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America's richest 10% are responsible for 40% of its planet-heating pollution, new report finds (www.cnn.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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America’s wealthiest people are also some of the world’s biggest polluters – not only because of their massive homes and private jets, but because of the fossil fuels generated by the companies they invest their money in.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

From the article:

They found the wealthiest 10% in the US, households making more than about $178,000, were responsible for 40% of the nation’s human-caused, planet-heating pollution.

So this only focuses on emissions from the US

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

This, and most of China's carbon emissions come from the production of goods for the rest of the world, so they're not the only ones "responsible" for those 50%.

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

households making more than about $178,000

So that's a household, meaning it likely is two adults working plus children. I would like to see this broken down more granularly - what percentage is due to the top 1% or top 0.01%, and is it due to investments or private jets, yachts, and recreational space exploration.