If you’re reading this than you’re probably included in that 10%
Yeah, this is true.
From the actual report:
The richest 10% (around 630 million people) accounted for 46% of the total emissions growth – only marginally less than the 49% contributed by the middle 40%. The poorest 50% barely increased their consumption emissions at all.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-top-countries-by-wealth-per-person/
Adding up the top 10 countries’ populations doesn’t even reach 630 million.
People will probably use this to say that the top 10% need to pay for taxes and be held accountable, without realizing they’re probably in that 10%.
I’d actually like to see the 10% broken down even further.
But how much are “lifestyle consumption emissions” compared to total emissions? I have never seen the term before, so I cannot put it in context.
What I imagine:
- if a poor person heats 30 square meters, and a rich person heats 3000 square meters, that is a lifestyle-related emission, and will differ considerably
- if a poor person drives a car, but a rich person drives a luxury car, emissions will differ, but not considerably (the poor person’s car is old, while the rich person’s car has engine volume like a truck), but if the poor person has no car, emissions will differ considerably
- however, if the rich person takes a plane ride every week, and the poor person twice per year or once per decade, that will differ considerably
- both persons will need to eat, but if the rich person eats fancy food, maybe the transport, packaging and other factors add up to make a considerable difference? or maybe not…
…etc. A breakdown of how would be nice to see.
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Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but given what I know a small bit about planetary poverty, if you’re reading this from a place with heaTing or air conditioning, on your own personal smart device or computer, you aren’t in that bottom 50%.
If I remember right, even with my problems I’m not even in the bottom 60%. Some places make in a month what I make in a day, when I have work.
Guaranteed if you own a house in the US you’re part of the world’s top 10% in terms of wealth.
That doesn’t translate directly to emissions, though, because the vast majority of emissions are industry and travel, so what you buy and how you live are much greater factors than heating and cooling. Go vegan and you instantly drop out of that “contribute to 50% of lifestyle emissions” zone.
That top ten percent includes many of those upper middle class folks
Global “lifestyle” emissions not total carbon emissions, that’s a pretty important difference.
So what you’re saying is, that 'despite making up only 10% of the population, The richest are responsible for 49% of the CO2 emissions?
This is lifestyle CO2 emissions. I dont know the exact factors it includes but i wouæd expect it to be things like:
- groceries
- material stuff (cars, houses)
- vacation
- etc
I dont think things like power production is included. But the graph should definetly include a list over factors
Do not fucking imply class consciousness is equivalent to racism, please and thank you.
Expropriate them now!
You do realize that you are from the top 10% richest of the world right?
stop uttering communist blasphemy, else democracy will come pay you a visit
makes me wonder when people are going to start caring about the power draw from PC’s and consoles.
I love gaming. Grew up gaming. Make my living working in the fringes of the game industry. And it makes me wonder when we’re going to discuss the clock cycles in the room…
I take comfort that the coal rollers and assholes who fly 40 miles for nachos far outweigh any contributions my aging PC generates but I do worry in the aggregate: we’re powering machines to generate heat to provide entertainment, and at some point that’s going to come under examination.
Electricity isn’t that expensive, especially if you have renewables. Stuff and transportation is. The biggest cause for co2 at the top is consumerism.
Remember that, once you have your electronics, the entertainment you get from it is competing against entertainment from physical things, or travel, or something else.
In addition, in winter that electricity is turned into heat, which you need anyway to heat up your home. And heating has always taken much more electricity than video games in my experience.
All things considered, video games are a fairly efficient form of entertainment. You can do everything digitally (cheap), and hardware can be made to be very power efficient (it just isn’t because electricity is cheap).
I don’t have a console, but I’ve hooked up a Kill-A-Watt to my crazy gaming PC with a TDP > 600w. When working, browsing, listening to music, watching videos, etc, it only uses around 60w, or the same as a single incandescent light bulb. When playing a modern AAA game, it uses around 250w. Not great considering the power consumption of a Switch or Steam Deck, but orders of magnitude less than typical U.S. household heating and cooling. I’d guess AI and crypto BS uses more energy than all PCs combined. Though I guess we all indirectly use AI (or rather, get used by AI).
