern again only about 10% of those have net worth of over $50m. Entering the size of a small city: now, there are only about 260.000 UHNW (>$50m) worldwide left. 85.000 adults have a >$100m net worth. In the end we are left with a big global village of 7000 adults with a net worth of >$500m. If you look at the wealth pyramid the 1% tip holds 50% of the world's wealth. The top 1% is a universe in itself: A country (1% of world's population e.g. Germany) of millionaires within a metropolis of mult-millionaires (>$10m) within a suburb of UHNW (>$50m) within a village of billionaires. We tribal humans are simply not equipped to deal with such orders of magnitude in a meaningful empathic way. When I'm reading this article and in particular that statement I'm left to wonder: Well, he also could mean the top 10% (-1%); this rounding error is simply the global middle class (2 bn adults) the other 50% wealth. It doesn't take much to figure out that in our current wealth distribution machine, half of the world's adult population are a rounding error (1% of wealth), too. Those wealth numbers can be roughly equated to access to resources; and when entering UHNW territory: +giant disproportionate influence in setting global policies. Probably like in a small city, they all know each other. [0]https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/g...