The thing is, even if it’s true that the average billionaire uses 1,000,000x as much energy as the average person, there are so few billionaires that most of the world’s CO2 is still emitted by the other 8.2 billion.
We definitely should make it so there are no billionaires. Tax them out of existence, and if that doesn’t work, axe them out of existence.
Having said that, we also need to take responsibility for our own wasteful lives. Just look at how inefficient cars are. In North America it’s perfectly normal to jump into a vehicle and haul around multiple tons of steel just to go get coffee. Another major source of CO2 is electricity and heat. Thankfully solar cells are getting so cheap that within a few decades (if the oil lobby can be defeated) most electricity will probably be solar. But, should we really be living in places where the heat needs to be turned on for 6 months of the year?
Canada is bringing in hundreds of thousands of immigrants per year, and the total population is growing at something like 1 million more people per year. Each one of those people becomes one of the most energy-using people on the planet, partially because the North American lifestyle is wasteful, partially because Canada is insanely cold half the year and requires massive energy for heating. Every new Canadian, whether a birth or an immigrant makes the world’s CO2 footprint much bigger. Maybe Canada should start shrinking and not growing, and the population should move to places where such a massively energy intensive lifestyle is not necessary.
Articles like this always seem like they’re people looking for a way to shift the blame to someone else. This time it’s the billionaires. Other times it has been corporations. People never take responsibility for their own lives.
there are about 3000 billionaires, if they generate a million people’s world of CO2 each, that’s the pollution of 3 billion people!!! about half the world population.
even ignoring their lobbying, just snapping them away Thanos style would mean more co2 saving than eliminating any single industry.
Mary Antoinette them is likely not the solution, better to regulate them and tax them out of existence. or Antoinette then if they keep fighting to kill us all.
if they generate a million people’s world of CO2 each, that’s the pollution of 3 billion people!!!
Which is why I doubt that that’s true. For it to be true, you’d probably have to do some kind of calculation like “if this privately owned company is owned by a billionaire, then assign all CO2 emissions from its entire operations to that one individual”. So, if you eliminated them, you actually wouldn’t eliminate those CO2 emissions. Someone would take over that business and it would continue putting out CO2 as long as someone was buying its products and/or services.
The science is available for you to double check the math and methods. Go do that and show us your findings if you dispute the results instead of baselessly assuming it isn’t true because it doesn’t fit your preconceived assumptions.
It’s likely that the “million times more than the average person” includes the CO2 emissions from their stocks. still, making them scared is the easiest way to stop them from burning the planet where I live.
But you’re not going to make them scared by publishing made up news stories like this. What will make them scared is politicians who they haven’t bought being in power.
I just wish it wasn’t 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter were really scaring the billionaires, but not only did they lose their jobs when Trump won, it seemed likely that Harris was going to ditch them if she won too.
A lot of the “oil lobby” is suburban dwellers who rely on their cars for everything and oppose anything transportation-related that isn’t a subsidy for cars and roads.
Im mostly commenting so I can use this to remind myself later to research it, but I wonder which would be better enviromentally? Living in a cold place that requires heating 6 months of the year, or AC?
AC is actually pretty efficient from the point of view of thermodynamics. The Coefficient of Performance of just about any air conditioner or heat pump will be well above 1. That is, Watts of cooling/heating provided per Watt of power. For a purely electrical heater the coefficient of performance is 1. 1 Watt of electricity results in 1 Watt of heating.
If you’re using a heat pump in winter, it’s essentially the same efficiency as using an air conditioner in summer. But, there are differences. For one, if it’s 25C people might feel comfortable. If it’s 35C people are almost certainly using the air conditioner. But if it’s 10 degrees in the other direction, 15C, people might just have warm sweaters on. So, naturally, no heating being used is infinitely more efficient than turning the AC on.
Another difference is that every device in your house generates heat. Your fridge moves heat from the inside to the outside, meaning it moves heat into your kitchen. Plus the pumps your fridge uses to circulate the coolant generate waste heat. Your stove, oven, microwave, kettle, coffee-maker, etc. all generate heat. Your computer, phone, TV, etc. all generate heat. Lamps generate much less heat than they used to. A 100W bulb used to generate 100W of heat, but modern LED lights use only about 4W for the same amount of light – but that 4W still eventually becomes waste heat. That means that in summer your AC needs to dump all that additional heat outside, whereas in winter your heating system has to do less work the more gadgets you have on.
If you have a purely electrical heating system (which are hugely inefficient) every watt your gaming computer uses to generate awesome graphics is a watt your heater doesn’t need to generate to heat the place up. But, in the summer, every watt of heat you generate indoors is a watt of heat your AC unit needs to dump outside.
But, IMO, the bigger deal is that people live in some really cold places. In Fairbanks, Alaska, the daily mean temperature in January is -22.4C. In Phoenix, Arizona the daily mean in July is 35.3. But that means that in Phoenix in the hottest month, the average outside temperature is only about 10 degrees away from a comfortable indoor temperature. Whereas in Fairbanks the average outdoor temperature is a full 45 degrees colder than a comfortable indoor temp. So, my guess is that even if you’re someone who bakes things in the oven daily, even in summer, you have a powerful gaming PC running at up to 1000 Watts, you blow-dry your hair every day, etc. Even then, someone with that lifestyle in Phoneix is probably using fewer watts of overall power (electricity + heating) than someone in Fairbanks.
In the end though, it probably comes down to how you’re generating the power, and how you’re generating the heat. If you live somewhere where your electricity is fully environmentally friendly, then your AC or heating might have zero CO2 cost, unless you include the entire lifecycle of the solar panels, the air conditioners, the heating system, etc. Then the manufacturing process will generate some CO2. But, your use of the system won’t. If you’re heating using heating oil or natural gas, then of course you’re going to generate a lot of CO2 as a result.
The thing is, even if it’s true that the average billionaire uses 1,000,000x as much energy as the average person, there are so few billionaires that most of the world’s CO2 is still emitted by the other 8.2 billion.
We definitely should make it so there are no billionaires. Tax them out of existence, and if that doesn’t work, axe them out of existence.
Having said that, we also need to take responsibility for our own wasteful lives. Just look at how inefficient cars are. In North America it’s perfectly normal to jump into a vehicle and haul around multiple tons of steel just to go get coffee. Another major source of CO2 is electricity and heat. Thankfully solar cells are getting so cheap that within a few decades (if the oil lobby can be defeated) most electricity will probably be solar. But, should we really be living in places where the heat needs to be turned on for 6 months of the year?
Canada is bringing in hundreds of thousands of immigrants per year, and the total population is growing at something like 1 million more people per year. Each one of those people becomes one of the most energy-using people on the planet, partially because the North American lifestyle is wasteful, partially because Canada is insanely cold half the year and requires massive energy for heating. Every new Canadian, whether a birth or an immigrant makes the world’s CO2 footprint much bigger. Maybe Canada should start shrinking and not growing, and the population should move to places where such a massively energy intensive lifestyle is not necessary.
Articles like this always seem like they’re people looking for a way to shift the blame to someone else. This time it’s the billionaires. Other times it has been corporations. People never take responsibility for their own lives.
there are about 3000 billionaires, if they generate a million people’s world of CO2 each, that’s the pollution of 3 billion people!!! about half the world population.
even ignoring their lobbying, just snapping them away Thanos style would mean more co2 saving than eliminating any single industry.
Mary Antoinette them is likely not the solution, better to regulate them and tax them out of existence. or Antoinette then if they keep fighting to kill us all.
Which is why I doubt that that’s true. For it to be true, you’d probably have to do some kind of calculation like “if this privately owned company is owned by a billionaire, then assign all CO2 emissions from its entire operations to that one individual”. So, if you eliminated them, you actually wouldn’t eliminate those CO2 emissions. Someone would take over that business and it would continue putting out CO2 as long as someone was buying its products and/or services.
The science is available for you to double check the math and methods. Go do that and show us your findings if you dispute the results instead of baselessly assuming it isn’t true because it doesn’t fit your preconceived assumptions.
It’s likely that the “million times more than the average person” includes the CO2 emissions from their stocks. still, making them scared is the easiest way to stop them from burning the planet where I live.
But you’re not going to make them scared by publishing made up news stories like this. What will make them scared is politicians who they haven’t bought being in power.
We’re getting there. one Mamdani/Kat at a time.
I just wish it wasn’t 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter were really scaring the billionaires, but not only did they lose their jobs when Trump won, it seemed likely that Harris was going to ditch them if she won too.
the status quo will fight any change tooth and nail. not going to be easy
Without billionaires the oil lobby wouldn’t exist
Without the oil and motor lobby, normal people wouldn’t drive a car every day.
A lot of the “oil lobby” is suburban dwellers who rely on their cars for everything and oppose anything transportation-related that isn’t a subsidy for cars and roads.
Im mostly commenting so I can use this to remind myself later to research it, but I wonder which would be better enviromentally? Living in a cold place that requires heating 6 months of the year, or AC?
AC is actually pretty efficient from the point of view of thermodynamics. The Coefficient of Performance of just about any air conditioner or heat pump will be well above 1. That is, Watts of cooling/heating provided per Watt of power. For a purely electrical heater the coefficient of performance is 1. 1 Watt of electricity results in 1 Watt of heating.
If you’re using a heat pump in winter, it’s essentially the same efficiency as using an air conditioner in summer. But, there are differences. For one, if it’s 25C people might feel comfortable. If it’s 35C people are almost certainly using the air conditioner. But if it’s 10 degrees in the other direction, 15C, people might just have warm sweaters on. So, naturally, no heating being used is infinitely more efficient than turning the AC on.
Another difference is that every device in your house generates heat. Your fridge moves heat from the inside to the outside, meaning it moves heat into your kitchen. Plus the pumps your fridge uses to circulate the coolant generate waste heat. Your stove, oven, microwave, kettle, coffee-maker, etc. all generate heat. Your computer, phone, TV, etc. all generate heat. Lamps generate much less heat than they used to. A 100W bulb used to generate 100W of heat, but modern LED lights use only about 4W for the same amount of light – but that 4W still eventually becomes waste heat. That means that in summer your AC needs to dump all that additional heat outside, whereas in winter your heating system has to do less work the more gadgets you have on.
If you have a purely electrical heating system (which are hugely inefficient) every watt your gaming computer uses to generate awesome graphics is a watt your heater doesn’t need to generate to heat the place up. But, in the summer, every watt of heat you generate indoors is a watt of heat your AC unit needs to dump outside.
But, IMO, the bigger deal is that people live in some really cold places. In Fairbanks, Alaska, the daily mean temperature in January is -22.4C. In Phoenix, Arizona the daily mean in July is 35.3. But that means that in Phoenix in the hottest month, the average outside temperature is only about 10 degrees away from a comfortable indoor temperature. Whereas in Fairbanks the average outdoor temperature is a full 45 degrees colder than a comfortable indoor temp. So, my guess is that even if you’re someone who bakes things in the oven daily, even in summer, you have a powerful gaming PC running at up to 1000 Watts, you blow-dry your hair every day, etc. Even then, someone with that lifestyle in Phoneix is probably using fewer watts of overall power (electricity + heating) than someone in Fairbanks.
In the end though, it probably comes down to how you’re generating the power, and how you’re generating the heat. If you live somewhere where your electricity is fully environmentally friendly, then your AC or heating might have zero CO2 cost, unless you include the entire lifecycle of the solar panels, the air conditioners, the heating system, etc. Then the manufacturing process will generate some CO2. But, your use of the system won’t. If you’re heating using heating oil or natural gas, then of course you’re going to generate a lot of CO2 as a result.
You’re the man. Thank you.
I’d still be interested in what you find if you do research it. Maybe there’s something I’m overlooking.