The richest 1% emit as much planet-heating pollution as two-thirds of humanity. Eliminating capitalism and billionaires it produces is the only way to start meaningfully addressing the crisis.
The richest 1% emit as much planet-heating pollution as two-thirds of humanity. Eliminating capitalism and billionaires it produces is the only way to start meaningfully addressing the crisis.
So we could basically solve climate change just by killing a few thousand people?
Sounds like a fair trade for the billions of lives it would save.
It's a structural problem, merely killing those few thousand would accomplish very little since they would rapidly be replaced.
From the article:
The richest 1 percent (77 million people) were responsible for 16 percent of global consumption emissions in 2019 —more than all car and road transport emissions. The richest 10 percent accounted for half (50 percent) of emissions.
To be a member of the richest 1% of the world you need a net worth of about $800k -- so while the billionaire class is still a massive problem, an even larger problem ecologically is that tens of millions of moderately wealthy people from wealthy nations have massively outsized carbon footprints.
while the billionaire class is still a massive problem, an even larger problem ecologically is that tens of millions of moderately wealthy people from wealthy nations have massively outsized carbon footprints.
It is definitely false that that's a larger problem. The top corporations emit way more carbon than all the petite-bourgeois SUV drivers and so on. I think the number people constantly trot out is that the top 100 companies (a fraction of a fraction of a percent here) do 70% of the emitting.
To be a member of the richest 1% of the world you need a net worth of about $800k – so while the billionaire class is still a massive problem, an even larger problem ecologically is that tens of millions of moderately wealthy people from wealthy nations have massively outsized carbon footprints.
This can not be correct. My wife inherited her parent's house when the last one died when she was 17 or so (guardianship until 18, whatever, not the point) - but we're poor af. I mean we're not lining up at the food bank, but no way we're top 1%. It's worth $800k easy (CAD, but still, throw in some other 'things' we own and we're there).
I think the idea of killing people to solve climate change is their plan.
1% of 8 billion is 80 million.
Yes, an increase in the guillotine business would help, but it's a systemic problem and only changing the system will solve it.
more like a few million but we dont have to kill them just destroy the economic system that gives them unjust power and access to resources.
People confuse the richest 1% of America and the richest 1% of the world. The former is multimillionnaires, the latter is like, software engineers in America. This article concerns the latter.
The US is, give or take, 4% of the global population. So, the top income quintile ($153,000/yr and above) brings you to around 1% of the global population, with room for well-off people in other countries.
In case your math skills are rusty, the global 1% is 80 million people. That's the same size as Germany, the country. Yes it includes oil barons, multinational CEOs, and whatnot, but also like, professionals in expensive cost-of-living areas like Californian software engineers.
I'm fine with pushing anything within a 100km radius around San Francisco into the ocean. Who's free next tuesday?
These people run and own the largest polluting inustries in the world, removing them does not solve the problem. We must strip them of their power and additionally remove their destructive legacies.
The soviet union eliminated capitalism and I'll say their environmental record was pretty awful.
not as awful as countries like amerikkka, and soviet environmental protection laws were very strong at the start and they were diluted over time by revisionists after the death of Stalin. But even IF the USSR had not been better it is a mistake of the past, and climate change and environmental preservation and restoration is central to every leftist platform, so like wtf is ur point. Like even IF u werent just outright factually wrong what is ur point "we cant fix anything because someone in the past failed"?
Okay, and replace it with what, exactly?
Initially socialism, and then communism in the long run. The only sane approach is to have worker ownership of the means of production.
Is there an example in history where this has attempted and implemented as such and not devolved into straight up persecusion, authoritarianism, cult of personally or tens+ of millions dead? And general lower standards of living to most, outside the party or political class like the Politburo? Could not find any. The Nordics and Canada are capitalistic with some social services. They seem to have a good valance but that is only because the USA military protects them out of geopolitical interests.
I am all good with say, limiting wealth of the rich, they can be rich but not stupifyingly rich and some socialised healthcare and the like. Coming from a third world, I have seen that abolishing private property is just oppression with extra steps, overtime. Most 1st world people have no idea of what they are asking and of how it devolves, in practice.
In your mind, how would workers "own" the means of production? Shares? Votes?
You replace billionares by splitting their billions and distributing them among the population. Nobody gets poor everyone gets richer simple as that.