Degrowth

The richest 10% globally are responsible for more than 50% of emissions (co2 emissions being a decent marker of general biospheric degradation). The ability to buy organic etc does not offset the profligacy of the richest peoples' lifestyles because those savings are an inconsequentially small percentage of their totals. They are the energy obese: addicted to consuming really. Their displays of wealth will look to future generations the way earlier generations, without the health information we have, viewed morbidly obese people as healthy. Except at this point the rich don't have the defence of ignorance.

Very roughly, the richest 10% globally, extrapolating from the last time I checked, which was some years ago, were something like medium-well off people in the UK, maybe something like $45k or so per year income in the US.

Having said that, it is true that poor people often do not have the luxury of considering climate change. Poor people in the UK or US buying shitty quality, high carbon intensity factory-made food etc at a supermarket. Or better yet, imagine you are in the Congo basin, without food next month if you don't dig up and sell the portion of their vast peat reserves you have access to this week! You will sell that peat to live next month and forget next year or decade lol. And if you had the information you would know that SRM is likely to dry out the Congo basin anyway, meaning the peat is going to burn in forest fires soon enough, so it is ridiculous not to sell it and survive for today rightl!!?

Here is a little, slightly off-kilter thing to think about: you could kill the poorest 90% on Earth and if the richest 10% were able to continue their lifestyle they still wouldn't be able to do enough to avoid somewhere now beyond catastrophic climate change. And there is a limit to action. When the Soviet Union collapsed they saw a 5% reduction in co2 emissions one year, 4% the next. Mortality rates had not recovered the last time I looked a decade ago. The point is we are the fossil fuel society, it is embedded in every aspect of our society. At some point, emissions reductions that are too aggressive will lead to the breakdown of civil society, that if continued, will lead to the most carbon-intensive activity humankind has seen: war. The technology to take co2 out of the atmosphere doesn't and never did work, so we are in a bind. My guess is we, and perhaps moreso future generations, will evolve through crisis.

In our situation today, in one sense, population doesn't matter any more. We missed the boat on helping the developing world achieve a 'demographic transition' to a 'developed' society without them exploiting the fossil fuel resources they have available to them. Not only that but 'developed' world countries are now regressing towards developing world standards.

This 'demographic transition' (for anyone that hasn't come across the term) goes roughly like this. 1. A society gets clean water and some basic healthcare, infant mortality drops, populations boom. 2. Social safety nets, including pensions, get put in place, women get the opportunity for meaningful labour and control over their reproductive rights and populations drop. The West achieved this transition through the 'free' energy afforded us by burning fossil fuels. Now the very rich are pushing us back to developing world social structures, reverting our demographic transition. If we were to help developing world countries do the same with renewables we really needed to start in the 1980's. Instead we got Reagan and Thatcher, and neo-liberalism. We ran in the opposite direction. But look, LiveAid was a great day out, right?

The rich, who by definition have benefited most from capitalism, will always align with fascism in order to maintain their position of advantage, over some form of socialism or whatever, which is the societal model we needed in order to effect the co-operation climate change mitigation required.

So yeah, buying organic is not going to cut it! Other than the above, have a good day! These are the good old days so enjoy them!

It is for the US. They use Gallup polls over time, but the recent one are household incomes of below $40,000 for low income and $100,000 for high income, with the rest being middle income.

Also it is for the US, so even low income households are relativly wealthy and have the time to do something about it. The big impact decision for food is not to buy organic, but become vegetarian or vegan. For transport the best option is not to drive a car at all.

Wasn’t the yellow vest protest movement in France against higher fuel taxes?

Higher fuel taxes do not help, if you do not offer a working alternative for poor people. They just end up being a tax on the poor. That was seen as especially bad as the wealth tax was just cut. So a lot of the protest was really more about cut of austerity measuers, increase of minimum wage and the like. Obviously fossil fuel propaganda tries to spin it as a pro fossil fuel protests though.