“The super-rich are treating our planet like their personal playground, setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit. Their dirty investments and luxury toys —private jets and yachts— aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Try mentioning this to Tailor Swift fans and you’ll get immediately crucified. We should normalize the idea that THERE ARE NO ETHICAL BILLIONAIRES. Period.

    It’s a staggering amount of wealth that allows to do shit like this and why do we tolerate this is will be eternally confusing to me.

    Not only is this an issue of equality but it’s a social issue as well. People stop taking public responsibility issues like pollution or climate change seriously because “if private jets are legal then why should I do anything?”.

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Try mentioning this to Tailor Swift fans and you’ll get immediately crucified. We should normalize the idea that THERE ARE NO ETHICAL BILLIONAIRES. Period.

      While I agree with your sentiment, I don’t think she’s the place to start removeding. She’s one of the “better” ones in that she’s not out here actively hunting the poor on an island somewhere. You start with folks like Musk, Bezos, and Murdoch, and by shining a light on the billionaires that are stealing the wealth and resources of entire countries but staying out of the limelight by keeping their fucking mouths shut. Then we start moving towards Swift. Otherwise the message will just get drowned out by fans.

      • Trailblazing Braille Taser@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 days ago

        If she was a good billionaire, she wouldn’t have hoarded wealth to this degree! Yes, Bezos is 200x worse, but I would bet (less than $1B) that she will catch up in the next decade and we’ll all still be apologizing for her.

        • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          I ain’t apologizing for her now. My point is to work on the ones that are more easily hated by more people in order to raise awareness.

          • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            I disagree, this flip-flop logic is what drags down the movement and allows “no billionaires except the ones I like” idea to poison the public discourse. If we collectively stick to a unified view we have much more power in changing things.

            • legion02@lemmy.world
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              9 days ago

              Yes let’s take the most wildly liked billionaire and make them our example. Surely that will convince people to join us.

              • Trailblazing Braille Taser@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                9 days ago

                Personally, my goal is to challenge people to think critically about billionaires. Taylor Swift is a great example precisely because fans have put her on a pedestal where she can do no wrong. If the goal is to gather an angry mob, then sure, it’s more effective to focus on Bezos, the guy they already dislike.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        The point is that there is no “better ones”. The billionaire should not be socially acceptable concept ever. Full stop.

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      You can add Gaben to that list. Steam can do no wrong even though Gaben spend between 75 and 100 million per year on maintenance for his yatch fleet.

      Billionaire simps disgust me.

  • kambusha@sh.itjust.works
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    10 days ago

    Including investments seems a bit disingenuous. I’m sure their personal carbon footprint is already huge without having to include that.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      10 days ago

      If you don’t include investment emissions, they’d emit more in 22 days than the average person does in their life.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      10 days ago

      Yep, these companies wouldn’t stop existing if their shares were distributed evenly between people and the clients should be considered responsible for the emissions considering they’re the ones requesting the product.

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Why is “death for billionaires” so taboo though? Clearly they’re damaging our society much more than a single murderer or marijuana carrier and yet we have no problem accepting that these people should be punished socially but if you mention guillotines for billionaires then suddenly you’re an extremist.

  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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    10 days ago

    Here’s the actual study

    https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621656/bp-carbon-inequality-kills-281024-en.pdf?sequence=1

    This number is almost entirely investment emissions, how much the companies they own emit.

    Oxfam’s analysis found that investment emissions are the most significant part of a billionaire’s carbon footprint. The average investment emissions of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires were around 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) each. That is around 340 times their emissions from private jets and superyachts combined. Each billionaire’s investment emissions are equivalent to almost 400,000 years of consumption emissions by the average person, or 2.6 million years of consumption emissions by someone in the poorest 50% of the world.44

    • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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      10 days ago

      Aren’t they responsible for the risk their investments carry? Isn’t that part of the value proposition?

      If they have so much investments in companies producing CO2, why aren’t they using their weight to push for lower emissions?

      • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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        10 days ago

        You could assign company emissions to the consumers, the employees, or the owners. Without any one of those the company wouldn’t emit. I just wanted to make it clear that this study assigns it to the owners.

  • CanadaPlus@futurology.today
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    9 days ago

    This is bad. Reminder that there’s just ~2000 of them known, though, so it only takes 8 seconds for everyone else to pass their annual emissions collectively.

    It’s not an excuse to not care about your own impact.

  • Ulrich_the_Old@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    If we eliminate all the billionaires the rest of us will continue to live for at least another century… It is worth doing.

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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    9 days ago

    There are so many better climate change comparisons than this yet I keep hearing this stupid one repeated over and over. Ultimately it doesn’t matter than billionaires personally emite more carbon than “the average person” because even if they dropped that stat to match the average there would be absolutely no difference.

    Target the biggest carbon emitters which is businesses. Every time carbon emissions is brought up it should be in the context of making businesses emit less carbon. Make them pay for emitting carbon, give tax credits for green technology that stuff will be infinetly more effective that targeting specific people.

    I don’t care that Taylor swift took a jet to her concert its not her issue to fix. Its the responsibility of the government to solve this through strong environmental policy. Government policy changing incentives will flow down to the individual and adjust their behaviour instead of a mob trying to shame individuals into changing their behaviour.

    • treefrog@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      Billionaires usually are business leaders.

      Musk and Bezos etc. There’s a few exceptions like Swift but for the most part you’re talking about the same people.

      • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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        9 days ago

        I know they are the same people but it’s still two different things. A persons carbon footprint is different to the business even if that person is the ceo

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      9 days ago

      Almost all of these emissions in the headline are from the businesses they own shares in. So this is saying business emissions, just in a non-intuitive roundabout way.