Study finds that the personal carbon footprint of the richest people in society is grossly underestimated, both by the rich themselves and by those on middle and lower incomes, no matter which country they come from.

From the article: An international group of researchers, led by the Copenhagen Business School, the University of Basel and the University of Cambridge, surveyed 4,000 people from Denmark, India, Nigeria and the United States about inequality in personal carbon footprints – the total amount of greenhouse gases produced by a person’s activities – within their own country.

Although it is well-known that there is a large gap between the carbon footprint of the richest and poorest in society, it’s been unclear whether individuals were aware of this inequality. The four countries chosen for the survey are all different in terms of wealth, lifestyle and culture. Survey participants also differed in their personal income, with half of participants belonging to the top 10% of income in their country.

The vast majority of participants across the four countries overestimated the average personal carbon footprint of the poorest 50% and underestimated those of the richest 10% and 1%.

However, participants from the top 10% were more likely to support certain climate policies, such as increasing the price of electricity during peak periods, taxing red meat consumption or subsidising carbon dioxide removal technologies such as carbon capture and storage.

The researchers say that this may reflect generally higher education levels among high earners, a greater ability to absorb price-based policies or a stronger preference for technological solutions to the climate crisis. The results are reported in the journal [Nature Climate Change](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02130-y).

It’s hard to wrap our minds around the lifestyle of the richest people in society. They build twelve homes (often tearing down a mansion to build a mansion) and rarely reside in any of them. They fly on private jets like we drive to the grocery, often staying for a day or less before flying back.

They send giant yachts across the ocean so they can hold business meetings in the Mediterranean, then send the yachts half way around the world to California for another business meeting. And they fly to space just for fun.

“Carbon footprint” was a pernicious lie baked up by the oil and gas industry to avoid accountability for climate change and to simultaneously deflect meaningful criticism away from their systemic creation of the problem on to poor consumers with practically zero agency in the size, shape, and nature of their oil and gas consumption.

So like, it turns out this “cArBoN fOoTpRiNt” is total corporate psy-op BS specifically engineered to move responsibility and accountability for climate change from those with power to those who have no choice but to consume it, and those in power lied and used the lie to protect themselves and force blame down on working class and poor people who they know have no agency to fight back?

*suprised pikachu face*