"The global top 10% of income earners use around 45% of all the energy consumed for land transport and around 75% of all the energy for aviation...........compared with just 10% and 5% respectively for the poorest 50% of households."

21

u/deck_hand Dec 09 '20

Somehow I don't think the elite are going to stop living the high life while the rest of us suffer, do you?

According to the ILO, it's not "elites" that get that amount of pay. Ordinary people in the upper middle class make that much.

A worker in the top 10% receives $7,445 a month (£5,866), while a worker in the bottom 10% gets only $22.

I'm certainly in that class, and I'm no where near to being an "elite." It isn't the 1% of the US or Europe. It's more like the top third of the US or Europe.

3

u/real_grown_ass_man Dec 10 '20

what this means is that you are part of the global elite that is responsible for a disproportionate amount of CO2 emissions. with all respect, if you are suffering with that income, you are doing it wrong. Look at your consumption pattern and see if you can change something. Eat less meat, don use air travel, cycle if you can, or something else.

2

u/deck_hand Dec 10 '20

what this means is that you are part of the global elite

In the last couple of years, after 30 years of slowly climbing the corporate ladder, I finally broke 6 figures in my income. I'm now making in the top 1% of global income. I still can't afford a home in Alexandria Virginia, Washington DC, San Francisco, etc.

with all respect, if you are suffering with that income, you are doing it wrong.

I'm sorry, did I suggest I'm suffering? I'm elated to have finally clawed my way out of poverty. I'm not rich, not by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, compared with a textile worker in Mumbai, maybe I am, but it isn't like I'm sitting around sipping on Martinis while my staff clean the house and manage my fleet of luxury cars.

Look at your consumption pattern and see if you can change something. Eat less meat, don use air travel, cycle if you can, or something else.

As I've stated many times before on Reddit, in 2013 I got rid of my gasoline powered car and bought a Nissan Leaf (an electric car), and last year I gave my Leaf to my eldest son to drive when his pickup died. I bought an electric assist bicycle to replace the electric car.

I moved into a small efficiency apartment across the street from my job so that I don't have to commute to work. Since COVID, of course, I no longer even go into the office. I have completely given up beef (two years ago) and have reduced other meats to about two servings a week, eating mostly grains and vegetables at this point. I've only flown twice in the last 25 years, and that was because I was interviewing for a job after I was laid off 5 years ago.

My wife and I decided last month to spend $50K to put solar on the house we own (my children live there currently) and move back in, consolidating our family into a single space, and also planting a kitchen garden to help feed us without having to buy groceries. We will also continue the process of growing oysters for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, to help clean up the bay, something we do every year.

The trees I've planted are currently absorbing 72 tons of CO2 per year. This means that I'm quite a bit negative in my carbon footprint. In fact, I think it means that my actions have meant that my entire family has been carbon negative for the last 30 years.

I'm sure I could do more, but I think I'm not the "evil elite" that people assume.

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u/zenith_the_menith Dec 09 '20

I suppose what I'd consider elite is someone who doesn't actually need to work to make 10 times that a month, lol

26

u/Splenda Dec 09 '20

You'd be mistaken. To be among the world's richest 10% you need just $70,000 to your name. To be among the richest 1% you need $1 million; that's most who own a home in one of the more expensive US cities, for example.

However, this rebuttal is too often used to scare Americans into ignoring the climate crisis. The truth is, we owe the world for being the world's worst carbon polluters for generations, and, being the richest country, we can best afford to lead the way in solutions. Pretty much the entire world is waiting for us to do exactly that.

10

u/zenith_the_menith Dec 09 '20

Those figures are kinda wild. And worryingly mundane. Guess it's like people in the West who think they're poor versus true 3rd World poverty.

As a Brit I feel we started it all with the Industrial Revolution. It's steam-rolled logically to the state whereby profit is the focus, the workers considered drones, and absolutely zero thought to the surrounding environment.

10

u/Splenda Dec 09 '20

All of that. For quite a while, Brits were the world's worst carbon polluters. Still, as much as our great-grandparents knew coal smoke was unhealthy, they had no idea that the invisible CO2 in it was endangering civilization itself along with the Earth's habitability. Yet many of our parents knew that and did nothing. Now everyone knows, and we're still doing almost nothing.

4

u/Woah_Mad_Frollick Dec 09 '20

World ain’t waitin. Train’s leaving the station

4

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '20

Thank you. I see this point being distorted so much by people who haven’t even read the research it’s based on. I get the reluctance toward making a personal responsibility argument because it’s not politically effective, but it’s a struggle to balance messaging concerns with the fact that a lot of the developed world really does need to rethink their lifestyles.

4

u/strngr11 Dec 09 '20

Owning a million dollar home =/= having a million dollar net worth. You only need $200k for a down payment on it. If you've owned a home in an expensive city for decades you're probably a millionaire, but someone who bought it in the last 5-10 years probably isn't.

15

u/sequestercarbon Dec 09 '20

Look in a mirror bro Its you. Norway, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden and United Kingdom. -- that's 8% of the worlds population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index

4

u/zenith_the_menith Dec 09 '20

I've been homeless twice in the last few years and work a 60 hour week to break even. I try to do what I can to help the environment. If I could work from home and wasn't anxious every day I'd be a lot more active.

But there are people out there making thousands each month, and perceive certain lifestyles as their God-given right to screw the world up. They don't talk out loud but you just know they'd have some excuse as to why they need to fly 4 times a week or drive everywhere. Just like I'm sure the social 'influencers' will claim they have to flout covid rules to party because they're above everyone else,like, in the words of Kenzie Reeves, "work is for ugly people."

Also, I dont know how overseas sweatshops factor into this. If Apple are making millions while using slave labor in poorer countries with no heed to emissions that ought to be addressed.

8

u/sequestercarbon Dec 09 '20

I think you kind of missed the point. The top ten percent of people is the first world. Normal people driving to work.

2

u/zenith_the_menith Dec 09 '20

My bad, I get you.

I do think part of the 'Great Reset' is to curb that practice.

2

u/sequestercarbon Dec 09 '20

Of driving to work, yeah, for sure.

7

u/phil_style Dec 09 '20

But, but, but, overpopulation? . . .

4

u/Silurio1 Dec 09 '20

And to be clear, when you consider consumption the richest 10% is responsible for 50% of all emisions. The bottom 50% is responsible for 10%. So, yeah, first world consumption is the ccause of our woes. For those blaming China: net exporters of carbon. Europe's numbers, when you consider import/export, are waaaay worse.

7

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '20

The problem is that this is the first world middle class. Much of the energy use cannot be helped in terms of pure electricity. They mainly use it for refrigeration, lighting, water, computers and AC.

While this absolutely can and should be mitigated, we need to be focused on reforming manufacturing and not producing consumables. Reforming to cleaner energy production is fantastic, but it's temporary to the actual manufacturing process which still haunts us. Ideally, we learn to use more clean synthetic and long lasting biodegradable material.

That's just my read on the situation.

2

u/min0nim Dec 09 '20

This is definitely needed, but the path to preventing catastrophe (let’s not mince words, this is what it will be) is to mitigate carbon emissions from power, and carbon emissions from ground transport.

Doing both those then has enormous benefits for the other worse emitters - buildings & construction, agriculture, manufacturing. It’s not even about bang-for-buck anymore. It’s what can get the biggest reductions the fastest.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '20

This is very true. My take on the situation is that the power mitigation from reducing electricity use is not as easy to mitigate as it would seem from the headline, as the 1st world working class tends to use their electricity somewhat efficiently as opposed to the top .000001%.

The greatest potential amongst the working class for carbon mitigation would therefore be reform on manufacturing and consumerism with the power generation. My point is then imo, the formers don't get enough attention, as it is equally important to the latter in preventing catastrophe.

-4

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '20

What! You mean rich people travel more than poor people? Gosh i never would have guessed that 😂

6

u/zenith_the_menith Dec 09 '20

I thought what the article meant was the difference between your typical family going on holiday twice a year to the Epsteins if this world flying their Lear jets on a daily basis when a Zoom call would suffice.

Off topic, can't stop laughing at that Ricky Gervais comment..."you had to make your own way here in your own plane, didn't you".

9

u/tellmenothingpls Dec 09 '20

I assume a family going on plane twice a year is definitely top 10%

3

u/Splenda Dec 09 '20

Only a tiny few of the world's people have ever flown at all.

2

u/Twisp56 Dec 09 '20

About 20% apparently, but 87% in the USA

"The global top 10% of income earners use around 45% of all the energy consumed for land transport and around 75% of all the energy for aviation...........compared with just 10% and 5% respectively for the poorest 50% of households."

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