The British government owned BBC has hosted a talk from privileged Oxford Professor Danny Dorling, demanding that rich people (which includes everyone from the USA) be “controlled” for the good of the planet.
i’m Danny Dorling, I’m professor of Geography at University of Oxford, and in my very humble opinion one of the worst things about high economic inequality is it damages the environment.
High economic inequality is extremely damaging to the environment, because the greedy do not know how to control themselves.
Thomas Piketty, who is a brilliant economist from Paris, has done incredible detailed work recently, looking at the consumption and pollution patterns of the richest one percent, and he has shown that the richest one percent disproportionately contribute to greenhouse gasses and to carbon pollution which are damaging our planet.
This is because they buy so many things they do not need, because money is not an issue for them.
It’s because they have so many homes that they travel between, is because when they travel they don’t travel in a sustainable way. At the extreme they’re flying in private jets; there isn’t a better way to heat up the planet and damage our environment than to fly in a private jet and they need to learn the importance of this.
Because climate change is the biggest threat that we’re facing, and we’re partly facing it because we’re allowing the greedy people to carry on being greedy, and we’re not controlling them for the good of everyone.
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Video: https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/opinion-the-super-rich-are-damaging-the-environmen/p064kjgj
If you listen further the professor extends his definition of “rich” people to include poor people in America, who are rich by global standards – so pretty much everyone in the USA is part of the target group the professor believes needs to be “controlled”. Professor Dorling blames the celebrity culture for driving poor people in rich countries to spend more on extravagances, to try to keep up with the rich people.
Professor Dorling’s solution is for everywhere to somehow become more like Germany and Europe, with government enforced redistribution of income and assets. This enforced equality would create fewer aspirational super rich cultural icons to excite poor people into trying to buy expensive stuff they don’t really need.
I’d say the Professor has every reason feel humble about his opinions?
Oxford University Professor Compensation (YMMV)
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GRADE A20 Professor
Revised 1 August 2017, implemented 24 August 2017
GRADE STAGE
A20 4
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£67827 £8198 £12209 £88234
[Note £1.00 = $1.35]
Professor Dorling is a clear example of the decrepit state of academia. The ability to build a rational and consistent argument is beyond them. Instead they rely on glib generalizations, shallow rhetoric and name calling threats. A thoroughly pusillanimous lot. A pox on them all!
And he is given a free pass in that no one ever questions his lifestyle, do they?
Since when has Geography been a science, He is a post-modern ”Professor” Your very humble Marxist type.
” … to excite poor people into trying to buy expensive stuff they don’t really need.”
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You could just ban the selling of advertising space and acheive the same thing.
The biggest threat to the environment isn’t capitalism. It’s poverty. Poor people don’t care about their impact upon the environment. People only came to appreciate their impact upon the environment after they had climbed far up the Maslow curve and all all of their practical comfort needs had been met. For example, you won’t find a lot of people worried about their carbon footprints in Venezuela these days.
Only once a society has become rich do they care about the environment. Then they become decadent, and put “The Environment” above people, and attack things that their very lives depend on.
Worst case: Malé, Maldives. Absolutely dependent on fossil fuels for their food and their income. Yet they are front row in pushing the MMGW agenda. The worst thing that could happen to the Leftists is for them to win. It will kill them.
You aren’t alone in observing that the economy of the Maldives is completely dominated by tourism. Tourism is the only reason that the vast majority of people who live there get to live there and have anything above a stone-age standard of living.
The tourists who bring their money to support the economy of the Maldives have to travel thousands of miles, usually by jet aircraft burning vast amounts of CO2-emitting fossil fuels. And then, most take fossil-fueled-powered boats the final miles to their dive locations for their precious few hours of under-water time. For those who are fortunate enough to already live there, their CO2 impact isn’t any better. Nearly everything they need to survive, including food and fuel is brought via aircraft or by diesel or oil-powered shipping.
If the residents of the Maldives honestly believe that CO2 is solely responsible for ultimately sinking their islands, then I think they have the moral obligation to act accordingly. This means giving up the tourist trade, reverting back to a sustainable stone-age existence, or just leaving altogether. Demanding that the rest of the world pay them money on top of what they earn from tourism just so that they can continue with their unsustainable carbon-subsidized lifestyle unabated is simply self-serving, hypocritical and absurd. And shame on the rest of the world for falling for this.
This is a prime example of the scam that is “carbon shaming”.