[HN Gopher] The richest Americans account for 40 percent of U.S....
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The richest Americans account for 40 percent of U.S. climate
emissions
Author : myshpa
Score : 34 points
Date : 2023-08-17 21:55 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I would wager that most airline pilots find themselves in the top
| 10% in terms of wealth and/or income. Are all the emissions of
| the planes they fly figured into the calculation for this study?
|
| I was having trouble following what is being calculated.
| [deleted]
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Seems like they'd have to be counted multiple times between the
| oil company investors, the airline investors, and the
| passengers, etc. Disclaimer though I haven't read the article,
| but I am curious how they do the accounting.
| protoman3000 wrote:
| The profits generated and accumulated in the wealthy class should
| in the long run not exist - theoretically.
|
| But of course they do, and the answer to that is that somebody
| else is paying the price for their externalities.
|
| I'm not jealous and wish for everybody to be able to achieve
| wealth, but please with due calculation of everybody involved.
| Because the goal of this economic game is not that you win and I
| lose, but that we both win sufficiently and then I don't care if
| you have a nicer boat.
|
| But we didn't play this game, instead your wealth directly
| correlates with how much you pollute the commons, we both lose.
| The credit you own has no legitimation anymore. Why should we
| continue to act as if does?
|
| Ofc the situation is extremely complicated and we can't just
| disown or let the polluters "pay back" immediately, but things
| evidently have to change for this damage to both of us to stop.
| mancerayder wrote:
| >But we didn't play this game, instead your wealth directly
| correlates with how much you pollute the commons, we both lose.
| The credit you own has no legitimation anymore. Why should we
| continue to act as if does?
|
| Doesn't that include index funds in your 401k? Bank funds that
| you might own that invest in polluting companies? And don't
| wealthier people have more shares of stocks in general?
|
| I am asking someone to disprove my assertion that the article
| leans on a self-referential argument about wealth and carbon
| emissions.
|
| Or are we saying wealthy people (top 10 percent, we're told)
| invest specifically in these companies and not others?
|
| How would a clean wealthy person store or invest their wealth?
| Real estate, gold?
| protoman3000 wrote:
| I can understand that you think in specifics but think for a
| second about the general value principles behind e.g. digging
| oil out of the ground.
|
| The value is the oil, the cost is the work for extraction and
| the pollution.
|
| Somebody having done the work to get out the oil is
| attributed credits because they did the work, had the cost in
| this referential way that you complained about below. How
| many credits they get is determined by demand and supply,
| where theoretically everybody looks at all the costs and
| utility and comes up with their idea of a price and then the
| market clears.
|
| Now, then problem evidently is: We didn't consider the costs
| your extraction put on all of us, the pollution. It was just
| "nah it's fine", but all things considered it's not. Maybe
| the calculation is so bad that you now owe us for putting
| this cost on us - which would incentivize nobody to do that
| again. But we didn't do it, and we gave you so many more
| credits than you deserved on all rational arguments that the
| whole picture is skewed.
| landemva wrote:
| > The profits ... in the long run not exist - theoretically.
| ... somebody else is paying the price for their externalities.
|
| Externalities like rampant price inflation due in part due to
| year 2020 government bailouts of cruise lines and rich business
| owner huge tax rebates. The elite have a moat protecting their
| government feeding trough. The rest suffer rising prices due to
| that money printing.
| learn-forever wrote:
| There's quite a lot of climate-change journalism that seems to be
| less about working to solve the problems and more about agitating
| against capitalism
| troyvit wrote:
| So if we all eat the top 10% of rich Americans would we fart out
| 40% of earth's methane?
|
| The answer is "No" because this article is talking mainly about
| the investing patterns of the top 10% of Americans, and those
| investments (so they say) fund more emissions.
|
| Something smells off about that (and it's not the rich person I
| just ate). I guess I don't believe that it's purely the
| investments of the top 10% that are driving these companies that
| emit so much.
| primitivesuave wrote:
| It seems like they started with the conclusion they wanted (i.e.
| shareholders should bear financially responsible for the
| emissions of their investments) and designed a study that would
| confirm it. A more interesting and meaningful comparison would be
| of households and lifestyle/consumption habits.
| spullara wrote:
| If you define emissions as basically equivalent to money you are
| bound to see a correlation.
|
| Original article:
| https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal...
| mancerayder wrote:
| I came to the article thinking I might have found something
| interesting to learn, and then I came across this:
|
| _Starr and his colleagues analyzed income data across U.S.
| households from 1990 to 2019 and linked it to emissions generated
| directly and indirectly from that income. They included income
| tied to emissions related to the operation of a business, such as
| from a coal-fired power plant. But they also included income,
| such as from investments, that supported services or products
| from those industries.
|
| "As you move up the income ladder, an increasing share of
| emissions is associated with investments," said Starr_
|
| So this reads almost like an implicit tautology, if I can phrase
| it like that. Basically, investments are tied to climate
| emissions -> wealthier people have more of these (because wealth
| is defined this way, hence tautology) -> wealthy are tied to
| carbon emissions.
|
| Not useful. I was hoping to read about air travel or large homes
| or such.
| mancerayder wrote:
| There should be a term for social science clickbait, which is a
| lot of what these social science 'studies' seem to turn into.
| m463 wrote:
| Rich landowning cattle ranchers generate more greenhouse gas
| emissions than vegan college graduates that recycle.
| donw wrote:
| Given the replication crisis, it's safe to assume pretty much
| everything from the social sciences at this point in time is
| outright false, if not deliberate propaganda -- because if
| you're funded by the Muppets Are Better At Everything
| Foundation, you sure aren't going to publish a paper titled
| "Actually, Muppets Are Just Puppets With Extra Proctology".
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Well, if investing in coal plants is more profitable than
| investing in other investments, then we would expect people who
| invest in coal over solar to make more money and be richer.
| thfuran wrote:
| And if it's not, we'd expect people to be investing in solar
| capacity instead, the manufacture of which has significant
| associated emissions.
| protoman3000 wrote:
| I disagree. The attribution of money/credits/wealth points to a
| person or entity follows the exact same logic as the
| attribution of these hazardous emissions. You can't have one
| and not the other.
| ianburrell wrote:
| I produce emissions from electricity, car, airplanes, etc. My
| stocks do not produce emissions. My emissions wouldn't go
| down if I sold all my stocks.
|
| There are two ways to account for emissions and this study
| uses the wrong one. The first, the one that is produces the
| quote about how a few companies produce all the emissions,
| attributes emissions to the producer. The second attributes
| them to the consumer because they consume the energy.
|
| The CO2 from gallon of gas isn't made by Exxon (excluding all
| the production) but from burning it in my car. The CO2 for
| electricity is produced at the plant but it is being used in
| my AC.
| mancerayder wrote:
| What do you mean by 'same logic'?
| [deleted]
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| [delayed]
| phelm wrote:
| Should read "The richest 10 percent"
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| This is not merely dumb but actively harmful -- people will read
| the headline and think, "I'm not in the elite, and therefore have
| no climate responsibility."
|
| (It's dumb because the measure of interest is consumption, not
| investment. It's not exactly the gas companies' fault that
| consumers use gas; if they quit, someone else would start.)
| ourmandave wrote:
| _"As you move up the income ladder, an increasing share of
| emissions is associated with investments," said Starr._
|
| It's not rich people flying first class or whatever, but their
| investments in the worst CO2 emitters.
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(page generated 2023-08-17 23:02 UTC)