alt Hacker NewsDo you think carbon emissions are coming from poor people’s consumption?
Even in the US only half the population will fly in any year and you can be sure it’s not the poorer half.
It’s not the rich half using public transport, they are only going to benefit from a transition away from private car ownership.
Yes. Poorer people buy things made overseas that requires a lot of shipping, and are lower quality that require more frequent replacement. They tend to have more children. They usually have more polluting energy sources. And there are many orders of magnitude more of them than rich people.
None of this is their fault, but ignoring it isn't good either.
All aircraft emissions are just 3% of US total. If all rich people (either the top 1% or 10%) reduced their emissions to zero tomorrow we would still not reach reduction targets needed to avoid catastrophic warming.
Everyone needs to contribute.