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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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This is a piss poor metric. It is not what these people personally emit but what they emit by all the companies that they may own. Even though those companies produce products you and me consume.
In other words if I am a massive farmer and in the ten percent wealth category, my carbon footprint includes all the food produced and you consume from my farm.
The study's primary metric appears to include both supplier and producer emissions proportional to income and investments. What alternative do you suggest?
You are responsible for the entire carbon footprint from ground to your mouth/back/use. Not the person that worked to provide it to you.
I am not discounting the problem of wealth inequality. That is a complete seperate issue. But you don't get to transfer your carbon footprint onto other entities because they made the product for you.
That's an oversimplification.
People bare responsibility for their consumption, sure. But people are also limited by their circumstances. We live in a world where alternatives often just aren't available, and even where they are available, they are often not affordable.
For example, blaming people for the carbon output of their car, while they exist in a country that has systemically refused to invest in public transport because of fossil-fuel industry lobbying, is absurd. Or blaming someone for choosing inexpensive but environmentally damaging foodstuffs, rather than more environmentally friendly alternatives, when they are working in a system that has suppressed wages for decades, is similarly absurd.
This is part of why trying to individualise the blame for climate change and suggest individual actions is such nonsense. It's just a means to maintain the status quo and do nothing to solve the problem. We need systemic change.