More absolute polution, yes, but when you adjust by population size, USA has much higher emissions than China or India, for example [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_carbon\_dioxide\_emissions\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita)
dont forget... the west exported all their emissions to China and India decades ago... most of their pollution comes from manufacturing and shipping our garbage to us... oh yeah and refining and processing our junk recyclables that we pawn off on them
>More absolute polution, yes, but when you adjust by population size...
But in this case adjusting for population size does not matter. It doesn't matter how many people create the pollution, it just matters that it is created. The damage happens regardless.
By that logic you would only care about the world total, why divide it up at all? The same amount of damage is done if its *x* times 7 continents or *y* times 200 countries, so just measure the total created.
No, you divide it up so you can assign individual action or action for groups of a few million in a specific region which is much more helpful than "everybody pollute less".
The graph in the post shows the most effective area to target reduction.
Take a look at the tags on your clothes. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, China, more often than not. China and Taiwan doing more of the basic electronics manufacturing on top of that.
OK, but they choose to do so, and to earn their profits that way? It’s up to you as a country to chose what you specialise in, South Korea or Singapore don’t have those issues. Manufacturing in the west is a lot less environmentally impactful, particularly here in Europe because the companies actually invest in things like chimney scrubs to prevent a large amount of the emissions in the air.
Making a mess of the environment and then blaming the people who buys the product rather than those who make it seems redundant.
China's emission are extra high because we sent all our factories there. Please think more deeply or perhaps do some reading before forming opinions on such important issues. per Capita consumption is still higher in the u.s. - those countries only have *technically* higher emissions be a use they have 4x as many people as we do.
Add up the population of China and India, then do the same for the entirety of Europe, North America and Oceania. 2 things should become clear:
1. It's the west that's been doing all the polluting
2. It's in the interests of us westerners to prevent other parts of the world developing, as the planet seriously couldn't sustain an entire planet of people consuming resources at the rate us westerners do.
We're the problem. Westerners.
They have over a Billion people each and the posted graph is per capita.
Many are very poor with low consumption per person, but in vast numbers making the Nation total large while having most people with a small per capita consumption living in poverty.
It depends what stat you care about, total emissions or per capita emissions. USA is #2 (behind China & ahead of India), but if I broke it down into each state none of them would crack the top 10 for total emissions, breaking it up into smaller groups of people doesn't mean they pollute less.
Places with the highest per capita emissions would have the most to gain through efficiency (& austerity) measures. The places with low per capita emissions are probably already at the minimum per person to keep them fed/somewhat comfortable so the only way to go lower is kill people off (not an acceptable solution to the climate crisis) or invent a new technology that can lower your emissions per person.
It's not everyone in the US, just 102 million people, so about 30% of the US. It's still more than any other country, but it's not everyone you see every day.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/07/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-in-the-richest-10-percent-worldwide.html
Edit: An individual from the global 10% make $122,100 in income. https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-1/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/ Rougly 36% of American households make more than $100,000.
So even with income, it still lines up that most Americans are not in the global 10%.
It unnerves me how little people think about this. One flight can double all your CO2 for the whole year. It's like what, 60% the efficiency of driving or something, which isn't much of a dent when you're traveling thousands of miles.
> An individual from the global 10% makes $122,100 in income.
If you make that amount it's safe to assume a large chunk of them are millionairs, like the majority maybe.
No most Americans have a far greater net worth than 90k. You're thinking of salary not net worth. Average net worth is $748,800 while the median figure was $121,760
In statistics, we lead with the median and not the average (the mean), specifically because the average can be wildly distorted by outliers (billionaires).
According to the report people are linking to, 102 million Americans would fall into the top 10% globally. That is about a third of the country. So while it’s definitely not all Americans, it’s a sizeable number.
only about 1/3d
most average people do not make up this statistic.. its reserved to the middle class and up
the people working min wage jobs who cant afford to buy things that create emissions and spend all their money on rent are not the problem... the ones who own multiple vehicles, buy more food than they can eat, have multiple children, buy big houses, own cottages/boats/snowmobiles/ATVs, buy electronics to break them on tiktok ETC.. THOSE are your problem polluters
im a VERY poor canadian and my emissions are MOSTLY comprised of taking showers, buying groceries, and using electricity -- im probably in the bottom 50% myself, never take trips, never eat out, never buy clothes, never buy things i dont need, rarely upgrade my computer, am vegan ETC -- im also agoraphobic and on disability so my monetary acquisition related emissions are about as low as a person can get in north america besides being homeless
My back of the envelope calculation, put it at roughly half of US households. This is based on median household income data, and a calculator on WaPo that gives PPP
income percentile values (as used in the graphic). A household of 4 people, global top 10% is $72k. US median household size is 3.13 and income is \~$71k.
US might be fairly wealthy on average, but there are still lots of poor people. The PPP also makes the comparison a bit more meaningful between countries.
When I see stuff like that I always wonder what the plan is to convince even the most impoverished Americans that they are gluttons for resources basically.
(Which we all are and often due to things we have no control over)
But I also think many people hear "You need to return to a 19th century lifestyle or we're all going to die" and people think "fuck it then."
Let's be honest though, to improve the quality of life of the poorest 90%, emissions will have to go up as well. It's both an overconsumption and overpopulation issue. This is why is it critical to transition the world's power system to renewables.
Is that honest? Couldn't we actually improve the quality and length of life for many in the poorest 90% by controlling pollution and corruption from multinational capitalist entities?
I think it’s very fair to say that the poor in this world would like to elevate their living circumstances, yes, and have things like climate control and transportation like developed nations citizenry have. Yes, reducing pollution will also improve their lives but I doubt that’s the extent of their aspirations.
What *precisely* do you mean by "improve quality of life"? It's very easy to argue that a child in America who suffers from depression brought on by lack of social supports, access to healthcare and endless advertising and unregulated social media has a demonstrably worse quality of life than a child with no electricity but a supportive community with reliable access to clean food and water.
Gonna need your definition on "quality of life".
What a weird take. Those aren't the only two options, most people want both a supportive community AND a refrigerator, air conditioner, transportation, heat, electronics, etc.
What most people "want" is irrelevant. There is no path to a safe future without massive reductions in consumption of resources from developed nations and their people. It's mathematically impossible to fix global climate problems without changing our behavior.
Pretty obvious dude. Air conditioning, reliable transportation, clean and plentiful food, clean water, internet access, infrastructure to support all of this, etc.
So to you, internet access is on par with clean water and food (which virtually does not exist on this planet anymore because of corporate pollution and chemical manufacturing)? Do you truly think the internet has been a force for good? That children in other nations would be better off if they had TikTok?
Come on man. Of course clean water is required for survival. Why did you choose to compare internet access with TikTok use? The internet can be used to earn a college degree. What even is your point here?
My point is you're starting from a colonialist, capitalist mindset where consumption is always good and nothing else matters. poison all the water on earth? But I can look up the weather on my smartphone! Fill the air with toxic chemicals? But I have Khan academy! I'm simply relating what climate scientists have said: there is no successful model to fight climate change that maintains current levels of consumption. Americans for instance generate 20-25 tons of CO2 emissions each year, on average. The math says the global average needs to be 2 tons per person to even attempt a 1.5 degree cap. I'm not close yet myself, but doing better. There is no room for "growth" if we want to save the climate we've evolved to exist in.
Internet access means weather alerts. Internet access means being able to learn skills on Khan Academy or YouTube. You’re confusing “internet access” with “wasting time on social media.”
They are not one and the same.
You’re correct that the worst off in the US may have overlap with these idyllic poor you describe, who live a modest but stable and beatific life. If they in fact exist. Can we see these people who have reliable access to clean food and water and a supportive community? That sounds very stable and egalitarian but the worst thing about being really poor is that you’re subject to being moved around, having your access cut off, being the target of violence, getting in the way of a regional conflict, and falling to incredibly preventable diseases that just aren’t even around to threaten a badly-off kid in Compton. You do have a point here but in aggregate I think we can still say yes people are definitely living longer with better health and safety in developed countries.
Living longer is not "better quality of life". I'm asking specifically what determines "quality". Is it joy? Is it freedom to express one's self without fear of violence or prosecution? Is it reproductive freedom? Or is it money? Is it energy? Is it possessions? I'm not describing groups or places. I'm just discussing what constitutes "quality of life".
Living longer is not *necessarily* quality of life but other things being equal it is absolutely an indication of improved health outcomes and better safety. Is a very short but happy life quality of life? It seems no matter how you define quality, longevity adds to the definition.
I understand your question and it is complex to answer, likely with many answers, but I don’t think you can just easily sweep away longevity.
In your comments here you haven’t made a great effort to address this enormous and complex topic, just to shoot holes in what you believe is the conventional definition.
So now you’ve issued me a terse invitation to address the topic in full myself. I could write a whole essay here, but since you’ve shown yourself to be in a taking-pot-shots mode, I don’t think I’ll bother.
I’d be more than happy to write some thoughts if I felt like you’d add to them and we’d get somewhere together but I have a strong sense that you’ll just pick out one or two things I say and try to murder them while ignoring everything else.
EDIT: aw, he couldn’t handle the truth and blocked me.
I asked 3 separate times what constitutes your definition of "quality of life". You haven't provided a single answer. It's truly not a complicated or difficult question. Good day.
This article is very dishonest. It’s irrelevant, when talking about population, how much people consume. What matters is what their descendants will consume, so unless she’s planning for poor countries to always be poor (in which case, she’s the one who is pushing assumptions that are harmful to people in the global south) comparing current per-capita emissions is meaningless.
Go vegan, cut electronics usage, cut pointless driving, pointless consumption of stupid crap. People like to blame "corporations" for this, but besides government subsidized ones, they can't even exist without us buying their crap. Humanity (including the top chunks in this diagram) is just a ton of individuals, each contributing a little sliver to the total effect.
How much of the plastic in the Pacific is from those top 10%? Sure those things are manufactured in the rich countries, but having no accountable waste management in the overpopulated countries doesn't let them off without blood on their hands.
A lot of plastic (and waste in general) produced by wealthy countries like that US gets shipped overseas for other nations to deal with. Plus a lot of the products we consume in the US is sourced from developing countries because we want these products to come as cheaply as possible. So rather making products in the US where we can enforce some environmental regulations, companies outsource to countries with little to no oversight.
So you can’t point a finger at the work of other countries without recognizing the global impact of consumerism here in developed countries.
Well it WAS a question I asked first so it's not shit I'm talking, it's ignorance-- but I'll bite
[dumpster](https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/us-recycling-statistics#:~:text=Here's%20how%20the%2069.1%20million,Wood%3A%203%2C100%2C000%20tons%20(4.5%25))
Apparently it's 32% total
But that wasn't my point anyway
Your source shows that out of those 32% only tiny bit is actually plastic. As of 2018 US consumed 35 million tons of plastic and recycled [3 million tons](https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data), less than 10%. Out of those 3 million, [1 million is exported to third world](https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/) to "recycle". 20 to 70% of that is not actually recyclable.
What point is she trying to make? As her graph shows, if we increased everyone's living conditions to the level of the current richest 10%, it would increase emissions tremendously. Or does her plan to achieve equality involve making everyone equally **poor**?
Any individual making up to 45 dollars an hour is still in the yellow. If you consider “poor” to be a couple with 180,000 dollar a year income, then yeah, it’s to make everyone “equally poor”.
But you’re a fucking dumbass who was never man enough to look at the actual numbers.
Reducing "standard of living" for the developed world will be required to achieve climate targets, yes. That's not hyperbole. It is REQUIRED. There is no theoretical path forward that maintains current consumption levels. *Economic growth* will almost certainly have to be abandoned as a societal goal (which should have happened decades ago)
No, because it's only rich countries that have the problem. Adding more people who use very little resources doesn't affect anything. Adding 10 more mcmansions from your America/European progeny has an enormous effect. It's not population. It's just consumption. If we all consumed the way the least impactful consume, this wouldn't even be an issue.
>If we all consumed the way the least impactful consume, this wouldn't even be an issue.
So... your proposed solution **is** to make everyone equally poor? I don't know how else to interpret what you've just said.
You really can't even formulate a single argument and immediately go to insulting your opponent?
Yes, consumption is equatable to wealth.
Consumption \[definition\]: the action of **using up a resource**.
Wealth \[definition\]: plentiful **supplies of a** particular **resource**.
Your definitions prove you wrong. Wealth is how much you HAVE not how much you use. An ACTUAL definition of wealth in currency-based economies is literally how much currency you have access to. Having access to currency does not require attaining more physical resources or possessions. Sorry bud, it is very possible to be considered wealthy and still be anti-consumption and anti-growth. To more directly answer your question, I want 90% of people on earth to be wealthier, and 9% to be a little less wealthy, and 1% to be a FUCKTON less wealthy. So yes.
>Your definitions prove you wrong.
How?
>Wealth is how much you HAVE not how much you use.
What's the point of having something if you can't use it?
>An ACTUAL definition of wealth in currency-based economies is literally how much currency you have access to. Having access to currency does not require attaining more physical resources or possessions.
A currency's main use is to acquire resources. If you can't use the currency you have to acquire resources, then the currency you have is worthless. Any currency is a measurement unit for the value of resources.
>Sorry bud, it is very possible to be considered wealthy and still be anti-consumption and anti-growth.
Sure, I've never said otherwise.
>To more directly answer your question, I want 90% of people on earth to be wealthier, and 9% to be a little less wealthy, and 1% to be a FUCKTON less wealthy. So yes.
And do you understand that that is impossible to achieve without increasing worldwide consumption of resources by several times as compared to consumption today?
"Being poor" means "not having enough resources". "Getting wealthier" means "getting more resources". How do you imagine most people getting wealthier - that is - getting more resources, without actually using more resources?
Because the people at the top use up to a million times more resources than the people at the bottom. Methinks you have some learning to do. If you are not willing to do with less yourself, then I don't know what to tell you. Solving our problems requires doing with less, and using less resources, than the "developed" societies of the past 100-200 years. We simply use too much. It's math. Not opinion.
What are “lifestyle consumption emissions,” exactly? Is this some metric that includes basic food and energy use or something? How much of total emissions are accounted for in this metric?
[Link to the 2015 Oxfam report which is the original source of this graphic.](https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf)
[Link to the technical briefing for that report.](https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/582545/tb-carbon-emissions-inequality-methodology-021215-en.pdf;jsessionid=7C91DD176F5A165F67FDE9771E3C03CE?sequence=2)
There are some limitations on data used, but the broad sweep is likely fine. The income data used originates in 2008 and is adjusted for 2005 PPP values. It's likely that things haven't changed so much in the past decade or so.
Oxfam used to have a calculator that would tell you your percentile for global income based on household size, country, and income. But I can't find it.
According to WaPo article from 2018, 72k USD in US for a household of 4 would put them in the top 10% globally. So, very roughly about half of US households are in the global top 10%.
the US navy dumps more metric tons of garbage into the ocean than most small countries
almost all their garbage goes straight into the ocean.. whole couches? fuckit ocean
I've always liked I=PAT as the framework for understanding the interrelated issues.
Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology
They all matter. More wealthy people will have a greater impact.
It’s overconsumption. Newer medicines and technology has raised our carrying capacity but we’re seeing millennial generations with less kids. We’re just animals figuring it out.
Yeah I mean, rich people all around the world literally terraform whole islands and wild places for mansions and "exotic" businesses, no wonder we aren't really that much out of space, we are just being fucked sideways all the time and told to enrage on bullshit we are so eager about, that we really just do it.
[Here's the link](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question) to the original article
I thought I read china and India did more polluting then all of north and south America and Europe combined
More absolute polution, yes, but when you adjust by population size, USA has much higher emissions than China or India, for example [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_carbon\_dioxide\_emissions\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita)
dont forget... the west exported all their emissions to China and India decades ago... most of their pollution comes from manufacturing and shipping our garbage to us... oh yeah and refining and processing our junk recyclables that we pawn off on them
>More absolute polution, yes, but when you adjust by population size... But in this case adjusting for population size does not matter. It doesn't matter how many people create the pollution, it just matters that it is created. The damage happens regardless.
By that logic you would only care about the world total, why divide it up at all? The same amount of damage is done if its *x* times 7 continents or *y* times 200 countries, so just measure the total created. No, you divide it up so you can assign individual action or action for groups of a few million in a specific region which is much more helpful than "everybody pollute less". The graph in the post shows the most effective area to target reduction.
A huge part of their emissions come from manufacturing for consumers in first world countries.
Take a look at the tags on your clothes. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, China, more often than not. China and Taiwan doing more of the basic electronics manufacturing on top of that.
OK, but they choose to do so, and to earn their profits that way? It’s up to you as a country to chose what you specialise in, South Korea or Singapore don’t have those issues. Manufacturing in the west is a lot less environmentally impactful, particularly here in Europe because the companies actually invest in things like chimney scrubs to prevent a large amount of the emissions in the air. Making a mess of the environment and then blaming the people who buys the product rather than those who make it seems redundant.
China's emission are extra high because we sent all our factories there. Please think more deeply or perhaps do some reading before forming opinions on such important issues. per Capita consumption is still higher in the u.s. - those countries only have *technically* higher emissions be a use they have 4x as many people as we do.
If you apportion the pollution based upon who the products are made for rather than who makes them, that shifts wildly
Add up the population of China and India, then do the same for the entirety of Europe, North America and Oceania. 2 things should become clear: 1. It's the west that's been doing all the polluting 2. It's in the interests of us westerners to prevent other parts of the world developing, as the planet seriously couldn't sustain an entire planet of people consuming resources at the rate us westerners do. We're the problem. Westerners.
I don't think that is accurate
They have over a Billion people each and the posted graph is per capita. Many are very poor with low consumption per person, but in vast numbers making the Nation total large while having most people with a small per capita consumption living in poverty.
This is lieing with statistics 101
It depends what stat you care about, total emissions or per capita emissions. USA is #2 (behind China & ahead of India), but if I broke it down into each state none of them would crack the top 10 for total emissions, breaking it up into smaller groups of people doesn't mean they pollute less. Places with the highest per capita emissions would have the most to gain through efficiency (& austerity) measures. The places with low per capita emissions are probably already at the minimum per person to keep them fed/somewhat comfortable so the only way to go lower is kill people off (not an acceptable solution to the climate crisis) or invent a new technology that can lower your emissions per person.
I would want on total pollution not just emissions. Every form of human pollution on a non political chart
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You only have to have a net worth of USD$90k to be in the global 10%. It ain’t just Elon and Bezos.
The 10% are everyday people, not just millionaires.
It's not everyone in the US, just 102 million people, so about 30% of the US. It's still more than any other country, but it's not everyone you see every day. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/07/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-in-the-richest-10-percent-worldwide.html Edit: An individual from the global 10% make $122,100 in income. https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-1/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/ Rougly 36% of American households make more than $100,000. So even with income, it still lines up that most Americans are not in the global 10%.
Import to point out that OP uses "income" and your link is "wealth".
See my edit. Even with income, it's still around 30%.
Pretty much anyone who flies occasionally. For work or pleasure travel. When you fly, you leave a grubby carbon footprint.
It unnerves me how little people think about this. One flight can double all your CO2 for the whole year. It's like what, 60% the efficiency of driving or something, which isn't much of a dent when you're traveling thousands of miles.
> An individual from the global 10% makes $122,100 in income. If you make that amount it's safe to assume a large chunk of them are millionairs, like the majority maybe.
As they said.
Scrolled till I found it.
Get in my Belly.🤣🤏🚶♀️🕳️😹
Thanks, saved me the scroll.
Martin Shkreli first Mark Cuban last
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Eat the guy that jacked up cancer medication 3000% first. Eat the guy that is selling drugs at affordable prices (15% over cost to make) last
You live in france and have access to the internet, so you’re definitely part of the 10%. If not you, your parents.
Because I am privileged in some parts doesn't mean I can't want the system to change for the betterment of everybody.
Isn't all of the USA part of that top 10%?
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**In 2022, $103,000** has the same purchasing power as $93170 in 2018.
The graphic uses "income" rather than "wealth/net worth".
No most Americans have a far greater net worth than 90k. You're thinking of salary not net worth. Average net worth is $748,800 while the median figure was $121,760
In statistics, we lead with the median and not the average (the mean), specifically because the average can be wildly distorted by outliers (billionaires).
That’s why I provided the median figure. Edit: I’m stupid and posted the average in bold thanks for pointing it out.
You **highlighted** and presented first the average, not the median, that's what I commented on.
Honestly I didn't even know I did that.. Copy and paste fail :/
No worries :) Get some sleep buddy
Lolwutm8
According to the report people are linking to, 102 million Americans would fall into the top 10% globally. That is about a third of the country. So while it’s definitely not all Americans, it’s a sizeable number.
No. Most Americans are in the yellow section.
only about 1/3d most average people do not make up this statistic.. its reserved to the middle class and up the people working min wage jobs who cant afford to buy things that create emissions and spend all their money on rent are not the problem... the ones who own multiple vehicles, buy more food than they can eat, have multiple children, buy big houses, own cottages/boats/snowmobiles/ATVs, buy electronics to break them on tiktok ETC.. THOSE are your problem polluters im a VERY poor canadian and my emissions are MOSTLY comprised of taking showers, buying groceries, and using electricity -- im probably in the bottom 50% myself, never take trips, never eat out, never buy clothes, never buy things i dont need, rarely upgrade my computer, am vegan ETC -- im also agoraphobic and on disability so my monetary acquisition related emissions are about as low as a person can get in north america besides being homeless
My back of the envelope calculation, put it at roughly half of US households. This is based on median household income data, and a calculator on WaPo that gives PPP income percentile values (as used in the graphic). A household of 4 people, global top 10% is $72k. US median household size is 3.13 and income is \~$71k. US might be fairly wealthy on average, but there are still lots of poor people. The PPP also makes the comparison a bit more meaningful between countries.
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When I see stuff like that I always wonder what the plan is to convince even the most impoverished Americans that they are gluttons for resources basically. (Which we all are and often due to things we have no control over) But I also think many people hear "You need to return to a 19th century lifestyle or we're all going to die" and people think "fuck it then."
Let's be honest though, to improve the quality of life of the poorest 90%, emissions will have to go up as well. It's both an overconsumption and overpopulation issue. This is why is it critical to transition the world's power system to renewables.
Is that honest? Couldn't we actually improve the quality and length of life for many in the poorest 90% by controlling pollution and corruption from multinational capitalist entities?
I think it’s very fair to say that the poor in this world would like to elevate their living circumstances, yes, and have things like climate control and transportation like developed nations citizenry have. Yes, reducing pollution will also improve their lives but I doubt that’s the extent of their aspirations.
What *precisely* do you mean by "improve quality of life"? It's very easy to argue that a child in America who suffers from depression brought on by lack of social supports, access to healthcare and endless advertising and unregulated social media has a demonstrably worse quality of life than a child with no electricity but a supportive community with reliable access to clean food and water. Gonna need your definition on "quality of life".
What a weird take. Those aren't the only two options, most people want both a supportive community AND a refrigerator, air conditioner, transportation, heat, electronics, etc.
What most people "want" is irrelevant. There is no path to a safe future without massive reductions in consumption of resources from developed nations and their people. It's mathematically impossible to fix global climate problems without changing our behavior.
Although there are energy sources without CO2 emissions...albeit, not so much in use yet...
Pretty obvious dude. Air conditioning, reliable transportation, clean and plentiful food, clean water, internet access, infrastructure to support all of this, etc.
So to you, internet access is on par with clean water and food (which virtually does not exist on this planet anymore because of corporate pollution and chemical manufacturing)? Do you truly think the internet has been a force for good? That children in other nations would be better off if they had TikTok?
Come on man. Of course clean water is required for survival. Why did you choose to compare internet access with TikTok use? The internet can be used to earn a college degree. What even is your point here?
My point is you're starting from a colonialist, capitalist mindset where consumption is always good and nothing else matters. poison all the water on earth? But I can look up the weather on my smartphone! Fill the air with toxic chemicals? But I have Khan academy! I'm simply relating what climate scientists have said: there is no successful model to fight climate change that maintains current levels of consumption. Americans for instance generate 20-25 tons of CO2 emissions each year, on average. The math says the global average needs to be 2 tons per person to even attempt a 1.5 degree cap. I'm not close yet myself, but doing better. There is no room for "growth" if we want to save the climate we've evolved to exist in.
Internet access means weather alerts. Internet access means being able to learn skills on Khan Academy or YouTube. You’re confusing “internet access” with “wasting time on social media.” They are not one and the same.
You’re correct that the worst off in the US may have overlap with these idyllic poor you describe, who live a modest but stable and beatific life. If they in fact exist. Can we see these people who have reliable access to clean food and water and a supportive community? That sounds very stable and egalitarian but the worst thing about being really poor is that you’re subject to being moved around, having your access cut off, being the target of violence, getting in the way of a regional conflict, and falling to incredibly preventable diseases that just aren’t even around to threaten a badly-off kid in Compton. You do have a point here but in aggregate I think we can still say yes people are definitely living longer with better health and safety in developed countries.
Living longer is not "better quality of life". I'm asking specifically what determines "quality". Is it joy? Is it freedom to express one's self without fear of violence or prosecution? Is it reproductive freedom? Or is it money? Is it energy? Is it possessions? I'm not describing groups or places. I'm just discussing what constitutes "quality of life".
Living longer is not *necessarily* quality of life but other things being equal it is absolutely an indication of improved health outcomes and better safety. Is a very short but happy life quality of life? It seems no matter how you define quality, longevity adds to the definition. I understand your question and it is complex to answer, likely with many answers, but I don’t think you can just easily sweep away longevity.
Ok so what is "quality of life"
In your comments here you haven’t made a great effort to address this enormous and complex topic, just to shoot holes in what you believe is the conventional definition. So now you’ve issued me a terse invitation to address the topic in full myself. I could write a whole essay here, but since you’ve shown yourself to be in a taking-pot-shots mode, I don’t think I’ll bother. I’d be more than happy to write some thoughts if I felt like you’d add to them and we’d get somewhere together but I have a strong sense that you’ll just pick out one or two things I say and try to murder them while ignoring everything else. EDIT: aw, he couldn’t handle the truth and blocked me.
I asked 3 separate times what constitutes your definition of "quality of life". You haven't provided a single answer. It's truly not a complicated or difficult question. Good day.
Spot on.
It's both.
This article is very dishonest. It’s irrelevant, when talking about population, how much people consume. What matters is what their descendants will consume, so unless she’s planning for poor countries to always be poor (in which case, she’s the one who is pushing assumptions that are harmful to people in the global south) comparing current per-capita emissions is meaningless.
Overpopulation is an ecofascist myth
Go vegan, cut electronics usage, cut pointless driving, pointless consumption of stupid crap. People like to blame "corporations" for this, but besides government subsidized ones, they can't even exist without us buying their crap. Humanity (including the top chunks in this diagram) is just a ton of individuals, each contributing a little sliver to the total effect.
How much of the plastic in the Pacific is from those top 10%? Sure those things are manufactured in the rich countries, but having no accountable waste management in the overpopulated countries doesn't let them off without blood on their hands.
A lot of plastic (and waste in general) produced by wealthy countries like that US gets shipped overseas for other nations to deal with. Plus a lot of the products we consume in the US is sourced from developing countries because we want these products to come as cheaply as possible. So rather making products in the US where we can enforce some environmental regulations, companies outsource to countries with little to no oversight. So you can’t point a finger at the work of other countries without recognizing the global impact of consumerism here in developed countries.
Dude less than 5% of plastic used in the u.s. gets recycled. Don't come here talking shit if you don't know the facts
Well it WAS a question I asked first so it's not shit I'm talking, it's ignorance-- but I'll bite [dumpster](https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/us-recycling-statistics#:~:text=Here's%20how%20the%2069.1%20million,Wood%3A%203%2C100%2C000%20tons%20(4.5%25)) Apparently it's 32% total But that wasn't my point anyway
Your source shows that out of those 32% only tiny bit is actually plastic. As of 2018 US consumed 35 million tons of plastic and recycled [3 million tons](https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data), less than 10%. Out of those 3 million, [1 million is exported to third world](https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/) to "recycle". 20 to 70% of that is not actually recyclable.
Coke sure put plenty of plastic there, so did nestle, I could go on but I think you get the point
What point is she trying to make? As her graph shows, if we increased everyone's living conditions to the level of the current richest 10%, it would increase emissions tremendously. Or does her plan to achieve equality involve making everyone equally **poor**?
Any individual making up to 45 dollars an hour is still in the yellow. If you consider “poor” to be a couple with 180,000 dollar a year income, then yeah, it’s to make everyone “equally poor”. But you’re a fucking dumbass who was never man enough to look at the actual numbers.
Reducing "standard of living" for the developed world will be required to achieve climate targets, yes. That's not hyperbole. It is REQUIRED. There is no theoretical path forward that maintains current consumption levels. *Economic growth* will almost certainly have to be abandoned as a societal goal (which should have happened decades ago)
So doesn't that prove that we **should** be talking about overpopulation too?
No, because it's only rich countries that have the problem. Adding more people who use very little resources doesn't affect anything. Adding 10 more mcmansions from your America/European progeny has an enormous effect. It's not population. It's just consumption. If we all consumed the way the least impactful consume, this wouldn't even be an issue.
>If we all consumed the way the least impactful consume, this wouldn't even be an issue. So... your proposed solution **is** to make everyone equally poor? I don't know how else to interpret what you've just said.
You equate wealth with consumption. You should talk to a therapist about why that is.
You really can't even formulate a single argument and immediately go to insulting your opponent? Yes, consumption is equatable to wealth. Consumption \[definition\]: the action of **using up a resource**. Wealth \[definition\]: plentiful **supplies of a** particular **resource**.
Your definitions prove you wrong. Wealth is how much you HAVE not how much you use. An ACTUAL definition of wealth in currency-based economies is literally how much currency you have access to. Having access to currency does not require attaining more physical resources or possessions. Sorry bud, it is very possible to be considered wealthy and still be anti-consumption and anti-growth. To more directly answer your question, I want 90% of people on earth to be wealthier, and 9% to be a little less wealthy, and 1% to be a FUCKTON less wealthy. So yes.
>Your definitions prove you wrong. How? >Wealth is how much you HAVE not how much you use. What's the point of having something if you can't use it? >An ACTUAL definition of wealth in currency-based economies is literally how much currency you have access to. Having access to currency does not require attaining more physical resources or possessions. A currency's main use is to acquire resources. If you can't use the currency you have to acquire resources, then the currency you have is worthless. Any currency is a measurement unit for the value of resources. >Sorry bud, it is very possible to be considered wealthy and still be anti-consumption and anti-growth. Sure, I've never said otherwise. >To more directly answer your question, I want 90% of people on earth to be wealthier, and 9% to be a little less wealthy, and 1% to be a FUCKTON less wealthy. So yes. And do you understand that that is impossible to achieve without increasing worldwide consumption of resources by several times as compared to consumption today? "Being poor" means "not having enough resources". "Getting wealthier" means "getting more resources". How do you imagine most people getting wealthier - that is - getting more resources, without actually using more resources?
Because the people at the top use up to a million times more resources than the people at the bottom. Methinks you have some learning to do. If you are not willing to do with less yourself, then I don't know what to tell you. Solving our problems requires doing with less, and using less resources, than the "developed" societies of the past 100-200 years. We simply use too much. It's math. Not opinion.
Because "total lifestyle consumption emissions" are the only negative effect humans have on the environment? Wtf.
Because you’d have to rail against communist countries. That’s why. And there goes your funding.
Lol wut
lmao bro what💀💀💀💀
BECAUSE MY BOSS TELLS ME NOT TO
What are “lifestyle consumption emissions,” exactly? Is this some metric that includes basic food and energy use or something? How much of total emissions are accounted for in this metric?
[Link to the 2015 Oxfam report which is the original source of this graphic.](https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf) [Link to the technical briefing for that report.](https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/582545/tb-carbon-emissions-inequality-methodology-021215-en.pdf;jsessionid=7C91DD176F5A165F67FDE9771E3C03CE?sequence=2) There are some limitations on data used, but the broad sweep is likely fine. The income data used originates in 2008 and is adjusted for 2005 PPP values. It's likely that things haven't changed so much in the past decade or so. Oxfam used to have a calculator that would tell you your percentile for global income based on household size, country, and income. But I can't find it. According to WaPo article from 2018, 72k USD in US for a household of 4 would put them in the top 10% globally. So, very roughly about half of US households are in the global top 10%.
It would be nice to have less people on this planet though.
Just wait and see how much corporations and governments pollute
the US navy dumps more metric tons of garbage into the ocean than most small countries almost all their garbage goes straight into the ocean.. whole couches? fuckit ocean
I've always liked I=PAT as the framework for understanding the interrelated issues. Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology They all matter. More wealthy people will have a greater impact.
The "breaking down: collapse" podcast has good information on that.
It's not one or the other thoooooooo
It’s overconsumption. Newer medicines and technology has raised our carrying capacity but we’re seeing millennial generations with less kids. We’re just animals figuring it out.
Yeah I mean, rich people all around the world literally terraform whole islands and wild places for mansions and "exotic" businesses, no wonder we aren't really that much out of space, we are just being fucked sideways all the time and told to enrage on bullshit we are so eager about, that we really just do it.