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Wealthiest 10% of US Households Responsible for 40% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Study
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
416 points (95.8% liked)
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TIL I'm in the top 10%. Yeah I can't believe I pollute any more than the other 90%. I work 100% from home, only my wife commutes 3 days a week. House is a modest 2200 sq ft. I don't have a boat or RV or plane or anything. I have some modest investment in hotels, cruise lines, and airlines (like under $5k all in). So yeah, this study leaves a lot to be desired.
EDIT: I guess my 401k or other managed investment accounts may have money in fossil fuels, but I'm not sure how I would know that or what exactly I would do about it. I have zero choice for the 401k as it's through my company. Other accounts maybe but how would one even track down managed investment accounts that don't include the largest pollution contributors?
Like lots of data, it's an average. There are lots of people, similar to you, who are not absolute gas guzzlers I'm the top 10%. The top 10% also includes the 1% and the .1%, which will greatly increase the average for the entire category.
Similarly to how an average doesn't tell the whole story, neither does how you invest. Assumptions have to be made to come up with these articles, such as how much carbon emissions are created through investments, which isn't exactly cut and dry.
TL;DR just because an article says that a group of people are the cause of something, it doesn't mean that everyone in the group is causing it.
It also depends on how the data is being used. For this study source of wages is being heavily weighted as well as what companies an individual chooses to invest in. So while household is the focus of the headline companies are more the focus, since by the metric used it seems as though someone who lives a green life style on paper living in a tent and biking but invests majority of their money and sees it grow would be a heavier polluter than someone who makes less but lives in a big house, drives suvs and pick ups, but doesn't see their net worth increase with most money not being used towards investments but paying off debt.
What I got from the study is source of your wage and investments have more to do with how much of a high polluter you are than what you choose to do individually. So you could be a high wage earner who lives in a tent and bikes and invests a majority of their money that grows in profit, and that because of the growing investments and employer make you a higher polluter than someone who lives in a huge house and drives suvs and pick ups and doesn't see their net worth grow due to so much of their stuff being financed.
With the money source being weighted this kind of feels more like an industry analysis despite the individual focus with how indirect it is, and based on some of comments here I guess people didn't read the article either not realizing it has less to do with individual efforts like solar or private jets. At least that's what I got from my attempt to understand the study.
Conclusion seems to be more that companies that pollute pay higher wages than a study of direct household pollution.