• the_artic_one@programming.dev
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    2 months ago

    There are 801 billionaires in the US out of about 335,893,238 people. If everyone else were to reduce their carbon footprint by even a tenth of a percent then there would be significantly less carbon in the atmosphere than if every billionaire in the US were to reduce their carbon footprint to zero.

    • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I can’t get 3 people to agree on lunch. No way are we goi g to all agree on carbon footprint reduction actions.

      It’s easier to stop 801 people vs 335 million.

    • Shadywack@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Or, you know, we could just…you know…do the thing that really takes care of the problem.

    • Fandangalo@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Sure, but the individual contribution vs. companies / state-owned organizations is like 70% come from 100 companies / orgs. So the individual percentage is still negligible.

      I’m not disagreeing with the math. I’m saying when you want to make changes, you start with the most meaningful funnel. If you have 2 factors contributing to a problem, factor 1 contributes 70%, factor 2 contributes 30%, going after factor 2 seems like a waste of time. 1%s contribute 1000x the amount of the average. Who should be making lifestyle changes here?

      #voidscreaming

    • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
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      2 months ago

      This is also assuming that the 300+ million Americans have the same size carbon footprint, which is probably not true if you think about it for more than a second. I doubt the bottom 60% of earners in the country have the purchasing power to create that much waste through excess consumerism at this point.

      Most of those “Shein/Temu/Aliexpress” hauls or 10x vacations across the world in a year you see on social media are not done by middle or lower income people/families.

      This is very much a top heavy issue.