In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby says, “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy. Excess has always been the calling card of the ultra-wealthy, whether in the Gilded Age of the Astors, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, or ancient Rome, or, our current tech-fueled Second Gilded Age. Inequality isn’t just about wealth, it is about the ability to shift the costs of your actions onto other people. Being wealthy means never having to pay for anything. There is no place where this is more true than in the fight against climate change. A recent report by British charity, Oxfam in the British paper, The Guardian, found that the aircraft of just 200 of our planet’s wealthiest people have flown for a combined total of 11 years since 2022.
In economics, there is a notion of “externalities”. What this refers to are the costs (or benefits) that a third party assumes as a result of your activity. When you smoke a cigarette in the office, the “externality” is the smoke that everyone else inhales. When it comes to climate change, the private jets, yachts and mansions leave a carbon footprint that is 77 times greater than the maximum level needed for global warming to peak at 34.7F (1.5C). Outside the cost of buying and running private jets, yachts and mansions, there are carbon externalities that the globe assumes.
The report highlights how the flights of these 200 great polluters, 44,739 trips, are equivalent to the total emissions of 40,000 people, emitting 415,518 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). Billionaires like Bill Gates, and Elon Musk have built reputations as green billionaires. Bill Gates’ foundation has warned of a “climate disaster”, reminding us that “the time to adapt to climate change is now”. Elon Musk has been an environmental hero, thanks to Tesla, and his own personal actions. In 2020, for example, he said he would dispose of “almost all physical possessions”, and he sold a bunch of mansions, deciding instead to sleep on the couches of various friends’ homes, and, he recently moved into a $50,000 modular home in Boca Chica, Texas, near SpaceX’ testing and development site. He also doesn’t own a superyacht. Yet, he too is a great polluter. Excess is at the heart of being extremely wealthy. Just 12 of the world’s richest people emit 17 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
Some of the ultra-rich are unashamed about not giving a damn. At the recent annual yacht show in Monaco, many of the ultra-rich shrugged off concerns about their emissions. “I cannot stress too much about it”, said one. Why should it? These people do not pay the costs of polluting the world, those costs will be paid by workers and the poor, the most vulnerable members of society. If flooding increases in an area, the rich can simply up sticks and move. Everyone else has to stay and pray the federal government helps them. If air quality declines, the rich leave, everyone else chokes on it. The ultra-wealthy are not paying their way, they are getting away with leaving the bill for polluting the world on the people who pollute it the least.
Credit: Source link