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Richest 10% Produce 50% of Carbon Emissions

Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby ralfy » Fri 04 Dec 2015, 23:38:28

One catch is that the 10 pct attained their economic status thanks to increased sales of goods and services to the other 90 pct, which means the value of their wealth (which consists mostly of numbers in hard drives) can only be maintained and can only grow through continuous increase in sales of goods and services. That can only happen if more of the 90 pct join the middle class.
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby ennui2 » Sat 05 Dec 2015, 01:30:00

ralfy wrote:One catch is that the 10 pct attained their economic status thanks to increased sales of goods and services to the other 90 pct, which means the value of their wealth (which consists mostly of numbers in hard drives) can only be maintained and can only grow through continuous increase in sales of goods and services. That can only happen if more of the 90 pct join the middle class.


The earth is a closed system. Everyone participates up and down the chain in some way. As such, there is no such thing as absolute blame for us killing the planet. That won't stop people from trying to point fingers, though. That's a universal human trait just as over-consumption is.
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby AgentR11 » Sat 05 Dec 2015, 01:53:09

The earth is not a closed system. Not even close.
Yes we are, as we are,
And so shall we remain,
Until the end.
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby dohboi » Sat 05 Dec 2015, 12:20:07

Good discussion. Of course, ol is the one who is mostly getting it right.

As to C8's :" air conditioning, cell phones...transatlantic flight"

And those are among the things killing the world.

Agent, it is of course not a closed system as to energy, but it is mostly closed as far as material. Yes, we have a regular rain of space dust and the occasional asteroid. But not much material leaves the planet by itself, outside of maybe some gasses occasionally escaping perhaps. Am I missing something?
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby AgentR11 » Sat 05 Dec 2015, 12:25:57

Its energy that's the deal. And that's not closed. Energy is what makes economics. Energy is what makes materials that are valuable out of materials that are not valuable. Goods and services are energy, not random blobs of silicon and carbon.

The mass balance isn't really relevant one way or another. Unless the sun is raining twinkies on us or something today?
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby onlooker » Sat 05 Dec 2015, 13:44:00

I am not quite in agreement Agent, in so much as while yes the Sun is a limitless pretty much source of energy it is dispersed and its energy limited relative to a given space and time. I would not say that the matter here on Earth is by any measure unlimited and so in any way akin to an open system. Take fossil fuels for instance, they were created over millions of years from decomposed organic matter, they are limited in that sense, by virtue of taking so long to be created. The energy throughput while ultimately dictating all that Earth contains consists for humans of renewable and nonrenewable resources. Nonrenewable resources are not renewable to us in any reasonable time span. Also, again renewable resources depend on a limited flow of energy and chemical reactions that are not unlimited in any pertinent manner to humans either. Even now we are stressing even our so called renewable resources like soil, water and air.
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby onlooker » Sat 05 Dec 2015, 15:23:54

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... y-shortage
This is a link to loss of Arable land. Again to my point normally top soil/arable land is a renewable resource but at the rate we are seeing soil erosion and desertification , it seems it is not renewing anywhere near as fast to make up for loss. Not to mention the loss of fertility due to all the chemicals involved in Modern Agriculture.
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 05 Dec 2015, 23:01:56

I think what Agent means is....

Energy is not a closed system.

We have stored fuel supplies: coal, oil, gas, etc.

We turn them into heat by destroying the molecular organization, releasing energy.

That energy/heat is radiated into the atmosphere and then lost to the system.

Not a closed system.

Entropy wins.
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby careinke » Sat 05 Dec 2015, 23:59:52

onlooker wrote:That same 90% want to live a life with dignity and want "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"


I seriously doubt liberty plays a role in Islam, or fundamental Christianity. A rather large percent of the population.
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 06 Dec 2015, 01:08:51

careinke wrote:
onlooker wrote:That same 90% want to live a life with dignity and want "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"


I seriously doubt liberty plays a role in Islam, or fundamental Christianity. A rather large percent of the population.

Just to be clear the dogmatic and violent ideology followed by a relatively few Muslims does not represent wider Islam. Check out this link to the largest anti- radical Islam group in the world boasting some 50 million members based in Indonesia :
http://theantimedia.org/the-worlds-larg ... -90-years/
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sun 06 Dec 2015, 16:20:03

Just to be clear about this: all energy sources with but two exceptions are forms of solar power. Hydro and wind turbines are powered by the sun. Fossil fuels are solar energy stored geological ages ago by plankton and plants.

One exception is geothermal energy which arises from the molten core of the Earth through a combination of radioactive decay and mechanical compression. The other non-solar source is nuclear fission, burning "fuel" that has existed since the planet formed.

Yes, entropy will win. Whatever we do to the ecosystem, in the far distant future the Sun will be a dim reddish shadow of it's former self and the Earth a permanent ball of ice.
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Re: Richest 10% = Us = Planet Killers

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 07 Dec 2015, 05:33:33

Yes, the rich are not restricted to OECD countries. Most of the poorest, though, are in Asia and Africa.

I see that cp covered this story, too, here: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/1 ... ity-study/

With a handy graphic:

Image
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Richest 10% Produce 50% of Carbon Emissions

Unread postby dohboi » Sat 03 Dec 2016, 01:50:06

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PImK8Q_ ... ture=share

That's pretty much where all of us on these threads are.

So, wadayagonnadoaboutit?
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Re: Richest 10% Produce 50% of Carbon Emissions

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 03 Dec 2016, 04:09:36

The problem is that you only need to make $18,000 per person to be in that top 10% of the world's most wealthy. The median income he world over is $1225. That means that 3.7 billion people make less than $1225 annually.

Welfare and social security recipients in the USA qualify in the richest 10% in the world.

Say you have a family of four and a combined family income of $72K or more. Congratulations on being in the top 10% and the re-distribution people would therefore take 75% of your income and give it to the breeders of the world.

Redistribution doesn't seem like a plan that accomplishes anything. If you want to end fossil fuel consumption, go after that instead. Also, don't excuse the big polluters such as palm oil plantations, slash & burn agriculture in South America, and the other major carbon emitters. Don't excuse anybody, and if your carbon tax makes the difference between a 3rd world family's malnutrition and outright starvation, so be it.

To do otherwise simply promotes and rewards idleness. Which Tax & Spend Democrats have never understood.

Thank goodness, we don't get all the government we pay for.
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Re: Richest 10% Produce 50% of Carbon Emissions

Unread postby dohboi » Sat 03 Dec 2016, 15:54:26

"you only need to make $18,000 per person to be in that top 10% of the world's most wealthy"

Yeah, somewhere in there.

Here's another estimate:

"If you earn $25,000 or more annually, you are in the top 10% of the world's income-earners"

https://irememberthepoor.org/3-2/

If you only earn $25,000 per year, you’re in the top 10 percent.


http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/09/the-t ... the-world/
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Re: Richest 10% Produce 50% of Carbon Emissions

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 03 Dec 2016, 16:46:23

I believe your figures, too. I think the difference is that I gave "per capita" figures, since not everyone is an actual wage earner.

However, the point that I was trying to make is that many more people than you think - 740,000,000 - are in that 10%, since we just blew through the 7.4B total population milestone within the past month.

Most of us in the world's top 10% are not wealthy in the societies we live in. I for example am feeling the pinch of no longer having a (barely) six figure income. Just the wife's salary is kinda tight for living in the Silicon Valley. She is driving a 15-year old SUV with several things broke on it we have decided are not worth fixing as the repairs would exceed the value of the vehicle. Mine is only 13 years old, and in better shape. We eat pretty well, but no longer can afford the 100% organic diet we had when I was working. Nor could we afford to live here in Silly Valley if we had to pay a mortgage.

But in Belize, or in Baja California, or in any of a dozen less developed places, our income would allow us to live very comfortably. Even our SS and other retirement incomes would do that. In those places, an annual $18,000 income would put a family of four comfortably in the Middle Class.

Unfortunately, the wife and I are retiring in Wisconsin, full of Democrats who are ready and even eager to take most of your retirement income in taxes, and spend it on things that benefit - almost exclusively - other people. We won't have much income, but they will tax real estate and personal property and many other things.

It so happens that I in particular have taken pains to reduce my carbon emissions. I feel comfortable that I have reduced them to 25% or less relative to the average American - and am scheming to reduce them even more following the wife's retirement and our relocation to the MidWest.

The statement that 10% of the richest produce 50% of the carbon emissions is simply not a useful or particularly informative one. I would say that - if they cared enough to actually take action - the wealthiest 10% could reduce their carbon emissions to 15% of the present total, down from 50%. The total carbon emissions would be 1/3rd lower than it is today, a useful improvement.

That would be the productive and positive way to express the concept. The original statement smacks of elite bashing - and neither you nor me consider ourselves among the elites, is my guess.
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