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America’s wealthiest people are also some of the world’s biggest polluters – not only because of their massive homes and private jets, but because of the fossil fuels generated by the companies they invest their money in.

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[-] Marxine@lemmy.ml 104 points 1 year ago

Every day we're here just to learn billionaires & families should be crushed and their wealth redistributed amongst third world countries.

[-] Tim@programming.dev 21 points 1 year ago

That would just make other billionaires somewhere else. The problem is the system not the people

[-] DrQuint@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago

He did not say "once". I think they're suggesting a systematic approach. I periodic Purge if you will. Like some shitty movie.

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[-] Mangoholic@lemmy.ml 79 points 1 year ago

If anyone is asking how do we pay to solve the climate crisis. I think its pretty clear who should be paying.

[-] kautau@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is true for almost anything. Major corporations, and the investors that profit off of them, pay so little in taxes compared to the average citizen. Instead, their money is devoted to lobbying and setting up careful corporate international glass houses so they don’t have to pay the taxes they should. We can push much harder on tackling social issues, but the top 10% don’t exist in society, they lord over it

the top 10% don’t exist in society, they lord over it

I think you mean they run it

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[-] const_void@lemmy.ml 68 points 1 year ago

So fucking sick of billionaires

[-] Valmond@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 year ago

What do you even do when you exceed 100 Millions?

They must be mentally sick in some way "just one mooare billion pleaaase"

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago

If you have over a billion dollars, you could spend every waking moment shovelling money into a fire and you would still have over a billion dollars when you die

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[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I imagine its just a prick waving contest between the rich. They just compare the number in their account to the others and want to have a bigger number.

[-] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago

The US subsidizes fossil fuels to the tune of 600B per year. You pay for pollution with your taxes.

[-] Veraxus@kbin.social 51 points 1 year ago

We need a 95% tax bracket for anyone that makes more than a few million/year.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago

And a wealth tax for people having more value than like 10 millions (or less actually).

[-] gamer@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

A few million/year is a reasonable amount of money for a (highly) successful person to make. A wealth tax for people making over a billion or just $100M per year is enough to fix a lot of the problems in this country without destroying the "American dream"

[-] Veraxus@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The way I see it, if you make enough money to buy a nice, moderate house in California or Hawaii once per year, you are already making too much money. My cutoff would probably be closer to $2-3M... though I'd be willing to go higher if paired with an annual "wealth tax"... say, if you have a value of over - for example - $20M (incl. stocks and any other non-liquid assets) you must pay 20% of any excess value in taxes annually. That would be on top of the 95% multimillionaire income tax.

[-] 7heo@lemmy.ml 40 points 1 year ago

TL;DR: one doesn't become rich by respecting others.

Anyone else just feel like we should eat the rich?

[-] Hobbes@startrek.website 16 points 1 year ago

I think it's way overdue.

[-] 7heo@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On one hand, yes, on the other, eating shit isn't very appealing.

[-] hh93@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Won't stop the meat producing companies or the oil companies from existing - that just moves the emissions of them to their heirs.

That metric is really bad - as long as there's demand for gas or meat those emissions need to be attached to someone - and attaching them to the owner just takes away all responsibility from everyone and tells them that they don't have to change anything.

If BP would Stop producing oil tomorrow the price would probably jump but then other companies would step in and fill that gap and nothing would've changed pollution wise.

[-] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago

There's a steep cliff between the 95% and the .01%. I wonder what proportion is just the .01

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[-] varogen@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The picture they paint in this article, of the ultra rich with their private jets and yachts, does not align with the statistic presented in the title.

the wealthiest 10% in the US, households making more than about $178,000

I'm sure many of you know people in this group. Two adults each making 90k a year is enough to break into the 10%. And clearly they're not flying around in private jets.

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[-] MaxPower@feddit.de 21 points 1 year ago

Got it. Eating the rich for protecting humanity by protecting the climate.

[-] WhollyGuacamole@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago
[-] Etterra@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Probably because not all of the CEOs all of the enormous corporations, or leaders of the top polluting nations, are in that top 10‰. 10% is just a nice number to use, and I expect that if they went with 15 or 20% then the corresponding amount of pollution they're responsible for would jump up significantly.

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[-] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 20 points 1 year ago

CO² tax on oil and fuel production i say.

As much as I understand the hate towards rich people governments are just as much at fault for subsidising, directly funding and giving land to those companies in the first place for people to be able to make money off them.

[-] Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah, governments are totally just giving this shit out with no compulsion from the rich.

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[-] mojo@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

They may as well be polluting methane gas because they're so full of shit

[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A long time ago, this kind of reckless excess moved the French to remove the top 10% of their ruling class' bodies.

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[-] BarryZuckerkorn@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago

but because of the fossil fuels generated by the companies they invest their money in.

Lemme go ahead and roll my eyes here. Yes, American Airlines produces a significant percentage of the world's greenhouse emissions. But they burn that fuel for the passengers, not just for the benefit of shareholders. Same with ExxonMobil, BP, etc.

Consumption is what drives pollution. Investments to profit off of that consumption is secondary.

[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 9 points 1 year ago

Their biggest success is convincing common folks it's out fault.

[-] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Consumption driven by advertising based on Edward Bernays work, which explicitly intends to create fissures within people and then sell them cures to the fissures they created,m. Just disallowing advertising would have a substantial effect on consumption.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 9 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


America’s wealthiest people are also some of the world’s biggest polluters – not only because of their massive homes and private jets, but because of the fossil fuels generated by the companies they invest their money in.

That gave a carbon footprint for each dollar of economic activity in the US, which the researchers linked to households using population survey data that showed the industries people work for and their income from wages and investments.

The report also identified “super-emitters.” They are almost exclusively among the wealthiest top 0.1% of Americans, concentrated in industries such as finance, insurance and mining, and produce around 3,000 tons of carbon pollution a year.

Kimberly Nicholas, associate professor of sustainability science at Lund University in Sweden, who was not involved in the report, said the study helps reveal how closely income, especially from investments, is tied to planet-heating pollution.

Sometimes when people talk about ways to tackle the climate crisis, they bring up population control, said Mark Paul, a political economist at Rutgers University who was also not involved in the study.

Globally, the planet-heating pollution produced by billionaires is a million times higher than the average person outside the world’s wealthiest 10%, according to a report last year from the nonprofit Oxfam.


I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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[-] superphly@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Wait, how is that possible when China is responsible for 50% of the carbon emissions? This doesn’t add up.

[-] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 27 points 1 year ago

From the article:

They found the wealthiest 10% in the US, households making more than about $178,000, were responsible for 40% of the nation’s human-caused, planet-heating pollution.

So this only focuses on emissions from the US

[-] starfennec@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago

This, and most of China's carbon emissions come from the production of goods for the rest of the world, so they're not the only ones "responsible" for those 50%.

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[-] Schmeckinger@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago

I understood it as they are responsible for 40% of americas pollution.

[-] blue_zephyr@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

The title is clearly referring to America's polution. Presumably the US only.

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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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