• NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Majority of private jets carrying 3 passengers or less, releasing 10 times as much carbon per passenger than a commercial flight.

    As a peasant, I don’t think reducing my carbon footprint will offset the disgusting (increasing) display of greed from the elites.

    • zephyreks@lemmy.ca
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      2 years ago

      The easy solution is to just directly tax carbon emissions and dump the money into methods to reduce emissions (transit, trains, green construction, agricultural controls, etc.)

      People don’t like taxes though, so this will never happen. An emissions-based tax is possibly the easiest way to disproportionately tax the wealthy.

      • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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        2 years ago

        Yes!!

        I’ve long argued that courageous states should radically reform their tax system. Rebase the entire tax system around carbon tax, setting the level to ensure the state has the same income base.

        There’s a naturally progressive tax system built into that but we could make it even more progressive by laddering up the rates as the carbon emissions increase.

    • Alto@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      Perhaps the greatest scam the rich ever pulled off was convincing the common people that climate change is somehow our fault instead of theirs. A single billionaire harms the earth an order of magnitude more in a single year than most small towns will in a decade

    • joelthelion@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      We need both. The elite’s footprint is gross and disgusting, but we peasants are far more numerous, so reducing the elite’s footprint alone won’t do the trick.

      • McJonalds@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        the thing is, i will refuse to behave until the bigger misbehavers are held accountable

        • joelthelion@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          This kind of reasoning is why we are not making progress. It’s much easier to hold others to high standards when you’ve applied these to yourself first. The same goes for countries: it will be easier to pressure China/India when the West has done their part.

          • ghost_laptop@lemmy.ml
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            2 years ago

            No, we are not making peogress because of your kind of reasoning. We need to make accountable to the bourgeois, the rulling class, even if the whole working class reduced its carbon footprint it would still not make a significant change, they must be replaced and forced to change their ways.

            • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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              2 years ago

              If all the rich were dead, the “normal folks” would still want 2 day shipping, cellphones every 3 years, non local ingredients, and fossil fuel cars.

          • McJonalds@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            how do you expect people to apply those standards to themselves before they are applied to the biggest sinners? most people don’t even buy how bad it is

            • joelthelion@lemmy.world
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              2 years ago

              Doing our part includes reducing our consumption. Where things are produced doesn’t matter all that much for this part of the problem.

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Global industrial practices and corporations are the biggest offenders, by far.

          You know who uses all the shit they make?

    • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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      2 years ago

      Yeah I can recycle and grow my own food and compost and ride my bike and walk places as much as I want. It won’t save as much carbon in my lifetime as even one of these flights.

      It’s depressing, but I still do it because I don’t want to be part of the problem and I’ll need to know how to do these things when the world really goes to shit.