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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21822936

"If everyone had emitted like the bottom 50% of the global population, the world would have seen minimal additional warming since 1990,"

The study assesses the contribution of the highest emitting groups within societies and finds that the top 1% of the wealthiest individuals globally contributed 26 times the global average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 17 times more to Amazon droughts.

The research sheds new light on the links between income-based emissions inequality and climate injustice, illustrating how the consumption and investments of wealthy individuals have had disproportionate impacts on extreme weather events

Our study shows that extreme climate impacts are not just the result of abstract global emissions, instead we can directly link them to our lifestyle and investment choices, which in turn are linked to wealth,"

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[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

No. It's not 2/3 of climate change caused by wealthy bastards, it's 100%.

Non-wealthy people don't own factories spewing heat and trash into the air. Non-wealthy people might own cars, but they don't design and build those cars to constantly spew dangerous & deadly emissions — wealthy people are responsible for that, and for the lack of a healthier, greener choice for transportation. It's wealthy bastards who've fought against regulations reducing pollution, wealthy bastards who oppose public transit, and wealthy bastards who profit from the climate change that'll eventually kill the rest of us.

Fuck if I'm causing 1/3 of climate change. Fuck, no.

Wealthy bastards make sure environmental protection is a punchline, and wrap everything in plastic like Laura Palmer. The rich are at the heart of every vile thing that's being done to the planet. Virtually all of man-made climate change is caused by rich bastards.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 5 points 4 days ago

If you choose to eat meat, you're causing loads of climate damage.

Lots of non wealthy people are responsible for a non-zero amount of damage.

[-] nyctre@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

You can't really blame individuals for society issues. If I drop dead tomorrow, the global emissions won't change. Still the same amount of cows, still the same amount of cars on the road, still the same governments and policies.

Not saying we shouldn't do anything as individuals, we definitely should, we can all do better. But you can't blame any one random individual for any of these issues, imo(non multimillionaire, I mean). Feels so wrong.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 points 3 days ago

If all the poor people drop dead tomorrow, the emissions will change. And the number of animals will decrease.

You do have an impact. It is no negligible.

It is not sufficient to cut the emissions of rich people to zero. It is necessary and the majority, but all of us need to stop putting GHG into the atmosphere

[-] nyctre@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Right, but I'm not all the poor people. And I can't control them either. Yes, if everyone stopped eating meat, we'd stop farming them and emissions would drop. But that's unrealistic, never gonna happen. So yes, my impact in negligible.

And I'm not saying I won't do anything because my impact is negligible. I still recycle and encourage others to do the same and so on. But realistically speaking, I'm nobody. What I do doesn't change anything. At most I may have influenced 10 other people to be eco friendly. Still didn't change anything in the grand scheme of things. But maybe once a few more million people do the same we'll be ok. We'll see.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I can't control them either...that's unrealistic, never gonna happen.

That's exactly what the coal company said about the oil company.

I do agree we need to tax meat and subsidize cheap proteins like beans, tvp, and seitan

[-] nyctre@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

No, this is what those companies said and did. Let's not pretend they're powerless, lol.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

And let's not pretend you're powerless

[-] Beastimus@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago

Yeah, obviously you can't blame one individual. Only a ton of individuals in aggregate. That's why its important to change the behavior of large swathes of people.

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Totally bogus. The effect of one person eating a roast beef sandwich and side of chips is so nearly nothing it rounds to nothing. Saying, "If you choose to eat meat, you’re causing loads of climate damage," is bald-faced misinformation.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 points 3 days ago

The average person kills about 100 animals per year. If you sum up all if that for all the 90% of the population, thats very not negligible

this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
412 points (100.0% liked)

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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

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