this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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Edit: Note that this article is over 8 years old.
I had to look it up, but In 2021 the top 10% were earning about $120K/year.
Also, the guardian misrepresented the study in their title. The study is about "lifestyle emissions" The top 10% don't produce 50% of all global emissions.
Exactly. Why don’t we separate this even further? Top 1% or top 0.5% or top 0.1%? That salary is almost required from a couple living in a city (60k/person, but one person is most likely making a large chunk of it), but people living in cities have way less of a carbon footprint by living closer to the grocery store, taking public transit, shopping locally, doing recycling/compost, community gardens, walking, etc.
I traveled twice as much in my car when I lived in Mississippi but made under 1/2 what I do now in Washington. I’m way more eco conscious now too.
It's just barely above the low-income cutoff in some SF Bay counties.
The MSM don't split it like that for the same reason they dilute wealth inequality. Because if the masses ever put 2 and 2 together, to realize that wealth inequality and the pursuit of profit is a corrosive force in society, and an existential threat to life, liberty, democracy, the rule of law, etc, etc — the root cause of many of the largest issues facing humanity — the ultra wealthy might be forced to give up their wealth... including the owners of MSM orgs.
You can find the updated report here:
https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/confronting-carbon-inequality
According to that about half of the top 10% lived in the US and EU in 2015. With especially China, but also countries like India having seen massive economic growth that share likely went down a lot. Looking at the Guardian article that is interesting as they position that as a rich country vs poor country problem, which is not entirely true.
$1 in 2015 is worth $1.30 today(2023), thus a 30% inflation from 2015 to 2023 ; 1/1.30= 0.76 ; 0.76*10= 7.6 ; thus 7.6% produce 50% of all global emissions. i know its bikini-bottom math but it does help to extrapolate things sometimes ..
That top 10 percent figure is for USA. This is talking about world wide, so likely the top 10 percent is for a lot of people in the USA, and other western countries....There are a lot of people in 3rd world countries that don't contribute any emissions compared to the average low income person in a western country.