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Comment by FiberBundle | Hacker News Reader

> But you, individually, can make the choice to keep your eye on the ball. You can commit to working on this problem until it’s done, no matter what. You can choose to find the others to organize and prepare, so that the ideas closest at hand when the next crisis comes are yours.

Why should the average person reduce his/her life quality in order to save the climate, when the average billionaire emits as much CO2 as one million people from the bottom 90% of the population combined? I do care about the climate, but it's clearly irrational to make sacrifices, when other people are unwilling to do that. Having a higher quality of life is more valuable to me than the tap on the shoulder I can give myself for playing my part in living responsibly.

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> I do care about the climate, but it's clearly irrational to make sacrifices, when other people are unwilling to do that

We do irrational things daily in order to live harmoniously in groups. Heck, the entire field of behavioural economics was stood on its ear when they figured out that humans don’t behave rationally in all circumstances. Moral choices are individual. I limit my QOL in many “irrational” ways because it helps me live with myself. Is it enough? Of course not. But we are too outnumbered by the greedy and the defeatists.

> Why should the average person reduce his/her life quality in order to save the climate

Read what you quoted again. That's not what it says.

> Having a higher quality of life is more valuable to me than the tap on the shoulder I can give myself

It'll only be higher until things reach a tipping point. That point is only getting closer and very possibly within your lifetime.

That's an easy option.

But if more an more people changed their attitude, stopped envying jet-setters and instead shamed them for their environmentally reckless attitude, maybe you would see a lot less plane travel, a lot less gas guzzlers, a lot less conspicuous consumption.

Shame works on the vast majority of people. We may lack inherent ethics, but we seldom like to swim against the stream.

How do you arrive at that figure?

> but it's clearly irrational to make sacrifices, when other people are unwilling to do that.

You realize that if everyone has that attitude then nothing will ever change, right? "You take the first step!" "No, you take the first step!"

> Why should the average person reduce his/her life quality in order to save the climate, when the average billionaire

I understand (and share) the sentiment, but there are not that many billionaires. Even if they all suddenly became vegans who never travel and live in a small house, that would not solve the problem. What the masses do is what has to change. How they travel, what they eat and buy and consume, their housing.

There are about 3500 billionaires in the world, meaning they emit as much CO2 in total as roughly 3.5 billlion people from the bottom 90%. They do play a huge part in this.

3.5 billion people are the bottom 90%?

A quick google search indicates that the top 1% accouted for 16% of greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-... Yes that is a lot. But 1% includes many more thn just the billionaires and it also means that if the remaining 99% don't get their emissions in check, it doesn't matter much what the top 1% do, let alone the billionaires.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the billionaires should not do anything. If anybody is in a position to adjust their behavior, it's them. But acting as if as long as the billionaires don't change their behavior, nobody needs to, is the route straight to failure, though it is a very easy narrative for sure.

3.5 billion people does include the bottom 90%, yes. The 3.5bn number was referring to the fact that billionaires emit as much CO2 as a million people in the bottom 90%. That does include the footprint through their investments, however.

I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time following your math. Could you please enlighten me?

8.3bn people on earth. 90% if that is ... more than 3.5bn? Something like 7.4bn? How can "the bottom 90%" be included in those 3.5bn?

And I also don't follow where the "a million people in the bottom 90%" are suddenly coming from. Which million out if those 7.4bn people?

I'm really at a loss w.r.t. your arguments.

You take 3.5bn people of the bottom 90% in wealth and consider their CO2 emissions. The CO2 footprint of a single billionaire (incl the footprint caused by their investments) equals the footprint of one million people from that bottom 90%. There are 3500 billionaires, so their footprint is equivalent to that of 3.5bn people from the bottom 90%.

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