this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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There's a ton of academic research showing the correlation between income and emissions.
There are also a ton of actions which are necessary to get to zero emissions but not sufficient. Banning private jets is one.
Banning private jets is so far down the long-tail of emissions-lowering strategies that it's barely even worth considering. Heck, it might even be bad to consider it because doing so might serve to distract from the things we actually need to do.
The problem isn't just billionaire-level income correlated with billionaire-level emissions; the problem is American middle-class-level income correlated with American middle-class-level emissions, too! We -- typical, normal Americans -- are the global rich people the article's talking about. The "big barrier to stabilizing the climate" isn't the robber-baron who doesn't want to give up his private jet; it's the suburban soccer mom who doesn't want to trade her ~~minivan~~ crossover SUV for a cargo bike.
It's both, and having billionaires cut their incredibly high emissions makes it politically possible to get the rest of the population on board
Yeah, but that assumes you can succeed in forcing the billionaires to cut their incredibly high emissions. I'm not sure we can afford the time spent picking that fight.