8 ms·

Do you think that private jets and yachts are a significant portion of CO2? First of all, such things are of the top 0.1%, not the 10%. You need to be thinking

• pydry 3y ago
  It's not almost no one. When my boss's boss's boss spends 4 hours on a private jet he creates as much CO2 as I do in a year. I need a house. He doesnt need a jet. His jet should be banned yesterday.
  • jl6 3y ago
    The point being that even though your boss’s boss’s boss has an outsize impact, there aren’t many people like him, whereas there are millions of people like you, so in absolute terms “your” emissions matter too.
    • ffhhttt 3y ago
      So the societal cost of banning private jets is approximately zero? Why is it even worth discussing then?
      • jl6 3y ago
        It’s not, it’s a massive distraction that makes people feel like they’re doing righteous class warfare, while barely making a dent on climate damage.
      • forty 3y ago
        I think the reason it's discussed is "if I cannot destroy the planet in your country, I'll do that in another country (which won't change anything for the planet) where I'll go invest my money too (which means less money for your country)". And politians seem to buy on the threat, either because they truly believe it, or because they don't want to piss of the rich guys so they can get an overpaid job in one of their companies after their political career.
      • SonicScrub 3y ago
        Because it creates an easy scapegoat for our problems. It's much easier to point to the behaviors of a very tiny group of individuals and lay all the blame on the them than it is to grapple with the real truth of climate change: that our modern society is unsustainable. Barring some grand technological revolution, reversing climate change means bringing us all back to a pre-modern society. And that really sucks.
    • pydry 3y ago
      Because a small group of people refuses to fly commercial, more CO2 emissions are produced than the entire country of Uganda. You dont think they need to take personal responsibility for their actions? That we dont need to hold them accountable?
      • tasuki 3y ago
        > Because a small group of people refuses to fly commercial, more CO2 emissions are produced than the entire country of Uganda. Commercial flight is not great for CO2 emissions either. Because a small group of people flies instead of walking or bicycling, a lot of CO2 emissions are produced. I bet the sum total CO2 of commercial flight is way higher the sum total of CO2 from private flights. Neither is necessary.
        • oblio 3y ago
          I can't bike across the Atlantic. I can't bike to see my family 2500km away.
        • david-gpu 3y ago
          > Because a small group of people flies instead of walking or bicycling I tried walking across the Atlantic once but didn't get very far. Yesterday I also couldn't find any commercial flights to the grocery store either, so I had to bike there. > I bet the sum total CO2 of commercial flight is way higher the sum total of CO2 from private flights. Neither is necessary. The notion that flying is "unnecessary" ignores those of us who immigrated across an ocean. Unless I never want to see my aging family again I will have to fly every now and then.
        • MrYellowP 3y ago
          > Because a small group of people flies instead of walking or bicycling I would love to know why/how you believed that line makes any sense.
          • lotsofpulp 3y ago
            Because setting a minimum quality of life as being able to fly anywhere around the world is environmentally untenable for 8B people. So if it cannot be accessible to all 8B people, then it brings up the question for how to determine who deserves it and who does not. Which then leads to who deserves first class rather than coach, which then leads to who deserves a private jet versus a plane. Or even who deserves a personal car rather than using the bus or having to carpool.
  • beachy 3y ago
    I guess the point is there's only 1 of him, and thousands of you (i.e his peons). So it doesn't matter what he does, it's not statistically significant. Sidebar: your boss's boss's boss's should be allowed his private jet - he should just pay a fair price for the fuel that reflects the damage he is doing. Like 10x the current price.
    • sshine 3y ago
      What’s the point of money if everything costs in proportion to how much you have? Then everything costs 1.
      • SirSourdough 3y ago
        I don’t think the argument being made is that the cost should be proportionate to wealth, but proportionate to impact or alternatives. If flying private incurs 10x or 100x the externality costs of flying coach, it should be priced (taxed really) to reflect that a significant portion of those externality costs are an unnecessary luxury benefit.
      • inexcf 3y ago
        "Based on the damage he is doing" is not " based on the money he has"
    • EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
      He is already paying like x50 the public jet ticket price.
  • rglullis 3y ago
    You don't need a house as big the one you have, and you (as an example of the average middle class american) don't need to live in the suburbs, with inefficient construction techniques, dependent on a car to go anywhere, ordering ubers to conveniently bring packages of food twice a week, etc. Between banning private jets and banning parking lots, guess which one would be better for the environment? Americans really don't understand (a) how wealthy they all are and (b) how a lot of this wealth is based on completely wasteful spending.
    • RandomLensman 3y ago
      Who gets to determine need?
      • HeartStrings 3y ago
        Statistics do.
        • RandomLensman 3y ago
          We have tried this before and it wasn't great.
      • figassis 3y ago
        As you get wealthier, you believe you need things, like a 3 br home where each kid has their own room. If money gets tight, you realize a 2 br is actually fine. Problem is, when you consider downgrading you feel that need a lot more than if you’d never had it. Same goes for the jet. That 2 hr trip suddenly feels really critical compared to just planning your travel better. Wasn’t there a post here recently where Musk redirected his cousin’s plane to go unplug some servers? Where was he going that was so important in the middle of the night? And could that detour have waited for a normal flight booking? And apparently the decision turned out do be a mistake according ti Musk himself. So to answer, money determines needs.
        • RandomLensman 3y ago
  • austhrow743 3y ago
    You need somewhere to live. He needs to get somewhere. Neither house nor private jet is an environmentally conscious choice. Either way you've both told every other inhabitant on the planet to suck it, you're getting yours.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• shaky-carrousel 3y ago
  A household would need to earn an annual income of around $200k to be in the top 10%. Are you saying most people here earn that amount of money?
  • cgio 3y ago
    The proportion of people in the top 10% of the general population here is expected to be much higher than 10% but I would expect most probably less than 50%.
• ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > How often do you order on Amazon? How often do you dine out? You took the bait. Swallowed it hook, line and sinker. I bought shrimp the other day, they were farmed locally, transported to Malaysia, peeled there and transported back. I bought canned pears, they traveleled the world too. So while you are arguing and pointing fingers at other consumers over irrelevant cocempts like eating out, industry continues its destructing practices that are actually responsible for majority of emissions
  • tinco 3y ago
    I'm not pointing fingers at other consumers, I'm just pointing out the sort of things that have impact. I eat out regularly, I have a transcontinental flight planned for a holiday with my family this year. And I'm sure I've bought products that have had less than ideal CO2 footprint. Industry and consumers will continue these destructive practices until they're forced to not engage in them. By the way, not that it's relevant. But the locally produced tomatoes that I buy in the super market have a way higher CO2 footprint than your shrimp that have been shipped to Malaysia and back. But that might be a quirk of the country I'm in. edit: eh unless the shrimp have been cultured in heated pools, that might be even worse than our heated tomato farms.
    • ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      Well, Transcontinental flight, sure. But your point about carbon footprint of tomato vs shrimp perfectly ullustrates that the issue is too complex to lay on the consumer. You can't be expected to do hours of research on every grocery item you buy. And most people don't even have the required knowledge for this kind of analysis. And the companies mislead consumer on purpose. Recently relatives sent me a viseo which claims avocados are terrible because they need much more nutrients per kilo of product than tomato does. Which is not a reasonable comparison because avocado has fats and calories and tomato is mostly water. But they were convinced by this misinformation. So I think the responsibility lies with the industry first, and consumer second.
• evandijk70 3y ago
  Correct, I'd like to add two big mundane factors; Intercontinental flights and heating and cooling your house - the second one is a big contributor to global CO2 expenditures and is strongly influenced by the size of your house.
• jabradoodle 3y ago
  > First of all, such things are of the top 0.1%, not the 10%. Exactly, the 0.1% are part of the 10%