this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2026
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Climate
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
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No. Instead of just saying things, you could look up the study and see:
It's weird to see someone here homering for billionaires and getting lots of upvotes. It doesn't take an advanced degree to recognize that commuting via private jet and owning a yacht to carry your smaller yacht is disproportionately bad for the environment. The really crazy part is that your last two sentences are accurate (though possibly a bit misleading) sans the last word, "unchanged", which makes them total bullshit.
Two seconds worth of googling gives me 15.6 million tons of CO2 from private flights, vs 3.35 billion tons from cars.
In a situation where the only metric that actually matters is absolute output, we need to keep focus on the fact that the problem is far bigger than just what a couple hyper rich douchebags are doing. You can kill all billionaires tomorrow and redistribute their wealth to the poorest people, and none of the climate problems will go away because the problem is bigger than them.
Minor nitpick: don't compare millions to billions if you can afford it. Say something like "16 million VS 3350 million tons of CO2". The meat of your point is 16 vs 3350, so highlight it!
Now do gamers vs AI datacenters.
Neither of those things inherently emits CO2, so the comparison is not particularly useful. A data center in Quebec, will have will have less overall emissions than one gamer in Florida, based purely on the nature of the power grid in each location.
Getting rid of the slop factories would be a net positive for a whole host of other reasons, but that's a somewhat different discussion.
it's not just about the individual carbon footprints of each billionaire, it's about the cumulative effect of the inefficiencies which billionaires propagate globally. for example, why is the US government currently doubling down on fossil fuels? duh, because a handful of billionaires and hundred millionaires are pushing have captured decision making in Washington. they own the legislative and executive branches outright. so instead of rule by meritocracy or rule by the smartest or the most democratic process, the whole global economy is forced to bend to the selfish desires of a few whale investors. entire sectors of the economy are being raised up or suppressed not because they are efficient or counteract climate change, but because an oligarch wishes it so.
Ok, probably it's the article title. You can't make it worse if all you state is true