https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/09/the-ri ... EnB4kMuqc0
The Rich Against Nature
...While the wealthy have an ever more dazzling array of green consumer products at their fingertips, the impact of those gadgets is nothing compared to the overall ecological destruction wrought by luxury consumption habits.
A new paper called “Measuring the Ecological Impact of the Wealthy: Excessive Consumption, Ecological Disorganisation, Green Crime, and Justice,” published by researchers Michael J. Lynch, Michael A. Long, Paul B. Stretesky, and Kimberly L. Barrett, takes a long hard look at the role of the rich’s consumption habits in destabilising the climate.
The researchers contend that when a person has vastly more money than they need to live, “acquiring property and consuming excessively become marks of distinction, and to earn those marks, the leisure class must consume.” This leads the rich to buy, build, and operate things like superyachts, super homes, luxury cars, and private jets. It would take an awful lot of Powerwalls to offset the damage done by the proliferation of these luxury consumables.
The researchers estimate that there are about three hundred superyachts in operation around the world. A person has to have individual wealth upward of £25 million in order to afford even the smallest one; the upper price is close to £1 billion. These things guzzle oil and spew pollution. Tally it up, and the world’s superyacht fleet uses over thirty-two million gallons of oil and produces 627 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year — all of it for the personal enjoyment of the extremely rich. The world’s superyachts consume and pollute more than entire nations...
...And, finally, there are private jets. There are about fifteen thousand of them registered in the United States alone. The entire fleet is in operation a total of 17 million hours per year, burning roughly 345 gallons an hour. Jet fuel produces twenty-one pounds of carbon emissions per gallon. That means that the carbon footprint of the United States’ private jet fleet is about fifty-six tons per year. The entire nation of Burundi produces less than half the carbon emissions than the US elite does with its private jets alone — to say nothing of their luxury cars, their super homes, and their superyachts...