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Guys, if you’re in “developed” countries and you’re at least 1.5x above the poverty line, you’re included in the global 10%. This smells like greenwashing the ultra-rich’s effect, rather than showcasing it.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02325-x
Top 1% is responsible for 20% of emissions and are 20x more responsible than the average person.
This is a core component of the class war.
For all of history the ruling class have granted a minority of the proles a privileged life, who will play ball and defend their privileged position from the majority (uncle toms, lords, landowners, managers, lobbyists, politicians, even most CEO’s).
Most of the richest 10-1% in the developing world earned their wealth through labor, and simply bought property or invested in retirement funds at the right time. They are still pawns, and not the ruling class decision makers — mostly born into so much wealth that they never had to work a day in their lives — who control corporations, political parties, military and geopolitical actions. They are the ones who own the media and propaganda machines, finance the class and culture wars, corrupt our political and democratic institutions, and have prevented our transition away from fossil fuels for 50+ years. Hell most of the 1-0.1% are not decision makers; probably successful doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, entertainers, etc.
No war but class war…
This should have been the headline.
No. You are overestimating the income distribution in the world. The 10% worldwide threshold is a out 70k USD ppp, see: https://wid.world/world/#tptinc_p90p100_z/US;FR;DE;CN;ZA;GB;WO-PPP/last/us/k/p/yearly/t/false/0/200000/curve/false/country
2/3 of that would be 46k dollars. In which “developed” country in Europe would that be the poverty line? Poverty in German, iirc is around 20k euros.
Guys, if you’re in “developed” countries and you’re at least 1.5x above the poverty line, you’re included in the global 10%
17% of the global population lives in developed countries and there are plenty of rich people in developing countries too.
The so called middle class was created so that a portion of the working class would have enough wealth to consume products at a rate necessary to fuel the ongoing growth of the economy. In fulfilling this function (partly due to the influence of marketing propaganda), the middle class is also complicit. Not as complicit, but still.
Yes, very good. I think the people responsible for the decisions that lead us here should be held to account before those who passively participated, but I read you loud and clear.
It’s funny how he (a university professor from uk) is very probably part of that 10%, but writes as if implied he’s not lol. The people in rich countries has really no notion of how rich they are when compared with the rest of the world.
Also, I see that a lot of people around here seem to identify themselves in the top 10%. maybe that explains how I (low-income person from the third world) feel so detached from the community, especially in topics related to tech, as if we lived in different worlds. Well, maybe I really live in a different world than most around…
“In the United States (EU27), the top 10% contribute 3.1 (2.8) times more to global warming than the average citizen, but 17 (8) times more than the global average”
Top 10% is a salary about $155,000 for an individual or $210,000 for US household. Obviously industrialized countries like China, US, India, Russia, etc admit much higher than the global average.
Please state your approx. income and country so we judge you now.
Please state your approx. income and country so we judge you now.
I’m from Brazil, and my household (2 people) gets a total of 3200 of local currency (brl) per month, which is 38400 per year, equivalent to about 7470 usd per year. For refecence, the monthly average per capita here is 2264 brl.
Top 10% in Brazil is estimated to be 8k a month but you would probably have more insight than an Internet search so I would appreciate your opinion on that.
What I think is interesting is the assumption that many people you would think aren’t in the 10% and how high the 10% actually is. I am sure looking at the top 1% would be an even more extreme version of this.
A university professor in the UK is likely not making that.
It says average salary for a permanent UK professor is around 85k pounds. Top 10% can be as high as 115,000 pounds, but it varies greatly on where you live.
Btw there’s a good chance that you’re in that 10%
https://wir2026.wid.world/insight/global-economic-inequity/ (Figure 1.4)
To belong to the top 10%, an individual must earn about $65,500 per year (around $5,460 per month). To reach the top 1%, the threshold rises to about $250,300 annually ($21,860 per month). Unsurprisingly, most of the population earning at these levels is concentrated in Europe, North America, and Oceania.
Nothing econ good can’t solve. For. The. Better.
That’s not high income groups, though. It’s not high income to make 65k in America. No way are you burning more than rich anyone else in any even developing country.
You don’t think someone making 65k living with a smart phone, car, AC, electric heat, using goods like toilet paper, hot water, plastic, crafted metals, etc. produces more pollution than someone in the 90th percentile wealth in a developing country?
This.
The way to know where you are in the pollution impact is if you drive a car you’re in the top 10%. If you regularly fly you’re in the 1%, and if you fly a private jet you’re in 0.1%
Why rich people use so much more energy: It’s mainly all the traveling, says a comprehensive new study. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/20/21184814/climate-change-energy-income-inequality
I’ve reduced my meat consumption (and heavily reduced my beef/dairy consumption) partially motivated out of climate responsibility, switched to an EV (and still drive about half of the national average distance per year, with only one car shared in my 4-person household).
But I fly a lot, and no matter how you slice it, I still cause way more carbon emissions than the national average. A round trip flight between New York and Los Angeles on economy class commercial aircraft emits about 600 kg of carbon dioxide per passenger, or 0.6 tonnes. With the world average emissions of 4.7 tonnes per person, a person who flies from one side of the country to the other (or between countries) quickly adds up to more than their fair share.
There are 1.4 billion passenger vehicles in the world. So I don’t think driving is necessarily the 10% cut off.
We need build a world where everyone is equally responsible for global warming. It’s only fair.
There’s already fair distribution, the top 10% cause most of climate change while the bottom 10% will reap most of its rewards!
True trickle
down economicsup consequences
Now let’s look at Who those 10% of world population are:
Right! mostly Americans and our rich westener friends. propably contributing 100 times more than a fella from Zimbabwe does.
800 million people in that 10% but “yep it’s all the Americans faults!” lmao
Unless it is a rich Zimbabwean. Then it’s probably them. It’s about purchasing power and ability to buy air fare and cars etc.
It’s very easy to point at and blame others. We can all contribute to solving the problem.
If you can cycle rather than drive to work, the planet thanks you whether you’re in Michigan or Nairobi.
67
10%, chances are very good that you’re it.
Not that it matters much, postfossil indefinitely sustainable planetary population is a lot less than one billion, perhaps as low as 100 million. It would be just 500000 if we were a just another species our size.
In 1800 the global population was a bit over 1billion.
Yes, we haven’t been longterm sustainable even since preindustrial times. Worse, the carrying capacity after all is sung and done will be a lot lower than the preindustrial one.
This. And it’s 10% by income and not 10% by wealth. If you are even in the 2% of income ($180k/y), you’re basically a wageslave with a chance not to retire in time
No, I don’t have a pre-tax income above $70k USD. Do you?
I do, or close enough.
Did you read my second paragraph, about the postfossil planetary ecosystem carrying capacity? And no, without fossil fuels you can’t build and maintain renewable or nuclear energy infrastracture, either.
So we should do something about it
This is why I support carbon taxes
10% of income is basically $70k/y. If you’re above this line - you are the problem
It is more complex then that. For example somebody earning over $70k/y might easily live car free and vegan in Paris, while not flying on vacation. Part of that is individual choice like living vegan and other parts are part of the system around that person, like the amazing public transit in Paris or that the French electricity grid is nearly emissions free. Somebody like that might well have carbon footprint below the global average.
In the end it is a systems problem. A well designed system should not allow people to harm others on a scale like that. But individuals do have agency and those with $70k/y more then most. If those individuals make good choices, then they might well be part of the solution and not the problem.
Yes and no. It is possible for someone earning 70k/year to emit below the average (let’s also keep in mind that the goal is not to be below the average, but to be at 0 emissions/impact), but everything you can buy has a CO2/environment-cost related to it.
As soon as you spend more, you have a higher impact. Of course there are more and less impactful ways of consumption, so you do raise a good point, but we’re not going to consume our way out of this misery.
A really nice book I shove down the throat of every single one of my friends who’s not running away fast enough is The Day the World Stops Shopping, in case you have way too much time at hand ^^
Also 70K net or gross is quite a big difference.
Also me not having kids and commuting using an EV that’s charged at almost entirely by solar/nuclear means I am well below that threshold.
Where I live district heating also comes from geothermal heat.
It’s before taxes.
Yay! I’m not part of it!
Granted plenty of people who earn less than me have far worse impacts on climate and some people who make more may be doing better. Like someone in NYC making much more than me might be causing less emissions just because better public transit and all their money just goes into rent. Meanwhile, someone in Texas who eats beef regularly, drives 20+ miles in their truck most days, etc could easily be worse while making significantly less.
So burn the rich.
And see bootlickers still defend the billionaires saying they worked hard and therefore deserved to do however with their wealth.
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
It’s a compelling argument but I’d find it even more compelling if historical countries like USSR and China where the working class “won” had better environmental records than they do.
Per capita, especially cumulatively, their emissions are extremely low.
btw 10% of 8 billion is 800 million people, so it’s basically “the west”.
Yes.
I was referring to the past. Chernobyl, Baku, Aral Sea, Norilsk, Liaoning, etc all of which were very messy places while being run in a command economy.
This is pretty nuanced, but I do feel like if you look at the environmental damage by the west on colonised nations and add all of that up, you’d probably still have way “more”, the only question is how you compare different kinds of environmental damage.
Just because capitalism runs in circles socialsm doesn’t have to, too.
Yep. I’m sure we’ve all learned a lot since then.
We know that socialism has in the past made the same trade-off between the environment the economic growth. That the environmental damage wasn’t even worse might have more to do with how bad they were at growing their economy than anything else. I don’t know, I wasn’t there.
It’s going to take more than eating the rich. Workers will need to be continually on their guard against the centralization of power and the emergence of a disconnected elite that happened every other time socialism was tried (and every time capitalism was tried, to be fair).
