I’ve heard the argument that some people should be held accountable for their negative effect on the environment related to their carbon footprint. According to the article 10% of the population is responsible for 50% of global emissions, the most wealthy paying a tax on excessive consumption is not ok enough-it will just increase their greed and continue the wealth gap.

⚠️ Think outside of yourselves and delusions of grandeur, God’s earth is undefeated‼️

https://gizmodo.com/billionaires-are-the-one-case-where-personal-choices-can-affect-climate-change-2000518380?utm_source=pocket_discover

by ILLStatedMind

1 comment

  1. The article does nothing to prove the headline’s hypothesis. At most it says that the richest 10% generate 50% of the worlds emissions and the richest 1% generate 16% of emissions. Okay, fine.

    The thing is that there are a little over 3000 billionaires in the world, which is .000038% of the worlds population, and does nothing to show that this minuscule cohort’s “personal choices can affect climate change”. On the subject of billionaires specifically all it does is throw around anecdotes involving big numbers from yachts and private jets absent any context, but what I find interesting is that it zero’s in on the Walton’s personal emissions but has nothing to say about *Walmart’s* emissions, which measures its carbon output in megatons and gigatons.

    I don’t like excessive consumption but I think it’s more socially corrosive than it is meaningfully impactful on the environment. Just the fact that the mega-rich exist means that tax systems needs to be overhauled to be much more progressive – when you look at how tax bands have diminished over the years you can see how social stratification became so much more entrenched over the past 70-odd years. Everyone treats the rich like they’re different, like they should be “doing more” to help the environment, world hunger, etc etc – and that gives them far too much power, almost rendering them laws unto themselves. Better by far they be taxed out of existence – certainly the concept of a billionaire by inheritance puts the lie to any notion that capitalism is a meritocratic system with equal opportunity.

    Going back to the Walmart example, they have made certain “pledges” with regard to becoming carbon neutral etc – without carbon credits, good for them – by 2040. I have to wonder how much faster they’d get there if carbon was meaningfully taxed, or even better if the Walton family was convinced that they personally were just like everyone else on the planet and would be screwed by the climate catastrophes that are now kicking off.

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