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> The top 1 percent alone are responsible for one-fifth of warming, not just by using more energy, authors say, but by investing in sectors, like fossil fuels,

• delusional 1y ago
  The wealthy in America already argue that their investments are required to drive change. They constantly argue that the commons have to incetivise them to build more whatevers, and that they specifically create jobs. It seems reasonable to then also attribute the negstive effects of their investments to them.
• fastball 1y ago
  Yep this "study" is drivel. To provide a scenario that takes this argument to its logical conclusion: if one person owned 100% of the only oil & gas company in the world, and all 8 billion people on earth used that oil & gas for their cars and their stoves, etc. and this in turn constituted the entirety of emissions that caused warming, then by this metric it would actually be that one businessperson who is "responsible" for all warming. Even if that person doesn't consume any oil & gas themselves and lives off-grid on a farm somewhere.
• dfxm12 1y ago
  Us plebs can only buy what's on sale. If the rich are propping up fossil fuels, yes, they are responsible for the rest of us using them. It's important to note that we're at a time where world's richest people are getting more and more involved in local and foreign governments, further increasing their responsibility on these matters.
• fraboniface 1y ago
  The problem is that fossile fuel companies (and other polluting industries) don't just answer an existing demand but also influence on that demand: they lobby against environmental regulation, run influence campaigns against climate science, use greenwashing, etc. Those companies and their shareholders can't be taken out of the equation as they're not neutral.
• diggan 1y ago
  > Investing in fossil fuels makes you responsible for the people who use those services? Maybe not responsible, but not exactly a great move if you cared more about our world than your own financials. Said another way, if the top 10% stopped investing in companies continuing with fossil fuels, and instead tried to aim to invest into renewables, couldn't that potentially A) make companies dealing with renewables more attractive as investments increase and B) make companies dealing with fossil fuels less attractive or potentially make them change towards something else? Basically "Vote with your wallet" but for the ultra-rich, and "Vote" is really "Make Earth still be habitable in the future".
  • fastball 1y ago
    You have this backwards. People invest in these companies because they are growing. They are growing because consumers (you and me) are, year over year, consuming more and more fossil fuels and their byproducts. Investment doesn't drive our behavior, our behavior is what is driving investment.
    • WorldMaker 1y ago
      Investment shifts Supply through capital expenditures. Less investment can mean lower supply. Lower supply can mean higher prices. Higher prices can cause lower demand. Investment definitely has a relationship with demand, that's one of the core parts of the law of supply and demand. The businesses don't "have to" grow just because there seems to be a high demand. The businesses not growing can be a useful way to drop that demand. It's still a choice to prefer short-term investment revenue gains from a business that is long-term destructive to the planet and everyone else's well being. That revenue isn't value neutral, the source still matters.
    • amanaplanacanal 1y ago
      That leaves out the political side. Big companies have way more influence on governance than you and I do, and will lobby to make the law favor their business rather than outcomes that would protect the environment.
• dinga 1y ago
  Yes!
• happytoexplain 1y ago
  "Anything market-rational is also moral" is the plainest fallacy in all the world, and yet one of the most common and devastating. Clearly if you invest in something popular, you are assisting in its ability to be popular. That those consuming the thing are also at fault has no impact on that fact. That the next guy would do the same if you hadn't has no impact on that fact. You may very reasonably argue degrees, but anything else is nonsense to the point of being essentially a lie.
  • poincaredisk 1y ago
    Is it? If I buy EvilCorp stock from you for $1000000 how does that help EvilCorp? Assuming just a few rational actors, stock price should (in theory) stay roughly the same, near the "real" market value. Of course, if everyone did that, and EvilCorps couldn't even IPO, then it would matter, but that's a big if. But if that's the goal, we should strive to ban EvilCorps instead.
    • Version467 1y ago
      EvilCorp probably has unissued shares. A rising market cap thus gives them a lot of leverage to achieve their goals. They could pay employees, borrow against those shares, raise more capital with a secondary offering, etc. Also, if EvilCorp is worth $10, I could just buy it and stop all the EvilActions.
  • HPsquared 1y ago
    I don't think that is ever really the argument made by that kind of economics. Even the most extreme free marketeers like Walter Block (author of "Defending the Undefendable") talk about pollution as a violation of private property. Climate change as a result of pollution definitely would come under that kind of argument. They would just say it's a matter for the courts, like everyone affected should sue the people who emit the pollution or something like that (yes it's not a very practical ideology when you get into things like that)
    • arp242 1y ago
• akudha 1y ago
  There was a video of Zuck on reddit, lecturing about how nations should work together on climate change. While his mega yachts burn 2000 gallons of fuel per hour. The level of hypocrisy of these people is off the charts. https://www.reddit.com/r/climateskeptics/comments/1hk9nwc/mark_zuckerberg_the_proud_owner_of_a_300_million/ https://www.reddit.com/r/climateskeptics/comments/1hk9nwc/ma... https://voz.us/en/society/240508/9963/launchpad-mark-zuckerbergs-megayacht-that-pollutes-as-much-as-630-cars.html https://voz.us/en/society/240508/9963/launchpad-mark-zuckerb...
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• kimbernator 1y ago
  Fossil fuel companies actively lobby against renewables and environmental regulation because it's in their financial best interest. By investing in those companies, one aligns their personal financial interests with the industry. I don't think blanket divestment is a good solution, but there is clearly a perverse incentive. You don't get to profit significantly from these companies while being absolved of blame.
• lolinder 1y ago
  TFA does a poor job explaining what this means, but I found the original data and included it here [0]. The short version is that investment emissions are defined as the emissions spent in building up capital: machines and similar. The emissions caused by the direct manufacture of consumer goods are attributed to the consumers, not the investors. This makes intuitive sense: the machines are owned by the investors, not the consumers. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43915596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43915596
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• seniortaco 1y ago
  Right, like should we also blame the people who paid the money to these billionaires by using their services? Anyone who used facebook is responsible for funding 1/X global warming.
  • AlecSchueler 1y ago
    Why is this unreasonable? I know a lot of people personally who choose the companies they interact with based on the investments those companies are making.
• HPsquared 1y ago
  It's hard to point the finger when multiple parties have contributed to something.
• priced_in 1y ago
  That investment is converted by fossil fuel companies in running propaganda campaigns, sponsoring fallacious researches proving the benefits of clean coal and other nonsensical bs, lobbying authorities to build more roads (that induce more traffic, more pollution, more jams, etc.) So yes, investors are partly responsible. We are far from the simple supply-demand your comment suggests..
• mc32 1y ago
  It’s a bad measure. Fossil fuels is what allowed us the progress we’ve experienced in the XX century and beyond. Without it, the majority of the world would be living near subsistence as well as still suffering from infectious diseases, etc. Not too far off from the guilded age but with some tweaks.
  • 6P58r3MXJSLi 1y ago
    > the majority of the world would be living differently we don't know how, we sure can't say it would be worse, it probably wouldn't. modern medicine is not energy intensive likewise aren't better hygiene and better food. Actually vaccines, that fight infectious diseases, have been discovered when we used little or no fossil fuel and the light was kept on by candles or oil, including whale oil.
  • grimblee 1y ago
    I think having everyone use public transport instead of cars and banning programmed obscolescence and advertising would drastically reduce our footprint without impacting our (as in, the people, not shareholders) lives.
    • mc32 1y ago
      I agree with you generally speaking while also acknowledging that there are lots of cases where public transit is not feasible (rural areas, larger items transport, time sensitive travel). Also some ads are useful, but I’d be down for not having ads meant to increase sales.
      • grimblee 1y ago
        How about governement putting fort incentive to promote carsharing ? Also, rural area could be bettre connected if all that money didn't go into individual cars
• 127 1y ago
  Investing is giving money, thus life to a company, with the expectation that you will get more back in time. If fossil fuel companies and ancillaries would have to pay higher interest rates, there would be less fossil fuel companies. Yes, investing doesn't come with free pass. You are very much involved and supporting the company. Thus morally tied to what the company does. Whether you care about that at all, is up to you. You just don't get to eat your cake and have it too.
• 6P58r3MXJSLi 1y ago
  > If the top 1% dictate what you should do, that is evil, but if they don't, that's also evil? the top 1% emits to amass more capital for themselves, not to produce what's needed by consumers, who are thereby responsible for their share of emissions and that share is already accounted for in the data.
• raxxorraxor 1y ago
  I would say investing in it makes you indeed at least partially responsible. Not investing isn't telling people what they shouldn't do. Of course people using fossil fuel take part of the blame as well, but responsibility for investments more than normal consumption by quite a margin. While others use the ressource, you have a profit incentive with its use and you also now have incentives to increase usage further.