3 ms·

The richest 1% is responsible for 49% of lifestyle emissions. The poorest 50% are responsible for just 10% of emissions. It's really disingenuous to act like mo

by drekk 3y ago

The richest 1% is responsible for 49% of lifestyle emissions. The poorest 50% are responsible for just 10% of emissions. It's really disingenuous to act like most of our CO2 emissions are being spent lifting people out of poverty rather than on luxuries like meat consumption or fast fashion. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001391651771068 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001391651771068...

mcpackieh 3y ago
> "The richest 1% is responsible for 49% of lifestyle emissions. [...] luxuries like meat consumption or fast fashion" How many megatons of meat do you think Musk eats a month? Does Bezos put a billion burgers into his belly? The vast majority of meat is consumed by people in that bottom 99%. For that matter, how many fast-fashion trendy patterned stockings do you think these men wear? It's really disingenuous to act like you're against luxuries for the 1% and then use meat and cheap clothing as your examples of great evils to be eliminated. Who would be sacrificing if large scale production of these cheap goods were banned? Not the 1%. What you are proposing is not to tear down the 1%, but to suppress the standard of living for the 99%. Maybe you just chose bad examples by accident though, do you have any proposals that would actually limit emissions from the 1% instead of capping the quality of life for the other 99%?
- oivey 3y ago
  He’s not taking about the richest 1% of Americans. Even if he was your examples are disingenuous. Musk and Bezos aren’t representative of even the richest 1% of Americans.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    I knew this was coming, all Americans are the global 1% right? Did I even say anything about America? Regardless... Get a napkin and sanity check yourself. 1% of 8 billion people is 80 million. There are 330 million people in America. If all of the global 1% are in America and not also in Europe and Asia, which is obvious bullshit, then only 24% of Americans are in that 1% and the remaining 76% are in the lower 99%. And do you really think only Americans eat meat and wear cheap clothing? Get real.
    - oivey 3y ago
      What are you even talking about? The person you replied to didn’t say Americans. Were you trying to use Bezos and Musk as representative of the top 1% of the worldwide population? That’s even worse.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        I'm telling you that meat eating and fast fashion are not "global 1% issues". You are the one who brought up Americans, not me or the other guy. Meat eating isn't a 1% thing whether you're looking at the global 1% or the American 1%; meat is consumed by almost everybody in the lower 99% no matter which way you slice it.
    - dang 3y ago
      Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We end up having to ban accounts that keep doing it, and we've already had to warn you more than once: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37708114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37708114 (Sept 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36792165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36792165 (July 2023) If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- coderenegade 3y ago
  It's in the pattern of consumption. Obviously Elon Musk can't eat orders of magnitude more beef than the rest of us, but in 2017 he announced that the boring tunnel would dig a tunnel directly to his house. Now I don't know if he ever did that, but it's not particularly far fetched for someone with his resources to do. For arguments sake, the emissions of such a tunnel would be ludicrous when you calculate on a per person basis. Then you have emissions associated with luxury yachts, helicopter rides, private jets, etc. on top of elevated normal consumption (i.e. able to travel more often via normal means, while occasionally also taking the jet for a spin). The very wealthy are able to afford to not go through the same public channels as the rest of us, and so their emissions don't get amortized over vast numbers of users. This is on top of the fact that they can already consume more anyway, which is to say, I have one car, but the very wealthy might collect them (buying new! another thing I've never done), and just the process of manufacturing a new car releases more CO2 than I could produce in several years of driving.
gruez 3y ago
Your link doesn't work. I'm getting "The requested article is not currently available on this site." Also the studies I've seen to this effect use a questionable form of attribution when it comes to the "1%". Specifically they include emissions from companies that they invest in.

by drekk 3y ago

mcpackieh 3y ago

> "The richest 1% is responsible for 49% of lifestyle emissions. [...] luxuries like meat consumption or fast fashion" How many megatons of meat do you think Musk eats a month? Does Bezos put a billion burgers into his belly? The vast majority of meat is consumed by people in that bottom 99%. For that matter, how many fast-fashion trendy patterned stockings do you think these men wear? It's really disingenuous to act like you're against luxuries for the 1% and then use meat and cheap clothing as your examples of great evils to be eliminated. Who would be sacrificing if large scale production of these cheap goods were banned? Not the 1%. What you are proposing is not to tear down the 1%, but to suppress the standard of living for the 99%. Maybe you just chose bad examples by accident though, do you have any proposals that would actually limit emissions from the 1% instead of capping the quality of life for the other 99%?

oivey 3y ago
He’s not taking about the richest 1% of Americans. Even if he was your examples are disingenuous. Musk and Bezos aren’t representative of even the richest 1% of Americans.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  I knew this was coming, all Americans are the global 1% right? Did I even say anything about America? Regardless... Get a napkin and sanity check yourself. 1% of 8 billion people is 80 million. There are 330 million people in America. If all of the global 1% are in America and not also in Europe and Asia, which is obvious bullshit, then only 24% of Americans are in that 1% and the remaining 76% are in the lower 99%. And do you really think only Americans eat meat and wear cheap clothing? Get real.
  - oivey 3y ago
    What are you even talking about? The person you replied to didn’t say Americans. Were you trying to use Bezos and Musk as representative of the top 1% of the worldwide population? That’s even worse.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      I'm telling you that meat eating and fast fashion are not "global 1% issues". You are the one who brought up Americans, not me or the other guy. Meat eating isn't a 1% thing whether you're looking at the global 1% or the American 1%; meat is consumed by almost everybody in the lower 99% no matter which way you slice it.
  - dang 3y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We end up having to ban accounts that keep doing it, and we've already had to warn you more than once: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37708114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37708114 (Sept 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36792165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36792165 (July 2023) If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
coderenegade 3y ago
It's in the pattern of consumption. Obviously Elon Musk can't eat orders of magnitude more beef than the rest of us, but in 2017 he announced that the boring tunnel would dig a tunnel directly to his house. Now I don't know if he ever did that, but it's not particularly far fetched for someone with his resources to do. For arguments sake, the emissions of such a tunnel would be ludicrous when you calculate on a per person basis. Then you have emissions associated with luxury yachts, helicopter rides, private jets, etc. on top of elevated normal consumption (i.e. able to travel more often via normal means, while occasionally also taking the jet for a spin). The very wealthy are able to afford to not go through the same public channels as the rest of us, and so their emissions don't get amortized over vast numbers of users. This is on top of the fact that they can already consume more anyway, which is to say, I have one car, but the very wealthy might collect them (buying new! another thing I've never done), and just the process of manufacturing a new car releases more CO2 than I could produce in several years of driving.

gruez 3y ago

Your link doesn't work. I'm getting "The requested article is not currently available on this site." Also the studies I've seen to this effect use a questionable form of attribution when it comes to the "1%". Specifically they include emissions from companies that they invest in.