this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
925 points (99.0% liked)

World News

47222 readers
2100 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes

The world’s wealthiest 10% are responsible for two-thirds of global heating since 1990, driving droughts and heatwaves in the poorest parts of the world, according to a study.

While researchers have previously shown that higher income groups emit disproportionately large amounts of greenhouse gases, the latest survey is the first to try to pin down how that inequality translates into responsibility for climate breakdown. It offers a powerful argument for climate finance and wealth taxes by attempting to give an evidential basis for how many people in the developed world – including more than 50% of full-time employees in the UK – bear a heightened responsibility for the climate disasters affecting people who can least afford it.

“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,” said Sarah Schöngart, a climate modelling analyst and the study’s lead author.

(page 2) 45 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (12 children)

If you're reading this, you're in that 10%.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I want to know what part of the two-thirds, the 1% holds.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Undeniably a majority. We can't ignore the fact that we have impact on climate too. Big interest want us to argue over blame rather than try to fix the problem (Them). That said, I don't commute by aircraft daily like Taylor Swift and every other rich person.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

To produce their analysis, the researchers fed wealth-based greenhouse gas emissions inequality assessments into climate modelling frameworks, allowing them to systematically attribute the changes in global temperatures and the frequency of extreme weather events that have taken place between 1990 and 2019.

I do take studies like this with a grain of salt. I don't know this organization, but they certainly have a point of view, and it certainly is reasonable to think they could have run those computer simulations to say what they wanted it to say.

Now with that said, I'd wager many of the folks in this thread are included in that 10%. The top 10% of the world makes like $50,000 a year. "Rich" is subjective and varies from country to country, region to region. Hell it can vary widely just in the US. And even in a single state (look at average wages for somebody in the NYC area versus Syracuse).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

affording to ruin the earth

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Eat the rich. Remove them from society

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 114 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

The threshold to be in the top 10% is €42,980 or $49,000 (grossing from what I can tell).

The top 1% and 0.1% for comparison are 20x and 76x.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

So, likely everyone in the developed world, not just billionaires.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Is there a source for this?

This was my assumption, but when I searched earlier, I could only find sources citing the top 12% was above $100k

Wiki - Distribution of Wealth

I'm assuming I've misunderstood something.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

The article talks about income (the headline seems a bit confusing), the wiki about net worth?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Neat!

picks up pollut-o-matic and starts firing into the air

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 81 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Yeah, what people forget is that even average americans (and central/northern europeans and some other plaves) are quite wealthy from a global perspective. Many people on lemmy, self included, are in that global 10%.

And many of those emissions aren't something you can just avoid either, they often come as a result of being a user of local infrastructure etc.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

If my taxes would go towards make that infrastructure sustainable, i would happily pay more taxes. As it stands my taxes mostly go to more Autobahn, upkeep of parking spots, subsidies for desastrous industries and cross-financing the retirement insurance, so the boomers can go on cruise vacations.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And half the time they get mad when you point it out.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In fairness, what are they going to do about being born into a richer slice of the world pie? As shitty as it is, people won't have much sympathy for those doing worse than them unless they've achieved a certain baseline. If they can't conceive of how life could be worse (many issues in this fragment), they won't accept or care that others are suffering.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

At the very least, us 10%ers could be advocating for things that lower the carbon cost of our lifestyle, such as zoning reform.

Note that I'm not talking about reducing the quality of our lifestyle. I'm talking about maintaining or improving the quality while making it more efficient.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

And in other news water is still wet

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›