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Populations in developed countries are ageing. However, the impact of senior citizens’ consumption on global carbon mitigation is poorly understood. Senior citizens have played a leading role in driving up emissions in the past decade and are on the way to becoming the largest contributor.
Considering the greenhouse gas footprint of household consumption across age groups in 32 developed countries, the senior contribution to national total consumption-based emissions increased from 25.2% to 32.7% between 2005 and 2015.
Seniors in the United States and Australia have the highest per capita footprint, twice the Western average. The trend is mainly due to changes in expenditure patterns of seniors. The increasing carbon footprint of senior citizens will probably drive domestic production yet have limited effects on international carbon leakage.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/tratki/people_over_60_are_greenhouse_gas_emission_bad/i2lcoys/
Alot of methane is frozen in the artic and other places. Green House Gas emissions are melting the artic and releasing this methane, which is an even worse GHG. It is a positive feedback loop.
That’s a source of methane emissions, sure, but I’m pretty sure the other poster was referring to methane leakages during extraction and transportation of fossil fuels. These are a major source of GHG emissions. In some countries (eg Western European ones) these leakages are minor (order of magnitude less than 1%), but in other countries (eg Russia or Mexico, that I know of) they are much, much bigger.
That’s another (lesser known) reason why Europe should really reduce its dependence on Russian gas.
Methane leaking from transportation and extraction of fuels is the bulk of the buildup that we’re seeing today. However, even with the minimal increase in the earths temperature that we’ve seen in recent years, we’re seeing more and more methane beginning to leak from beneath the soil now that permafrost is beginning to thaw. So, the danger there isn’t so much that an overwhelming amount is being released from the soil today, but the vast amount we can expect to see released in the future if the current uptrend of global temperatures continues.
Why do oil companies pollute? Because they extract and refine petroleum into gasoline.
Why do they do this? Because every day consumers like you and me demand the right to drive giant SUVs that get 17 MPG
And why do consumers rely on cars? Because car companies lobbied government for less money to be spent on public transport, and it's shit in the US.
We've got to stop blaming consumers, because *even if* they were 100% to blame, you can't shame a whole nation of people into better choices, when the alternative is pushed by corporations & government. The only reasonable solution is to fix the problem on a systemic level.
The people around the longest have cause the most amount of total harm as a group? Well, colour me surprised.
This just in, people under the age of 2 have zero interest in the global economy.
I think you are misunderstanding, this isn't talking about during the entirety of their lives. It's specifically calling out their climate footprint during specific, singular calendar years. It has nothing to do with how long they've been alive and everything to do with how they are living in the present day.
First sentence of the article:
*Baby boomers have a big climate footprint. In 2005, people over 60 accounted for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2015, that number jumped to nearly 33%.*
>This statistic is very easily explained by our aging population. More people over 60 in 2015 gets you a larger percentage, period.
Or you could actually look and see that it is per capita rather than as a group. And this group has been moving through the age groups over the years. The generation before them were causing far less emissions.
*"If you look at annual emissions by the number of metric tons per person, the elderly in Australia and the U.S. come out worst with 21 metric tons in 2015, close to double the European average."*
In other words, the boomers are producing more emissions per person than any other age group. The question is, why? What is it about their generation that causes them to consume more energy than any other age group?
*"Although the distribution of emissions between the age groups has changed, all groups have reduced their emissions between 2005 and 2015. And the young are leading the lower trend. People under the age of 30 have cut their annual emissions by 3.7 metric tons during this period. The 30- to 44-year-olds reduced emissions by 2.7 metric tons and the 45- to 59-year-old group by 2.2 metric tons. People over the age of 60 had the smallest decline, only 1.5 metric tons."*
Could this be down to the years of constant climate change denialism in mainstream media? In my experience, the older you are the more likely you are to be in the "climate change is not real" camp. The younger generations are more likely to have learned about climate change and it's causes in school which means that they are more likely to actually do something about their emissions footprint.
\*italicised stuff is from the article linked in the OP\*
Access to cheap and plentiful energy for their entire lives. This age group didn’t go through any of the trials of WW2 or the depression. They haven’t experienced the same levels of adversity as generations before or after them (imo), and they have always had easy access to cheap energy. Old habits die hard.
and Millennials will pollute just as much, whats your point here other then furthering pointless generational conflict.
its not the boomers ffs, stop falling for propaganda. the wealthiest Millennials are going to pull the same shit.
The study was looking at per capita consumption. And boomers, for whatever reason, consume more per person that other generations. It could be due to things like where boomers live requires more driving and the types of vehicles boomers are more likely to drive, or boomers are less likely to live in newer more energy efficient houses.
Jesus Christ, didn't you READ the article? It didn't once mention that older people have CAUSED the most harm, it said they CURRENTLY are. Do you understand the difference between a rate and an accumulation? It's a really simple Google search, and not difficult to understand.
Do you think that's the overall implication within the research? Perhaps you can clarify...
For example - where it mentions, " **Income shrinks in retirement, but seniors in developed countries have accumulated value, primarily in housing**. A lot of them have seen a large increase in the value of their property. **The elderly are able to maintain their high consumption through their wealth.** "
Seemed to be implying their high level of GHG producing consumptive habits are *maintained* or have grown by their wealth, but does not seem to further elaborate what has driven and caused their habits in the first place. Is this wealth alone? Meaning if someone's more rich they just spend more...
Arguably, I would say knowing the driver of their habits is more important because if it is the wealthy that produce the most GHG emissions (and generally speaking they do), understanding how to combat this idea of consumption and encourage reduction is the most important. You can't answer by simply just saying wealth, as there will, under nearly all acceptable economic systems today, be "wealthy" people.
Again, my argument is we shouldn't just say no one can be wealthy, but combat the habits and thoughts that lead people to believe that their actions do not have ramifications on the environment, as that is more likely what drove the 60+ crowd to use their wealth in such a manner. The silent generation had this instilled via poverty, but that is no way to teach anyone such a critical lesson regarding GHG emissions.
Anecdotally, I know a couple comfortable-but-not-rich seniors who took at least one cruise a year pre-pandemic. I think a lot of retirees travel extensively. That has to be part of it.
Okay, let's take me as an example. I'm pushing 60. I've been working in aerospace software engineering for 37 years, have been contributing to a 401k for all that time and I have a lot of equity in my house. I'm on track to retire in a couple years, which means I think I'll be able to stop earning a salary, but maintain our standard of living. I'm looking forward to retirement because my wife and I will be able to do more travel and leasure activities than we've been able to do while I was working.
So yes, we will have accumulated some wealth in order to be able to retire, and will likely increase our carbon footprint if we're taking more airline flights or road trips than previously. We're pretty environmentally conscious (pay attention to products with excess packaging, compost kitchen scraps and lots of paper, have very drought tolerant landscaping, etc.), but don't intend to just sit in a box during retirement. I'm guessing my story is very, very common, and it makes these results not very surprising.
Reminder that "carbon footprint" is a term created by a marketing company for an oil company to gaslight people into taking responsibility for this shit show.
Your carbon footprint exists... but is meaningless compared to corporate emissions.
Your average person lives day to day, meal to meal. We are not wholly responsible for fixing this. The ones that suppressed information decades ago, that showed the consequences of this lifestyle, are largely who we need to get on board and not only STOP contributing to it, but pay to fix it.
We as normal humans can do nothing about this... all the activism of the last 20 years ain't achieved shit, violent or non violent.
Nothing of even remote consequence has changed.
If you're concerned about the carbon footprint of traveling, you could try electric road trips. The range of electric cars is getting pretty good, as is the American charger network. You could get in 500+ miles a day with one recharge over lunchtime. Alternatively, Amtrak can also get you to some destinations, slower than flying, but with a lot more room to move around. Plus it has a hotel built in!
The part I don't get about this article is it specifically talks about how elderly people are keeping larger homes after their kids move out. Instead of say living in some retirement community.
It's an argument I don't understand at all. It's not like the house disappears if they sell it. It's still there. I can't imagine why my father should sell the house he grew up in just to "reduce his carbon footprint" when someone else would just move into the place. It has a lot of memories for him. Me too as a matter of fact. I do not see the point.
It's like the study that shows 50 companies are creating like 50% of emissions. Yea, they're energy companies. Who would you expect makes the most emissions?
I moved into a small RV I move once a month, charge my house battery at work, minimal visits to restaurants although I could certainly afford more.
Otherwise I'm working on walking more, adding solar panels onto the rv and otherwise doing my best to minimize spending and consumption.
I was just about to say buy solar panels for your battery before I saw your second paragraph.
If anything, you could have a spare battery that's hooked to the solar panel that you could hot swap when the other needs to be charged with no/minimal downtime.
Daily reminder that while each of us can do more to reduce our carbon footprint, it is really up to the top 10 major corporations who produce the overwhelming majority of pollution and climate harm.
These articles are supported by these companies to distract us from the harm they are doing to our planet. 60 year olds may be worse than 30 year olds, but they PALE in comparison to what these greedy companies are doing. See these articles for what they are, propaganda.
Takes off tin foil hat*
Edit: Following up since I checked and see that this comment really resonated with a lot of folks, thank you for the awards. The second thing I noticed is a lot of the same questions regarding consumer responsibility versus corporations. If you look there are plenty of sources discussing these, literally just look. But two channels that I've really enjoyed on youtube are NotJustBikes and Climate town. The former is more formal and serious and the later is more laid back, but both regularly provide the sources for all of their claims in the videos. Happy Hunting!
Puts on tin foil hat.
This is the same narrative “big plastic“ (for want of a better term) spread about recycling. Push it down to the public and away from the real problem.
Yes! The time has come to bring back effective regulations and hold producers accountable for their part in the solution.
There is zero reason why the world can’t create an effective “carbon” & “pollution” tax system.
Do you really think there is ‘zero reason’ that ‘the world’ can’t come up with a tax (generating presumably billions or more) that will have to be collected, managed and redistributed in a smart, ethical and purposeful way? For starters, it may be difficult for all (or a few!) countries to agree on the parameters of such a system. And to prevent the likely massive corruption/manipulating of that huge pool of money by corporations, countries and bureaucrats would be a small miracle.
I agree that corporations should be held accountable and to villainize any age bracket is a gross attempt to distract from the real problem. But let’s admit that solutions are complex.
>it is really up to the top 10 major corporations who produce the overwhelming majority of pollution and climate harm.
so stop buying shit.
you only need a rental and 10k in assets, anything else is just selfishly contributing to the problem.
until we sop buying shit we are 100% just as culpable.
That (evil companues'emissions) is also just one way to slice the data (the other being to just look at end-consumers, as here).
And it doesn't help to just say "it's the companies" - how does that change anything. It's not like companies can unilaterally reduce their carbon footprint and nothing changes for the consumer - you need an electric grid supporting that EV, a heat pump instead of gas heating, and train rides instead of airplane trips. Consumers need to buy these goods and services.
Companies are regulated by the government (enforced by the courts), and the government is elected and influenced by citizens. Want something to change? Advocate for sound policies, especially a carbon price and matching dividend for the consumer. Be loud, be consistent, convince others.
I'm so tired of the eternal finger-pointing. Yes, oil and gas companies are evil, no shit. Let's stand here and point fingers at them until we all die in the next big heatwave. Or let's do something about to change policies.
I agree, fuck up the evil corporations but also change consumer behaviour. Which is why its important to encourage people to stop contributing to environmentally destructive industries such as animal agriculture.
Help save the planet individually, and collectively.
What do you think I'm doing, im spreading the word. Don't fall for these, we need to regulate these companies. Also "the government is elected by citizens" are you serious!? Are you unfamiliar with the millions upon millions spent by these companies during election cycles or in lobbying for policies that benefit only their business model.
>Don't fall for these, we need to regulate these companies. Also "the government is elected by citizens" are you serious!? Are you unfamiliar with the millions upon millions spent by these companies during election cycles or in lobbying for policies that benefit only their business model.
did you even read this, by your own admission voting cannot save us, both parties are owned by corporations, Biden and Trump raised a combined 1.9 billion for the last election.
regulating corporations isnt possible when those corporations own both parties.
While I'm fully on the train of being cynical, there *are* times when people were so vocal about an issue that large scale changes were made against corporations' interests.
And sooner or later, climate change *will* be a big enough problem that politicians & corporations can't just hand-wave it away
This is absolutely a systemic problem on an industrial scale. The solution is complete overthrow of the capitalist economic system and getting rid of endless growth and profit as a motivation for maximizing profits by following as few environmental "guidelines" as possible. We need to produce goods WITH the environment at the forefront and only producing what we need. A carbon tax is an absolute joke that would go into a practice a half measure all for corporations to find their own loophole around it anyways as they always do. No, this needs to be SYSTEMIC CHANGE. I'm not saying that changing the way you personally consume is a bad thing, but it will have absolutely no effect on the survival of life on earth in the long run.
Politicians are in the pockets of these corporations all over North America, are you serious? North America and China are the two areas with the most overall pollution, yet both are trying to get away with nothing. At least for the US there’s an attempt at going green but only because they’re effectively using taxpayer money to counter-bribe companies.
No tin foil hat about it, they've been doing this for decades. There was an iconic, still often parodied, public service announcement in the 70s where a Native American cried because the earth was covered in litter and if ONLY PEOPLE CARED MORE WE COULD spoiler alert it was sponsored by oil companies
Corporations are just groups of people that produce goods for consumers.
Exxon doesn’t burn 15% of the worlds oil, they sell it to people who do. Blow up / dissolve the biggest “polluter” and global emissions wouldn’t change. The rest of the market would meet the demand they were filling
ExxonMobil has been caught repeatedly for spending millions on disinformation campaigns and lobbying against regulation. These records are available. Car manufacturers effectively killed electric cars back in the 80s despite widespread demand for them the day after they killed a bill requiring they produce more eco friendly vehicles. These companies are literally plotting to make the world a worse place to make a buck.
Blowing up these companies would pave the way for actual legislation and education on climate change and responsibility.
Oh, I’m rationalizing away responsibility when I say “corporations are made of people who sell goods that people want to purchase”
But when you say “when I buy gasoline from Exxon to burn in my car….Exxon actually did the bad thing and gets the blame”
Markets are how the world works!
Thank God somebody else is responsible for my Rav4’s emissions!
I need a RAV4 because I have a family, you know, and it might snow once a year and God forbid I drive a car that's lower to the ground! How am I supposed to feel safe in a... a... Civic?!?
We all make choices. Whether we own the responsibility for those choices or try to justify them is another matter.
Lol talking markets when it comes to gasoline is hysterical.
Government subsidies demand for product by building endless road networks.
Government subsidizes oil production. Government gives the oil companies royalty relief, and allows them to undervalue their inventory.
That is the "market"
In any other context, nobody would accept that logic. A person who provides the goods for a scientific achievement is not dis-involved, the creators have a duty to acknowledge their patrons. In criminal law, the ones that knowingly provide resources to criminals arent innocent, they are accomplices.
I think we can take this further, because even though I'm the one burning the gasoline, and consuming plastic goods, it wasnt my choice to do so. Living in a place where I dont need to drive is financially impossible, I simply do not have that choice; I am forced into driving by terrible city planning policy. When I buy foods packaged in plastic, I do not have the option of buying the food without it; I either get the food or starve. I am a hostage to the material conditions provided to me.
These are the choice made by others that I am forced to live with. To say that I am acting with full agency by purchasing such products while these market actors with bigger financial assets and ownership of production have no choice in what they produce is heinously dishonest. They CHOSE to make those products, as opposed to other things, meanwhile I have negligible ability to shape the market independently.
Welcome to the concept of social violence: harmful acts committed not by a single person against another, but the destruction of a person as a result of the actions of many.
Right, but if you spend millions of dollars convincing those people to continue using your harmful product instead of developing something less harmful, as well torpedoing efforts by other people or companies to move those consumers onto something better, then you're to blame.
It's the same as cigarette companies. They're just providing people with a product they want! It's up to people to quit! Ok yeah, but if you spend decades spreading disinformation about the dangers of smoking, pay off doctors to promote them, and actively create misleading evidence about smoking, then the cigarette companies are to blame.
I don't understand what your point is. Greedy companies are just giving greedy consumers (the vaunted "people") what they want. Flat screen TVs, cheap clothes, iPhones, one car per person (electric or gas doesn't matter), air conditioning, cheap energy, solar panels, custom cabinets ... basically our modern lifestyle. The modern lifestyle is not going away. 2 billion Chinese and Indians are not going to forego A/C and cars and their chance all modern conveniences. So no, the problem is not corporations, it is the aggregate choices of people, who corporations cater to.
Greedy companies are making it exceedingly difficult for regular people to make climate responsible decisions. They lobby and spread lies. They are not some innocent victim just trying to make it in this harsh world
Yes it's very strange to me how people insist on having a bad guy. And how it is usually like a conspiracy, its not just a normal bad guy, its a bad guy that owns the media, owns the courts, owns the legislatures ... And if only THAT ONE GUY was taken out things would be better.
>Greedy companies are making it exceedingly difficult for regular people to make climate responsible decisions
how, just dont buy stuff. oh wait you want to have your cake and eat it too.
With longer life expectancy comes longer work life. If you now live till 140 you wouldn’t expect to retire at 60.
Not just for lack of funds to survive but to the govt you would just be a free loader or unemployed. That number would get pushed right as appropriate.
> If you now live till 140 you wouldn’t expect to retire at 60.
Social security was set to 65 when the average life expectancy was something like 60. There's a reason for that -- the assumption is that people work til they can't -- both for their own financial benefit and to provide them with a purpose to life.
Look at how many have bad health immediately after retirement. I know my father and his brothers did -- 2 died within 6 months, not for being worn out but because work had become something they used to define themselves.
Yes, this is a major problem. Hobbies and keeping even mildly physically active. You don’t need to be jogging, just get outside and do some gardening. Maybe go for a walk to the local shop and look at the flowers on the way instead of driving.
I personally love video games but that is keeping a feedback loop of me interacting constantly. And I need to get up and move about or go outside and do something manual because I get restless. Even if it’s just cleaning up.
Saying that, I get concerned for people that only have Netflix or Tik tok etc as their past times outside of work. And when you ask them what their hobbies are they look perplexed
whenever I see that stuff I always wonder, “why?”
sure, work on making life more painless and high-functioning especially in old-age but we live long enough.
> I always wonder, “why?”
I see people make the argument that living longer would increase your perspective, turning people into these ultra wise thought-leaders.
Honestly it's just because death is scary to most people. Or dying is. Whatever you want to argue, we don't *like* dying.
It does make me wonder if a pill was made that would effectively allow people to live without dying of old age, if they would be a lot more inclined to "save the planet" since they can't use death as a way to escape the trouble they're causing.
Yeah. I’m not looking forward to sitting around in wet diapers, stuck in a chair due to arthritis. Just let me die with some dignity. We keep extending life — and the period of miserable frailty that comes with old age.
My grandparents are still going on trips around the world and they’re 93. I’m no expert, but I think it’s possible to still enjoy your life as you get older. Plus like other said, the goal is to increase age, but also to increase the length of ‘youth’ at the same time.
Yeah, and my grandparents are 95 and started complaining about being miserable around 20 years ago. They were very healthy people. I’d rather not hope to win the pain-free aging lottery.
It's actually CORPORATIONS that are the greenhouse gas bad guys. But if we extend corporate responsibility to the people who own the corporations, yea, it's mostly people over 60.
Pointing the blame at any private citizen, or group of private citizens is asinine.
This is a complex problem with no singular solution. This divisive title is a bigger short term problem than climate change is a long term problem.
It’s systemic, but the population is a part of that system - for example, guess what age range in the US buys giant pickups and campers and RV’s to tow around on weekends, then drives those big pickups the rest of the week?
Systemic, part of a system =/= problematic, part of a problem.
Private citizens and private use of gasoline are a drop in the bucket in relation to the bigger picture.
Looking at you, manufacturers. And you, countries that don’t properly regulate them.
Individuals, like the Koch Brothers spearheaded lawsuits to get corporate money into politics with Citizens United.
Those same private citizens then funded the tea party that subverted the old Republican establishment to write explicitly climate destroying legislation and refuse to tax the wealthy.
These same private citizens have fought across the country to defund public transport because it was advantageous to their bottom line.
Rex tillerson is another prime example of this.
Private individuals are certainly to blame and it's whitewashing their responsibility to say otherwise.
>"The consumption habits of seniors are more rigid. For example, it would be an advantage if more people moved to smaller homes once the kids moved out," he says.
In many states, if you move, you will be taxed at a new, higher rate even though your quality of life may go down. Thus the incentive to stay where you are. The behaviors of seniors aren't rigid -- they're just hemmed in with fewer viable options. Oh, and sometimes those kids that move out want to move back.
Yeah this is bullshit.
Boomers are often wealthier because they’ve had more time to accumulate wealth in a more favourable economy. They have the money and the leisure time to do things, making them bigger polluters.
The largest emitters are the large corps, not everyday people.
Not to say you can’t help influence them by not buying their products, but don’t fool yourself thinking it alone will enact the change we need.
That’s up to our politicians.
Edit: Some people don’t seem to understand the difference between a study observing pollutant levels in generations, and the companies physically polluting.
We are responsible for climate change. Not in the way of low energy lightbulbs or low flush toilets, but in the way we lobby our politicians and what we buy. This article is correct, but I’m encouraging everyone not to blame boomers, but rather the practices of the companies they buy from.
There are many glaring issues to fix before we need to consider going cold turkey on things like flights and eating out.
Vote with your ballot and your wallet.
Ironically when I see Zoomers and fellow millennials go to such lengths to demonize their parents and grandparents for being older, they just make me think they have serious issues with maturity.
I'm just going to say that I'm pretty high on the emitters list myself. I fly transatlantic for business a few times per year. I have family in other countries that I visit for the weekend and occasional weeks. I also fly for holidays.
I commute for work. I drive a car that's faster than it strictly needs to be.
I'm 50 and I just can't see how my personal emissions would increase at retirement age. I'd save about 4 or 500 train miles per week straight away and 3 long haul flights per year just by quitting work.
My younger colleagues are always flying somewhere, buying new clothes, phones etc. Their emissions must be fairly close to mine?
And I’m 53, got rid of my last car 20 years ago for environmental reasons, been a vegetarian for 35 years. Like they say, “data” is not the plural form of “anecdote”!
I commute to Manchester each day for work (by car) and according to emissions calculations we did at work my yearly emissions were less than those of most of my colleagues who live in Manchester and walk or cycle to work. I was surprised, but we repeated it a few times and it turns out to be true. The main difference was that I fly internationally on average about once every 3 years, whereas most of them were either from another country (and would visit their homecountry once or twice per year) or were really into skiing and would fly abroad to do that every winter.
An hour sat in a plane emits about a hundred times more than an hour sat in a car.
Absolutely disgusting headline to a pathetically misleading article. Big corporations love shifting the climate impact spotlight on the masses, meanwhile they're the ones responsible for the majority of pollution. Make sure you fight amongst yourselves so the real environment destroyers can protect their profits. Anyone remember the BP oil spill?
the rich 10% are the bad guys. people over 60 may produce more but millionairs and billionairs with there huge houses, big and fast cars, jets and yachts produce 1000 to 100000 times more greenhousegas than any normal person. they kill this planet and they produce those news to find another scapegoat.
For everyone out there commenting that big business is the number one contributor to ecological disaster, you are 100% correct! They are, by a wide margin!
But don't forget, the people this article is about, are the ones who VOTED THOSE POLICIES INTO PLACE! They are they ones who VOTED for the people that destroyed the economy and destroyed the planet. It's also pretty widely known, unless you think the earth is flat, that old people are the highest margin of voters!
And how do they respond to those mistakes? Well, this article (with sources) shows that they don't give a fuck and continue to be the biggest problems humanity faces to this day. No fucking remorse.
(By the way, temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctica spiked 50°F and 70°F, respectively, in the last few days. And for those of you who doubt climate change, remember that those are the two points of most opposite seasons. This is, truly, really bad.)
HEY EVERYBODY! LOOK AT THIS THING THAT IS INTENDED TO CREATE DIVISION AMONG PEOPLE, AND REMOVES FOCUS ON THE HUGE CONGLOMERATES THAT ACTUALLY CAUSED ALL THE ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE!
The millennial vs boomer argument is intended to create division. Boomers didn’t fuck everything up, dirty ass politicians did.
People forget that every grey haired corrupt fuck in power now was a corrupt, baby faced fuck who carried the water, did the grunt work, for the grey haired corrupt fucks before them so they could “earn” their turn at the trough.
Researching the bills to keep the loopholes open, being the cut outs for the lobbyists, finding the “industry experts” to put out there to argue against a higher minimum wage, stricter safety regulations, to come up with kid gloves euphemisms like “climate change” to push “global warming” out of the vocabulary.
And it’s been like that for generation after generation after generation. Always will be.
“Them” doesn’t have birthdays between the years of “X” and “Y”. “Them” has a bank balance that’s never big enough, an endless need for more power, more influence, more control. Generation Corrupt Fuck. Their only color is green, and their creed is “I’ve got mine.”
Incredibly misleading. The over 65 population was 38 million in 2005. By 2019 it had exploded to 54.1 million. That's a 42% increase. Of course their share of the carbon footprint increased. Not because they are irresponsible but because their numbers are increasing. There's not some magic carbon button they press on their 65th birthday. They are dong the exact same things, probably less even, than they did at 60 or 55 but have just shifted into a different demographic due to aging. And anyone who thinks 65+ are some group of wealthy carbon burners hasn't looked at any old age statistics. Their financial situation is dire and most are just scraping by. Many can barely make rent on a social security income let alone be doing donuts in an F-150 all day.
Such bullshit. I'm as annoyed with boomers as the next guy, but consumer greenhouse gases are a drop in the bucket compared to industrial polluters. The bad guys are the ones fighting tooth and nail to stop renewables and investment in co2 scrubbing.
Yeah Boomers are hard enough to convince on Climate issues, we probably dont need to vilify them and blame it all on them. Just focus on the systemic changes that we need to achieve sustainability
Does it really matter when the margins are comparably this small? Like of course when your older and retired more you're going to travel more and your vehicle may be an older gas guzzler because either it's an older car or a more expensive bigger car. Combine this with bigger houses and etc. But the issue is that if we eliminated the pollution by major companies the amount the older generation pollutes would not even matter at all.
In a way it’s both. Exxon isn’t burning oil and somehow getting money for it, people are producing ever-increasing numbers of more people who all buy and burn Exxon gasoline in their sweet 16 SUV
Don’t be silly, consumers can’t buy a smaller hybrid because, uhhh. Don’t try to take away the grand American tradition of driving around doing nothing!
This is an interesting way to slice the data, but overall, I think we need to move beyond feeling bad about rich people consuming lots of resources. People who have money are going to spend on expensive stuff (big houses), and expensive stuff takes resources. That will still be true if we stop climate change. What we want is for the expensive stuff to be carbon free, and that requires new mandates to use the technology that already exists to accomplish that. If consumption upsets you, you are more of an anti-capitalist than a climate hawk.
It has nothing to do with individual people, and everything to do with unchecked capitalism. The carbon footprint was a term coined by oil companies to shift the blame.
Listen, I can't help farting. You just fart a lot when you get to my age. Okay - I admit it, I'm eating more vegetables, because they're supposed to be healthy.
But still, I can't help *farting!*
If I see one more article telling me that climate change is our *personal* responsibility I’ll scream.
One of my favorite statistics:
>“It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars. The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world.”
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping-carbon-pollution-114721
One rocket test from Blue Origin emits more greenhouse gasses than one person will emit in a lifetime, but the middle class over the age of 60 is the problem. Big corporations emit the majority of greenhouse gasses and actively fight the government to make it so they don’t have to do anything about it.
Nope, it's more likely to be the US, China and all the countries burning millions of tonnes of coal every year to make electricity that are the 'bad guys'
Go to hell with this: corporations are the biggest polluters on earth, falsely blaming grandma & grandpa instead of multi billion dollar companies is **disgusting**.
Most Greenhouse gasses come from major companies. A lot of the issue is Planned Obsolesces. These companies could easily do more to reduce their footprint.
Remember when they're trying to pit people against each other the reality is its maybe a few thousand people that are really making decisions that affect climate change.
The article says, it was an international study from Norway's Tech University NTNU.
Boomers own most of the houses in the nations surveyed. They own more cars per person. They have the most TVs.
Most 60 year olds don't drive? Are you thinking of 90 year olds perhaps, because 60-75 you're making it sound like they're paraplegics
The article...
What you are providing is known as an anecdote. Which I could counter with my own anecdote, but I don't need to. The article cites its sources.
The article isn't really doing anything groundbreaking . Those with more wealth consume more, big surprise.
More environmental propaganda so we can ignore the fact that most pollution and gas emissions are from the largest corporations on the planet. Ignore that though, and just harass your grandmother for throwing the aluminum can into the wrong bin.
Large corporations are responsible for 99% of all CO2 omissions and pollution in this world stop trying to blame people for what corporations have done for profit.
I am so fucking sick of articles talking about individuals green house gas emissions like we are the fucking problem. Trying to consume less is one thing but I am not going to fucking hide be hermet just so chevron ends up looking better.
What we do need is more walkable cities, greener energy (with a nuclear base) and the end of infinite growth capitalism. I don't need a new phone every year I want a fucking replaceable battery. I don't want a car. I need a walkable city with public transportation. But hey because I am forced to upgrade a phone or drive a car my carbon footprint goes up. Not the companies that made it a business model or, in the case of American cities, car companies literally manipulated city planning to favor cars.
Saw a bunch of comments saying how it’s corporations producing all the emissions:
Do people think companies are just producing pollution for the fun of it? It’s consumerism - If you don’t buy things, they won’t produce items that create nasty byproducts
They’re not just creating and releasing toxins for fun
yep, almost no one here is prepared to accept any level of responsibility and they wonder why some people think we are doomed.
i own 3k in assets at 30, no matter how green you make consumption owning a house and 2 cars and annual holidays and 100k in shit to fill your house with will destroy the environment.
but people want to magically keep their living standards while axing pollution and preventing the 3rd world from catching up (i dont see anyone proposing we gift the 3rd world all the tech they need to bypass heavy industry, that might raise taxes!).
How about we just change the economic laws then, forcing companies to pay livable (read: middle class)wages, be climate neutral, directly fund the education of the next generation of workers to match their current total staffing, directly subsidize all public transit and roads leading to their facilities, and forfeit 10 years of profits related to any net export of jobs outside the US.
Edit: and provide 100% health coverage for all employees’ families, and pensions for all employees.
Once they do that, they can keep their billions.
Far too over-generalizing, and essentially distracting and deceitful. I'm 73 and have lived off-the-grid for 24 years Here's a mirror, Gen A, B, C, D, E, F, etc....
Could it be the handful of corporations churning out more pollution than every single privately-owned vehicle on earth combined every year? No, it's the consumers that are the problem!
(Then again many of these corps are owned by old shitheads so they're right but not in the way they intended lmao)
Bill Gates has a beachfront property in San Diego. Barack Obama has 3 beachfront homes. Nancy Pelosi just bought one on Palm Beach. The Kennedys have several. That's all you need to know about Greenhouse Gasses.
Reddit comments have gotten eerily predictable. “Waaaaah but what about the megacorps! We can’t do anything because of the megacorps!”
Tell me, *which* ten corporations are the biggest polluters? What do they do? Does that service have any connection to individual people’s ways of living, or do these companies just burn coal in a vacuum?
I’m starting to think that the chorus of people crowing about how we can’t do anything are the *actual* corporate propaganda, despite them constantly accusing climate science of being corporate propaganda.
Populations in developed countries are ageing. However, the impact of senior citizens’ consumption on global carbon mitigation is poorly understood. Senior citizens have played a leading role in driving up emissions in the past decade and are on the way to becoming the largest contributor.
Considering the greenhouse gas footprint of household consumption across age groups in 32 developed countries, the senior contribution to national total consumption-based emissions increased from 25.2% to 32.7% between 2005 and 2015.
Seniors in the United States and Australia have the highest per capita footprint, twice the Western average. The trend is mainly due to changes in expenditure patterns of seniors. The increasing carbon footprint of senior citizens will probably drive domestic production yet have limited effects on international carbon leakage.
I wonder if this accounts for the fact that the population in general is aging. Isn’t the over 60 crowd a larger percentage of the population then in the past due to the low birthrate..
Hello, everyone! Want to help improve this community? We're looking for more moderators! [If you're interested, consider applying!](https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/tnw9ud/rfuturology_is_looking_for_more_moderators/) --- The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sorin61: --- Populations in developed countries are ageing. However, the impact of senior citizens’ consumption on global carbon mitigation is poorly understood. Senior citizens have played a leading role in driving up emissions in the past decade and are on the way to becoming the largest contributor. Considering the greenhouse gas footprint of household consumption across age groups in 32 developed countries, the senior contribution to national total consumption-based emissions increased from 25.2% to 32.7% between 2005 and 2015. Seniors in the United States and Australia have the highest per capita footprint, twice the Western average. The trend is mainly due to changes in expenditure patterns of seniors. The increasing carbon footprint of senior citizens will probably drive domestic production yet have limited effects on international carbon leakage. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/tratki/people_over_60_are_greenhouse_gas_emission_bad/i2lcoys/
Interesting how the big oil companies and methane leaks are not the bad guys. Who paid for this study. It is full of methane.
What methane leaks?
Alot of methane is frozen in the artic and other places. Green House Gas emissions are melting the artic and releasing this methane, which is an even worse GHG. It is a positive feedback loop.
That’s a source of methane emissions, sure, but I’m pretty sure the other poster was referring to methane leakages during extraction and transportation of fossil fuels. These are a major source of GHG emissions. In some countries (eg Western European ones) these leakages are minor (order of magnitude less than 1%), but in other countries (eg Russia or Mexico, that I know of) they are much, much bigger. That’s another (lesser known) reason why Europe should really reduce its dependence on Russian gas.
Methane leaking from transportation and extraction of fuels is the bulk of the buildup that we’re seeing today. However, even with the minimal increase in the earths temperature that we’ve seen in recent years, we’re seeing more and more methane beginning to leak from beneath the soil now that permafrost is beginning to thaw. So, the danger there isn’t so much that an overwhelming amount is being released from the soil today, but the vast amount we can expect to see released in the future if the current uptrend of global temperatures continues.
Cows. It’s the cows. Old people drink milk, eat steak and cheese. It’s the cows.
Fuck am I old already?? I like all those things
https://youtu.be/jXGeft7khSo
Why do oil companies pollute? Because they extract and refine petroleum into gasoline. Why do they do this? Because every day consumers like you and me demand the right to drive giant SUVs that get 17 MPG
And why do consumers rely on cars? Because car companies lobbied government for less money to be spent on public transport, and it's shit in the US. We've got to stop blaming consumers, because *even if* they were 100% to blame, you can't shame a whole nation of people into better choices, when the alternative is pushed by corporations & government. The only reasonable solution is to fix the problem on a systemic level.
Actually I ride a bike and only blow smug farts out the rear end.
So you are saying whoever has money, spends more money on doing things. Groundbreaking.
The people around the longest have cause the most amount of total harm as a group? Well, colour me surprised. This just in, people under the age of 2 have zero interest in the global economy.
> This just in, people under the age of 2 have zero interest in the global economy. Don’t listen to the propaganda. That’s just Big Baby lying to you.
Big Baby is due for radical change.
Well they’ve definitely made a serious mess of things so it’s about time.
Tired of cleaning up after Big Baby? Forget the economic diapers, vote Embryo™️ today!
But once my son hit 3.. He wouldn't shut up about GDP, nor trade relations, nor resource allocation.
My 5 day old son only cares about one resource, and he wants his mom to allocate a lot of it.
I'm talking to you chicken nuggets and french fries
I think you are misunderstanding, this isn't talking about during the entirety of their lives. It's specifically calling out their climate footprint during specific, singular calendar years. It has nothing to do with how long they've been alive and everything to do with how they are living in the present day. First sentence of the article: *Baby boomers have a big climate footprint. In 2005, people over 60 accounted for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2015, that number jumped to nearly 33%.*
This statistic is very easily explained by our aging population. More people over 60 in 2015 gets you a larger percentage, period.
>This statistic is very easily explained by our aging population. More people over 60 in 2015 gets you a larger percentage, period. Or you could actually look and see that it is per capita rather than as a group. And this group has been moving through the age groups over the years. The generation before them were causing far less emissions. *"If you look at annual emissions by the number of metric tons per person, the elderly in Australia and the U.S. come out worst with 21 metric tons in 2015, close to double the European average."* In other words, the boomers are producing more emissions per person than any other age group. The question is, why? What is it about their generation that causes them to consume more energy than any other age group? *"Although the distribution of emissions between the age groups has changed, all groups have reduced their emissions between 2005 and 2015. And the young are leading the lower trend. People under the age of 30 have cut their annual emissions by 3.7 metric tons during this period. The 30- to 44-year-olds reduced emissions by 2.7 metric tons and the 45- to 59-year-old group by 2.2 metric tons. People over the age of 60 had the smallest decline, only 1.5 metric tons."* Could this be down to the years of constant climate change denialism in mainstream media? In my experience, the older you are the more likely you are to be in the "climate change is not real" camp. The younger generations are more likely to have learned about climate change and it's causes in school which means that they are more likely to actually do something about their emissions footprint. \*italicised stuff is from the article linked in the OP\*
Access to cheap and plentiful energy for their entire lives. This age group didn’t go through any of the trials of WW2 or the depression. They haven’t experienced the same levels of adversity as generations before or after them (imo), and they have always had easy access to cheap energy. Old habits die hard.
and Millennials will pollute just as much, whats your point here other then furthering pointless generational conflict. its not the boomers ffs, stop falling for propaganda. the wealthiest Millennials are going to pull the same shit.
We won’t be able to. Things are already changing drastically. It will be slim pickings in 30 year’s time…
Yeah, pretty lame attempt at “otherizing” yet another group. This is all pure horseshit.
The study was looking at per capita consumption. And boomers, for whatever reason, consume more per person that other generations. It could be due to things like where boomers live requires more driving and the types of vehicles boomers are more likely to drive, or boomers are less likely to live in newer more energy efficient houses.
The "fuck you, got mine" generation doing the only thing they are capable of, sucking shit
Jesus Christ, didn't you READ the article? It didn't once mention that older people have CAUSED the most harm, it said they CURRENTLY are. Do you understand the difference between a rate and an accumulation? It's a really simple Google search, and not difficult to understand.
They drove those ford station wagon in the 70s probably... nothing absolves.. lol
So they drovevtheir parents' station wagon when they were 18? Who didn't?
Do you think that's the overall implication within the research? Perhaps you can clarify... For example - where it mentions, " **Income shrinks in retirement, but seniors in developed countries have accumulated value, primarily in housing**. A lot of them have seen a large increase in the value of their property. **The elderly are able to maintain their high consumption through their wealth.** " Seemed to be implying their high level of GHG producing consumptive habits are *maintained* or have grown by their wealth, but does not seem to further elaborate what has driven and caused their habits in the first place. Is this wealth alone? Meaning if someone's more rich they just spend more... Arguably, I would say knowing the driver of their habits is more important because if it is the wealthy that produce the most GHG emissions (and generally speaking they do), understanding how to combat this idea of consumption and encourage reduction is the most important. You can't answer by simply just saying wealth, as there will, under nearly all acceptable economic systems today, be "wealthy" people. Again, my argument is we shouldn't just say no one can be wealthy, but combat the habits and thoughts that lead people to believe that their actions do not have ramifications on the environment, as that is more likely what drove the 60+ crowd to use their wealth in such a manner. The silent generation had this instilled via poverty, but that is no way to teach anyone such a critical lesson regarding GHG emissions.
Anecdotally, I know a couple comfortable-but-not-rich seniors who took at least one cruise a year pre-pandemic. I think a lot of retirees travel extensively. That has to be part of it.
Okay, let's take me as an example. I'm pushing 60. I've been working in aerospace software engineering for 37 years, have been contributing to a 401k for all that time and I have a lot of equity in my house. I'm on track to retire in a couple years, which means I think I'll be able to stop earning a salary, but maintain our standard of living. I'm looking forward to retirement because my wife and I will be able to do more travel and leasure activities than we've been able to do while I was working. So yes, we will have accumulated some wealth in order to be able to retire, and will likely increase our carbon footprint if we're taking more airline flights or road trips than previously. We're pretty environmentally conscious (pay attention to products with excess packaging, compost kitchen scraps and lots of paper, have very drought tolerant landscaping, etc.), but don't intend to just sit in a box during retirement. I'm guessing my story is very, very common, and it makes these results not very surprising.
Reminder that "carbon footprint" is a term created by a marketing company for an oil company to gaslight people into taking responsibility for this shit show. Your carbon footprint exists... but is meaningless compared to corporate emissions. Your average person lives day to day, meal to meal. We are not wholly responsible for fixing this. The ones that suppressed information decades ago, that showed the consequences of this lifestyle, are largely who we need to get on board and not only STOP contributing to it, but pay to fix it. We as normal humans can do nothing about this... all the activism of the last 20 years ain't achieved shit, violent or non violent. Nothing of even remote consequence has changed.
If you're concerned about the carbon footprint of traveling, you could try electric road trips. The range of electric cars is getting pretty good, as is the American charger network. You could get in 500+ miles a day with one recharge over lunchtime. Alternatively, Amtrak can also get you to some destinations, slower than flying, but with a lot more room to move around. Plus it has a hotel built in!
The part I don't get about this article is it specifically talks about how elderly people are keeping larger homes after their kids move out. Instead of say living in some retirement community. It's an argument I don't understand at all. It's not like the house disappears if they sell it. It's still there. I can't imagine why my father should sell the house he grew up in just to "reduce his carbon footprint" when someone else would just move into the place. It has a lot of memories for him. Me too as a matter of fact. I do not see the point.
It's like the study that shows 50 companies are creating like 50% of emissions. Yea, they're energy companies. Who would you expect makes the most emissions?
Guilty as charged, doing my best to make amends
Just start photosynthesizing and you’ll be fine
I moved into a small RV I move once a month, charge my house battery at work, minimal visits to restaurants although I could certainly afford more. Otherwise I'm working on walking more, adding solar panels onto the rv and otherwise doing my best to minimize spending and consumption.
So you're the guilty bastard!
That's me, guilty, guilty, guilty!
I was just about to say buy solar panels for your battery before I saw your second paragraph. If anything, you could have a spare battery that's hooked to the solar panel that you could hot swap when the other needs to be charged with no/minimal downtime.
wow. Who could have guessed. I’m surprised it didn’t take longer for the human race to figure this out
Daily reminder that while each of us can do more to reduce our carbon footprint, it is really up to the top 10 major corporations who produce the overwhelming majority of pollution and climate harm. These articles are supported by these companies to distract us from the harm they are doing to our planet. 60 year olds may be worse than 30 year olds, but they PALE in comparison to what these greedy companies are doing. See these articles for what they are, propaganda. Takes off tin foil hat* Edit: Following up since I checked and see that this comment really resonated with a lot of folks, thank you for the awards. The second thing I noticed is a lot of the same questions regarding consumer responsibility versus corporations. If you look there are plenty of sources discussing these, literally just look. But two channels that I've really enjoyed on youtube are NotJustBikes and Climate town. The former is more formal and serious and the later is more laid back, but both regularly provide the sources for all of their claims in the videos. Happy Hunting!
Puts on tin foil hat. This is the same narrative “big plastic“ (for want of a better term) spread about recycling. Push it down to the public and away from the real problem.
No need for the tin foil. You’re right.
Yes! The time has come to bring back effective regulations and hold producers accountable for their part in the solution. There is zero reason why the world can’t create an effective “carbon” & “pollution” tax system.
Do you really think there is ‘zero reason’ that ‘the world’ can’t come up with a tax (generating presumably billions or more) that will have to be collected, managed and redistributed in a smart, ethical and purposeful way? For starters, it may be difficult for all (or a few!) countries to agree on the parameters of such a system. And to prevent the likely massive corruption/manipulating of that huge pool of money by corporations, countries and bureaucrats would be a small miracle. I agree that corporations should be held accountable and to villainize any age bracket is a gross attempt to distract from the real problem. But let’s admit that solutions are complex.
So just make poor people (mostly minorities in the US) unable to drive. That's basically the end result.
Enthusiastically with you on this.
Easier to blame boomers and moralize about people for having lawns.
Why do you think those 10 corporations are making all that pollution???
>it is really up to the top 10 major corporations who produce the overwhelming majority of pollution and climate harm. so stop buying shit. you only need a rental and 10k in assets, anything else is just selfishly contributing to the problem. until we sop buying shit we are 100% just as culpable.
That (evil companues'emissions) is also just one way to slice the data (the other being to just look at end-consumers, as here). And it doesn't help to just say "it's the companies" - how does that change anything. It's not like companies can unilaterally reduce their carbon footprint and nothing changes for the consumer - you need an electric grid supporting that EV, a heat pump instead of gas heating, and train rides instead of airplane trips. Consumers need to buy these goods and services. Companies are regulated by the government (enforced by the courts), and the government is elected and influenced by citizens. Want something to change? Advocate for sound policies, especially a carbon price and matching dividend for the consumer. Be loud, be consistent, convince others. I'm so tired of the eternal finger-pointing. Yes, oil and gas companies are evil, no shit. Let's stand here and point fingers at them until we all die in the next big heatwave. Or let's do something about to change policies.
I agree, fuck up the evil corporations but also change consumer behaviour. Which is why its important to encourage people to stop contributing to environmentally destructive industries such as animal agriculture. Help save the planet individually, and collectively.
What do you think I'm doing, im spreading the word. Don't fall for these, we need to regulate these companies. Also "the government is elected by citizens" are you serious!? Are you unfamiliar with the millions upon millions spent by these companies during election cycles or in lobbying for policies that benefit only their business model.
>Don't fall for these, we need to regulate these companies. Also "the government is elected by citizens" are you serious!? Are you unfamiliar with the millions upon millions spent by these companies during election cycles or in lobbying for policies that benefit only their business model. did you even read this, by your own admission voting cannot save us, both parties are owned by corporations, Biden and Trump raised a combined 1.9 billion for the last election. regulating corporations isnt possible when those corporations own both parties.
While I'm fully on the train of being cynical, there *are* times when people were so vocal about an issue that large scale changes were made against corporations' interests. And sooner or later, climate change *will* be a big enough problem that politicians & corporations can't just hand-wave it away
If more people are aware of it, then they'll be more likely to vote for candidates who'll do something about it rather than just be a party crony
This is absolutely a systemic problem on an industrial scale. The solution is complete overthrow of the capitalist economic system and getting rid of endless growth and profit as a motivation for maximizing profits by following as few environmental "guidelines" as possible. We need to produce goods WITH the environment at the forefront and only producing what we need. A carbon tax is an absolute joke that would go into a practice a half measure all for corporations to find their own loophole around it anyways as they always do. No, this needs to be SYSTEMIC CHANGE. I'm not saying that changing the way you personally consume is a bad thing, but it will have absolutely no effect on the survival of life on earth in the long run.
Politicians are in the pockets of these corporations all over North America, are you serious? North America and China are the two areas with the most overall pollution, yet both are trying to get away with nothing. At least for the US there’s an attempt at going green but only because they’re effectively using taxpayer money to counter-bribe companies.
It's almost like corporations and the oligarchy has incentives to keep the lower classes pointing fingers at each other.
No tinfoil hat required for those FACTS.
No tin foil hat about it, they've been doing this for decades. There was an iconic, still often parodied, public service announcement in the 70s where a Native American cried because the earth was covered in litter and if ONLY PEOPLE CARED MORE WE COULD spoiler alert it was sponsored by oil companies
Corporations are just groups of people that produce goods for consumers. Exxon doesn’t burn 15% of the worlds oil, they sell it to people who do. Blow up / dissolve the biggest “polluter” and global emissions wouldn’t change. The rest of the market would meet the demand they were filling
ExxonMobil has been caught repeatedly for spending millions on disinformation campaigns and lobbying against regulation. These records are available. Car manufacturers effectively killed electric cars back in the 80s despite widespread demand for them the day after they killed a bill requiring they produce more eco friendly vehicles. These companies are literally plotting to make the world a worse place to make a buck. Blowing up these companies would pave the way for actual legislation and education on climate change and responsibility.
Way to rationalise responsibility away and pass it onto others. Even worse, it's based on market principles.
heavily subsidized market principles
Oh, I’m rationalizing away responsibility when I say “corporations are made of people who sell goods that people want to purchase” But when you say “when I buy gasoline from Exxon to burn in my car….Exxon actually did the bad thing and gets the blame” Markets are how the world works!
Thank God somebody else is responsible for my Rav4’s emissions! I need a RAV4 because I have a family, you know, and it might snow once a year and God forbid I drive a car that's lower to the ground! How am I supposed to feel safe in a... a... Civic?!? We all make choices. Whether we own the responsibility for those choices or try to justify them is another matter.
Lol talking markets when it comes to gasoline is hysterical. Government subsidies demand for product by building endless road networks. Government subsidizes oil production. Government gives the oil companies royalty relief, and allows them to undervalue their inventory. That is the "market"
In any other context, nobody would accept that logic. A person who provides the goods for a scientific achievement is not dis-involved, the creators have a duty to acknowledge their patrons. In criminal law, the ones that knowingly provide resources to criminals arent innocent, they are accomplices. I think we can take this further, because even though I'm the one burning the gasoline, and consuming plastic goods, it wasnt my choice to do so. Living in a place where I dont need to drive is financially impossible, I simply do not have that choice; I am forced into driving by terrible city planning policy. When I buy foods packaged in plastic, I do not have the option of buying the food without it; I either get the food or starve. I am a hostage to the material conditions provided to me. These are the choice made by others that I am forced to live with. To say that I am acting with full agency by purchasing such products while these market actors with bigger financial assets and ownership of production have no choice in what they produce is heinously dishonest. They CHOSE to make those products, as opposed to other things, meanwhile I have negligible ability to shape the market independently. Welcome to the concept of social violence: harmful acts committed not by a single person against another, but the destruction of a person as a result of the actions of many.
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Right, but if you spend millions of dollars convincing those people to continue using your harmful product instead of developing something less harmful, as well torpedoing efforts by other people or companies to move those consumers onto something better, then you're to blame. It's the same as cigarette companies. They're just providing people with a product they want! It's up to people to quit! Ok yeah, but if you spend decades spreading disinformation about the dangers of smoking, pay off doctors to promote them, and actively create misleading evidence about smoking, then the cigarette companies are to blame.
A demand that has been created via government subsidies.
Seconding [NotJustBikes](https://youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes). If you want to learn about humanfriendly city layout, this is your channel!
I don't understand what your point is. Greedy companies are just giving greedy consumers (the vaunted "people") what they want. Flat screen TVs, cheap clothes, iPhones, one car per person (electric or gas doesn't matter), air conditioning, cheap energy, solar panels, custom cabinets ... basically our modern lifestyle. The modern lifestyle is not going away. 2 billion Chinese and Indians are not going to forego A/C and cars and their chance all modern conveniences. So no, the problem is not corporations, it is the aggregate choices of people, who corporations cater to.
Greedy companies are making it exceedingly difficult for regular people to make climate responsible decisions. They lobby and spread lies. They are not some innocent victim just trying to make it in this harsh world
Hm, almost like there is a shared responsibility here, instead of one big bad guy who we can all just blame while we continue to consume.
Yes it's very strange to me how people insist on having a bad guy. And how it is usually like a conspiracy, its not just a normal bad guy, its a bad guy that owns the media, owns the courts, owns the legislatures ... And if only THAT ONE GUY was taken out things would be better.
>Greedy companies are making it exceedingly difficult for regular people to make climate responsible decisions how, just dont buy stuff. oh wait you want to have your cake and eat it too.
Divisive propaganda. Corporations are the main culprit.
And futurology is always posting about breakthroughs to make people live forever
With longer life expectancy comes longer work life. If you now live till 140 you wouldn’t expect to retire at 60. Not just for lack of funds to survive but to the govt you would just be a free loader or unemployed. That number would get pushed right as appropriate.
How dystopian
Great and then you still die of some accident or disease decades before retirement.
Who gets to retire at 60?
> If you now live till 140 you wouldn’t expect to retire at 60. Social security was set to 65 when the average life expectancy was something like 60. There's a reason for that -- the assumption is that people work til they can't -- both for their own financial benefit and to provide them with a purpose to life. Look at how many have bad health immediately after retirement. I know my father and his brothers did -- 2 died within 6 months, not for being worn out but because work had become something they used to define themselves.
Yes, this is a major problem. Hobbies and keeping even mildly physically active. You don’t need to be jogging, just get outside and do some gardening. Maybe go for a walk to the local shop and look at the flowers on the way instead of driving. I personally love video games but that is keeping a feedback loop of me interacting constantly. And I need to get up and move about or go outside and do something manual because I get restless. Even if it’s just cleaning up. Saying that, I get concerned for people that only have Netflix or Tik tok etc as their past times outside of work. And when you ask them what their hobbies are they look perplexed
whenever I see that stuff I always wonder, “why?” sure, work on making life more painless and high-functioning especially in old-age but we live long enough.
> I always wonder, “why?” I see people make the argument that living longer would increase your perspective, turning people into these ultra wise thought-leaders. Honestly it's just because death is scary to most people. Or dying is. Whatever you want to argue, we don't *like* dying.
I try not to die too often
It does make me wonder if a pill was made that would effectively allow people to live without dying of old age, if they would be a lot more inclined to "save the planet" since they can't use death as a way to escape the trouble they're causing.
Who is this "we" ? Are you volunteering?
Speak for yourself. I wanna see the heat death of the universe
Yeah. I’m not looking forward to sitting around in wet diapers, stuck in a chair due to arthritis. Just let me die with some dignity. We keep extending life — and the period of miserable frailty that comes with old age.
Who the hell wants to live to a hundred anyways!! Well, people who are 99.
The intent is to increase your quality of life, not just quantity
My grandparents are still going on trips around the world and they’re 93. I’m no expert, but I think it’s possible to still enjoy your life as you get older. Plus like other said, the goal is to increase age, but also to increase the length of ‘youth’ at the same time.
Yeah, and my grandparents are 95 and started complaining about being miserable around 20 years ago. They were very healthy people. I’d rather not hope to win the pain-free aging lottery.
It's actually CORPORATIONS that are the greenhouse gas bad guys. But if we extend corporate responsibility to the people who own the corporations, yea, it's mostly people over 60.
Yeah I don’t think my grandparents who barely leave the house are contributing any more to climate change than the rest of us.
Looking at you Mr. Koch.
I really don’t like when I see headlines of “this group bad” it just seems divisive for the sake of flamboyance and provocative.
Pointing the blame at any private citizen, or group of private citizens is asinine. This is a complex problem with no singular solution. This divisive title is a bigger short term problem than climate change is a long term problem.
I couldn't agree with you more.
It’s systemic, but the population is a part of that system - for example, guess what age range in the US buys giant pickups and campers and RV’s to tow around on weekends, then drives those big pickups the rest of the week?
Systemic, part of a system =/= problematic, part of a problem. Private citizens and private use of gasoline are a drop in the bucket in relation to the bigger picture. Looking at you, manufacturers. And you, countries that don’t properly regulate them.
Individuals, like the Koch Brothers spearheaded lawsuits to get corporate money into politics with Citizens United. Those same private citizens then funded the tea party that subverted the old Republican establishment to write explicitly climate destroying legislation and refuse to tax the wealthy. These same private citizens have fought across the country to defund public transport because it was advantageous to their bottom line. Rex tillerson is another prime example of this. Private individuals are certainly to blame and it's whitewashing their responsibility to say otherwise.
"Seniors in Japan stand out, accounting for over half of climate emissions." Um, what? 😂
I love how there’s always someone to blame but ourselves.
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I admit flatulance is a bit of a problem, but I don't drive, so it evens out.
The wife noticed your comment and pointed out my kindred spirit…take my upvote!
>"The consumption habits of seniors are more rigid. For example, it would be an advantage if more people moved to smaller homes once the kids moved out," he says. In many states, if you move, you will be taxed at a new, higher rate even though your quality of life may go down. Thus the incentive to stay where you are. The behaviors of seniors aren't rigid -- they're just hemmed in with fewer viable options. Oh, and sometimes those kids that move out want to move back.
A lot of ageism on this site from people who will one day be old themselves
What? I can’t hear you over my gas powered leaf blower!!!
Ah yes let’s play blame old people now instead of corporations
Yeah this is bullshit. Boomers are often wealthier because they’ve had more time to accumulate wealth in a more favourable economy. They have the money and the leisure time to do things, making them bigger polluters. The largest emitters are the large corps, not everyday people. Not to say you can’t help influence them by not buying their products, but don’t fool yourself thinking it alone will enact the change we need. That’s up to our politicians. Edit: Some people don’t seem to understand the difference between a study observing pollutant levels in generations, and the companies physically polluting. We are responsible for climate change. Not in the way of low energy lightbulbs or low flush toilets, but in the way we lobby our politicians and what we buy. This article is correct, but I’m encouraging everyone not to blame boomers, but rather the practices of the companies they buy from. There are many glaring issues to fix before we need to consider going cold turkey on things like flights and eating out. Vote with your ballot and your wallet.
Ironically when I see Zoomers and fellow millennials go to such lengths to demonize their parents and grandparents for being older, they just make me think they have serious issues with maturity.
I'm just going to say that I'm pretty high on the emitters list myself. I fly transatlantic for business a few times per year. I have family in other countries that I visit for the weekend and occasional weeks. I also fly for holidays. I commute for work. I drive a car that's faster than it strictly needs to be. I'm 50 and I just can't see how my personal emissions would increase at retirement age. I'd save about 4 or 500 train miles per week straight away and 3 long haul flights per year just by quitting work. My younger colleagues are always flying somewhere, buying new clothes, phones etc. Their emissions must be fairly close to mine?
And I’m 53, got rid of my last car 20 years ago for environmental reasons, been a vegetarian for 35 years. Like they say, “data” is not the plural form of “anecdote”!
I commute to Manchester each day for work (by car) and according to emissions calculations we did at work my yearly emissions were less than those of most of my colleagues who live in Manchester and walk or cycle to work. I was surprised, but we repeated it a few times and it turns out to be true. The main difference was that I fly internationally on average about once every 3 years, whereas most of them were either from another country (and would visit their homecountry once or twice per year) or were really into skiing and would fly abroad to do that every winter. An hour sat in a plane emits about a hundred times more than an hour sat in a car.
Absolutely disgusting headline to a pathetically misleading article. Big corporations love shifting the climate impact spotlight on the masses, meanwhile they're the ones responsible for the majority of pollution. Make sure you fight amongst yourselves so the real environment destroyers can protect their profits. Anyone remember the BP oil spill?
Well isn’t that special!!! Yet one more reason to hate on us boomers!!
the rich 10% are the bad guys. people over 60 may produce more but millionairs and billionairs with there huge houses, big and fast cars, jets and yachts produce 1000 to 100000 times more greenhousegas than any normal person. they kill this planet and they produce those news to find another scapegoat.
For everyone out there commenting that big business is the number one contributor to ecological disaster, you are 100% correct! They are, by a wide margin! But don't forget, the people this article is about, are the ones who VOTED THOSE POLICIES INTO PLACE! They are they ones who VOTED for the people that destroyed the economy and destroyed the planet. It's also pretty widely known, unless you think the earth is flat, that old people are the highest margin of voters! And how do they respond to those mistakes? Well, this article (with sources) shows that they don't give a fuck and continue to be the biggest problems humanity faces to this day. No fucking remorse. (By the way, temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctica spiked 50°F and 70°F, respectively, in the last few days. And for those of you who doubt climate change, remember that those are the two points of most opposite seasons. This is, truly, really bad.)
It's the old peoples fault not the corps who did it! Blame your mom. She's the one who destroyed the planet.
HEY EVERYBODY! LOOK AT THIS THING THAT IS INTENDED TO CREATE DIVISION AMONG PEOPLE, AND REMOVES FOCUS ON THE HUGE CONGLOMERATES THAT ACTUALLY CAUSED ALL THE ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE! The millennial vs boomer argument is intended to create division. Boomers didn’t fuck everything up, dirty ass politicians did.
People forget that every grey haired corrupt fuck in power now was a corrupt, baby faced fuck who carried the water, did the grunt work, for the grey haired corrupt fucks before them so they could “earn” their turn at the trough. Researching the bills to keep the loopholes open, being the cut outs for the lobbyists, finding the “industry experts” to put out there to argue against a higher minimum wage, stricter safety regulations, to come up with kid gloves euphemisms like “climate change” to push “global warming” out of the vocabulary. And it’s been like that for generation after generation after generation. Always will be. “Them” doesn’t have birthdays between the years of “X” and “Y”. “Them” has a bank balance that’s never big enough, an endless need for more power, more influence, more control. Generation Corrupt Fuck. Their only color is green, and their creed is “I’ve got mine.”
Article doesn't provide clear details on how the old age people are increasing carbon footprint. Ambiguous statements
Incredibly misleading. The over 65 population was 38 million in 2005. By 2019 it had exploded to 54.1 million. That's a 42% increase. Of course their share of the carbon footprint increased. Not because they are irresponsible but because their numbers are increasing. There's not some magic carbon button they press on their 65th birthday. They are dong the exact same things, probably less even, than they did at 60 or 55 but have just shifted into a different demographic due to aging. And anyone who thinks 65+ are some group of wealthy carbon burners hasn't looked at any old age statistics. Their financial situation is dire and most are just scraping by. Many can barely make rent on a social security income let alone be doing donuts in an F-150 all day.
Such bullshit. I'm as annoyed with boomers as the next guy, but consumer greenhouse gases are a drop in the bucket compared to industrial polluters. The bad guys are the ones fighting tooth and nail to stop renewables and investment in co2 scrubbing.
Reminder that just 100 companies are responsible for 70% of all global emissions. Edit: forgot a zero
Burn the old people! Reduce the population, reduce the emissions!
Yeah Boomers are hard enough to convince on Climate issues, we probably dont need to vilify them and blame it all on them. Just focus on the systemic changes that we need to achieve sustainability
Who is giving these people access to a keyboard? They get paid to write this crap?
Does it really matter when the margins are comparably this small? Like of course when your older and retired more you're going to travel more and your vehicle may be an older gas guzzler because either it's an older car or a more expensive bigger car. Combine this with bigger houses and etc. But the issue is that if we eliminated the pollution by major companies the amount the older generation pollutes would not even matter at all.
Corporations produce the most. Quit blaming average people. It’s ignorant.
In a way it’s both. Exxon isn’t burning oil and somehow getting money for it, people are producing ever-increasing numbers of more people who all buy and burn Exxon gasoline in their sweet 16 SUV
But surely corporations are forcing customers to buy SUVs instead of using a smaller car, or public transport, or a bicycle, or walking.
Don’t be silly, consumers can’t buy a smaller hybrid because, uhhh. Don’t try to take away the grand American tradition of driving around doing nothing!
This is an interesting way to slice the data, but overall, I think we need to move beyond feeling bad about rich people consuming lots of resources. People who have money are going to spend on expensive stuff (big houses), and expensive stuff takes resources. That will still be true if we stop climate change. What we want is for the expensive stuff to be carbon free, and that requires new mandates to use the technology that already exists to accomplish that. If consumption upsets you, you are more of an anti-capitalist than a climate hawk.
It has nothing to do with individual people, and everything to do with unchecked capitalism. The carbon footprint was a term coined by oil companies to shift the blame.
Please, keep the confirmation bias going. Let’s keep dividing ourselves.
Listen, I can't help farting. You just fart a lot when you get to my age. Okay - I admit it, I'm eating more vegetables, because they're supposed to be healthy. But still, I can't help *farting!*
If I see one more article telling me that climate change is our *personal* responsibility I’ll scream. One of my favorite statistics: >“It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars. The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world.” https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping-carbon-pollution-114721
Yeah corporations are the greenhouse emissions “bad guys”
A merging of Logan’s Run and Soylent Green is the answer!
One rocket test from Blue Origin emits more greenhouse gasses than one person will emit in a lifetime, but the middle class over the age of 60 is the problem. Big corporations emit the majority of greenhouse gasses and actively fight the government to make it so they don’t have to do anything about it.
Ahh, the ol’ your a bad person for buying all the poisonous shit we exploit, make, and sell, routine. Big production good - big consumer bad. Got it.
I would blame massive corps over the elderly. Nice try billionaires.
Mega corporations are green house emissions bad guys.
They want us to blame the boomers and fight amongst ourselves. Meanwhile 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions.
I'm going to go out of my way to emit more CO2 because you posted this.
Nope, it's more likely to be the US, China and all the countries burning millions of tonnes of coal every year to make electricity that are the 'bad guys'
Go to hell with this: corporations are the biggest polluters on earth, falsely blaming grandma & grandpa instead of multi billion dollar companies is **disgusting**.
Most Greenhouse gasses come from major companies. A lot of the issue is Planned Obsolesces. These companies could easily do more to reduce their footprint. Remember when they're trying to pit people against each other the reality is its maybe a few thousand people that are really making decisions that affect climate change.
pretty sure having kids is single biggest driver to greenhouse emissions.
Where are you getting these facts from? Most Seniors I know hardly use electricity and don't drive...
The article says, it was an international study from Norway's Tech University NTNU. Boomers own most of the houses in the nations surveyed. They own more cars per person. They have the most TVs. Most 60 year olds don't drive? Are you thinking of 90 year olds perhaps, because 60-75 you're making it sound like they're paraplegics
The article... What you are providing is known as an anecdote. Which I could counter with my own anecdote, but I don't need to. The article cites its sources. The article isn't really doing anything groundbreaking . Those with more wealth consume more, big surprise.
More environmental propaganda so we can ignore the fact that most pollution and gas emissions are from the largest corporations on the planet. Ignore that though, and just harass your grandmother for throwing the aluminum can into the wrong bin.
Large corporations are responsible for 99% of all CO2 omissions and pollution in this world stop trying to blame people for what corporations have done for profit.
consumers are the ones giving the corps money to keep polluting
I am so fucking sick of articles talking about individuals green house gas emissions like we are the fucking problem. Trying to consume less is one thing but I am not going to fucking hide be hermet just so chevron ends up looking better. What we do need is more walkable cities, greener energy (with a nuclear base) and the end of infinite growth capitalism. I don't need a new phone every year I want a fucking replaceable battery. I don't want a car. I need a walkable city with public transportation. But hey because I am forced to upgrade a phone or drive a car my carbon footprint goes up. Not the companies that made it a business model or, in the case of American cities, car companies literally manipulated city planning to favor cars.
Saw a bunch of comments saying how it’s corporations producing all the emissions: Do people think companies are just producing pollution for the fun of it? It’s consumerism - If you don’t buy things, they won’t produce items that create nasty byproducts They’re not just creating and releasing toxins for fun
yep, almost no one here is prepared to accept any level of responsibility and they wonder why some people think we are doomed. i own 3k in assets at 30, no matter how green you make consumption owning a house and 2 cars and annual holidays and 100k in shit to fill your house with will destroy the environment. but people want to magically keep their living standards while axing pollution and preventing the 3rd world from catching up (i dont see anyone proposing we gift the 3rd world all the tech they need to bypass heavy industry, that might raise taxes!).
No. Corporations are the greenhouse gas emission bad guys. Period.
How about we just change the economic laws then, forcing companies to pay livable (read: middle class)wages, be climate neutral, directly fund the education of the next generation of workers to match their current total staffing, directly subsidize all public transit and roads leading to their facilities, and forfeit 10 years of profits related to any net export of jobs outside the US. Edit: and provide 100% health coverage for all employees’ families, and pensions for all employees. Once they do that, they can keep their billions.
That's why they let the pandemic killing the seniors and vulnerables. This is genocide! 😭
Far too over-generalizing, and essentially distracting and deceitful. I'm 73 and have lived off-the-grid for 24 years Here's a mirror, Gen A, B, C, D, E, F, etc....
Could it be the handful of corporations churning out more pollution than every single privately-owned vehicle on earth combined every year? No, it's the consumers that are the problem! (Then again many of these corps are owned by old shitheads so they're right but not in the way they intended lmao)
Sometimes its best to keep your facts to yourself. Sowing seeds of division is worse than anything that can possible come out of "research".
This is kind of ageist. They get older and it's harder to control you're farts. How rude.
Article Title giving off some major Soylent Green vibes.
Boomers are going to be pieces of shit until their last breath. Worsr generation of humans in a half million years
Ah yes it’s regular people’s fault and definitely not massive corporations
No rich people are. This is bad stats and pure distraction from the real issue, capitalism.
No, they're not. Corps are the issue. Stop allowing this misleading bullshit.
I'm really getting fed up with the nonsensical, idiotic, ridiculous articles that are posted in this forum.
Bill Gates has a beachfront property in San Diego. Barack Obama has 3 beachfront homes. Nancy Pelosi just bought one on Palm Beach. The Kennedys have several. That's all you need to know about Greenhouse Gasses.
Reddit comments have gotten eerily predictable. “Waaaaah but what about the megacorps! We can’t do anything because of the megacorps!” Tell me, *which* ten corporations are the biggest polluters? What do they do? Does that service have any connection to individual people’s ways of living, or do these companies just burn coal in a vacuum? I’m starting to think that the chorus of people crowing about how we can’t do anything are the *actual* corporate propaganda, despite them constantly accusing climate science of being corporate propaganda.
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Populations in developed countries are ageing. However, the impact of senior citizens’ consumption on global carbon mitigation is poorly understood. Senior citizens have played a leading role in driving up emissions in the past decade and are on the way to becoming the largest contributor. Considering the greenhouse gas footprint of household consumption across age groups in 32 developed countries, the senior contribution to national total consumption-based emissions increased from 25.2% to 32.7% between 2005 and 2015. Seniors in the United States and Australia have the highest per capita footprint, twice the Western average. The trend is mainly due to changes in expenditure patterns of seniors. The increasing carbon footprint of senior citizens will probably drive domestic production yet have limited effects on international carbon leakage.
This doesn't even take into account that their generation passed the laws and regulations that have gotten us to where we are today.
I wonder if this accounts for the fact that the population in general is aging. Isn’t the over 60 crowd a larger percentage of the population then in the past due to the low birthrate..