• AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
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    16 days ago

    Warning: Unpopular opinion coming up

    This is a ridiculous metric. They measure carbon emissions not just by what the billionaires are consuming, but by what their investments (businesses, factories, etc) are producing. This is akin to the world blaming China for their grossly inflated per capita emissions, while conveniently ignoring that it’s actually being consumed by other countries and it’s just shifting numbers around.

    There are plenty of legit reasons to hate billionaires, there’s really no need to be making up new questionable ones that can be torn apart.

    • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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      16 days ago

      You got a point. However, billionaires are still extremely horrible for the environment. Just owning a private get and regularly using it emits probably more carbon than the average person.

    • houseofleft@slrpnk.net
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      16 days ago

      I think that’s a really good point to be fair. Would be interested to see what it was on a consumption basis - like other people are pointing out, the lifestyle of the ultra rich is definitely pretty carbon intensive.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      It makes some sense to approportion to them the share of the negative externalities of their businesses that matches the share of the revenue they get as profit from those businesses (since the business has to have a higher level of activity to generate profit that it would to merelly break even).

      However for the reason you pointed out it doesn’t make sense to assigned to them the responsibility for the negative externalities of creating wealth which they did not themselves capture even if they own the businesses that did that wealth creation.

      Of course, things can be quite a lot more complex than this - for example, if a billionaire choses to go with a disproportionally more poluting process in their business to get a small increase in profit, doesn’t he or she have responsability for that extra polution which goes well beyond merelly the extra profit they got? - but as a rule of thumb it makes sense that people’s responsability for the polution in wealth creation activities is proportional to how much of that created wealth ends up in their hands.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Your first point is pretty good.

      Although your argument about China is very wrong.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Thats actually an insane metric. Like I try to be conscious and clean, but even I polute far more than I should. Then these dudes are doing that over and over every hour and a half? What the fuck?

  • treefrog@lemm.ee
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    16 days ago

    So if someone is polluting the air my child and I breathe, and destroying the environment in which we live, and I use physical force to stop them, is that self-defense?

    • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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      16 days ago

      If you cook the rich over a wood burning fire, it would be a net savings in carbon emissions, hypothetically speaking.

      • qupada@fedia.io
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        16 days ago

        My cauldron uses an induction stove powered by renewable energy.

        Braised in wine, the way they’re accustomed to. Attempting to roast the rich doesn’t achieve a great result.

    • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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      16 days ago

      Usually but because it’s the environment then you would get labeled as a terrorist instead of being able to claim self defense. Sorry it looks like the corporations were more forward thinking and got some laws passed to label anything trying to protect the environment is now eco-terrorism.

      Only kinda /s

    • NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org
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      16 days ago

      Here is how ethics works:

      • if I push a boulder on you I’m a murderer
      • if I push a boulder that squashes you but on the way down the hill it grinds some flour your death is an externality and I am industrious.

      Since we are in the latter case, it is not self defense. Too bad, so sad.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    16 days ago

    We should burn billionaires for fuel to reduce our carbon footprints.

  • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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    16 days ago

    If you check out elonjet on mastodon it shows his fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

    Tons of co2 per flight. Thousands of gallons of fuel.

    To go 15 minutes away.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago
      15 mile (13 NM) flight from KEDC to AUS
      
      ~ 85 gallons (322 liters). 
      ~ 571 lbs (259 kg) of jet fuel used. 
      ~ $477 cost of fuel. 
      ~ 0.8991 tons of CO2 emissions.
      

      15 miles.

    • مهما طال الليل@lemm.ee
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      16 days ago

      Reddit would probably ban me for what I think should happen to him, but thank goodness we are on Lemm.ee and the fediverse doesn’t seem to like him.

      How many liters of fuel can be produced by pressing Elon?

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Georgism makes most sense when applied to pollution. Determining prices is the only question.

      Now if you employ georgism anyway, maybe it would make sense in other contexts, no?

      I’m still trying to sell libertarianism to folks in the Interwebs, yah, just like Jehova’s witnesses do.

  • cm0002@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Yea but it’s on us for not recycling or not setting our thermostats to 85° or leaving the lights on or having the audacity to leave electronics in standby or leaving a charger plugged in or driving too much! /s

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      We are past that situation where growing populations were the problem, it’s the opposite now.

      Even %%% India will have shrinking population.

  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    If dairy and beef cows produce significant quantities of greenhouse gas, and the rich also produce significant quantities of greenhouse gas, does that make them edible too?

  • NABDad@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    They’re just measuring the increase in the amount of methane in the room when Elon speaks.