Btw there's a good chance that you're in that 10%
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2026
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That’s not high income groups, though. It’s not high income to make 65k in America. No way are you burning more than rich anyone else in any even developing country.
You don't think someone making 65k living with a smart phone, car, AC, electric heat, using goods like toilet paper, hot water, plastic, crafted metals, etc. produces more pollution than someone in the 90th percentile wealth in a developing country?
https://wir2026.wid.world/insight/global-economic-inequity/ (Figure 1.4)
To belong to the top 10%, an individual must earn about $65,500 per year (around $5,460 per month). To reach the top 1%, the threshold rises to about $250,300 annually ($21,860 per month). Unsurprisingly, most of the population earning at these levels is concentrated in Europe, North America, and Oceania.
One thing to keep in mind here is that "the wealthiest 10%" includes everyone in the western world who makes even a dollar above the median income. Global warming is a far bigger problem than just a couple billionaires. You could abolish billionaires and convert everything to employee owned collectives or something, and the energy use problems will still exist unchanged.
How is an American family making 100k a year burning more than rich Russians? How? They aren’t! A dollar more than average is what, 66,000 a year for that family? They aren’t burning more than the wealthy in third world nations! This is an absolute farce and an yet another attack against class and it makes me wonder what side you people are on. You can’t blame the burning of fossil fuels by billionaires on regular Americans just for existing!
No one is saying that the average American family is burning more than a Russian oligarch. They're burning more than the poorest people on the planet.
You need to keep in mind how incredibly poor the poorest half the population on the planet is.
True. But if the largest economy in the world wasn't actively trying to sabotage green solutions and promote oil use and environmental destruction as a result of billionaires' influence, it would be a big plus.
As if the employee-owned fossil fuel syndicates and weapons manufacturer syndicates and car manufacturer syndicates and road construction syndicates and plastic processing syndicates wouldn't be trying to sabotage green solutions just as hard. As if the warehouse logistics syndicate couldn't use its monopsony to bully manufacturing syndicates into making the shittiest products for them and their monopoly to get those shitty product to the masses. And as if a liberal democracy like the US wouldn't be just as corruptible by these syndicates resulting in the state actively trying to sabotage green projects as well.
There is no reason for employee-owned syndicates to be more of a force for good outside the workplace than pension funds. Most workers with even the slightest profit motive invest in weapons for genocide, pollution for profit, and housing as a speculative form of income. If a syndicate was bad for the environment, that syndicate would fight to continue existing as long as it was profitable for the employees to do so.
Don't get me wrong, it's nice that the employees get their fair share of the blood money. But capitalism redistributes wealth from the kind to the selfish whether they're individuals, corporations, or syndicates.
Only one way to find Out. But Something tells me a certain group of guilty people is fighting tooth and nail we wont ever truly find out...
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The global 10% income threshold is about $70k.
Just so we are clear the global population is about 8.3billion. So there are about 830million in the top 10%. The US has a population of 340million, the EU of 450million and there are some other countries like the UK or Canada. Then there are some rich countries like South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and so forth, which also have large populations. Also obviously there are plenty of rich people in poor countries as well. Especially China will make up a good chunk of the global top 10%, just for being upper middle income and a country with a huge population.
In other words it is not being above median income in the West, but somewhat above that.
Median household income was $83,730 in 2024
That's going to include dual income households as well as single income, so the $70k threshold for being in the top 10% may actually include some people below median, depending on what the distribution of single vs dual income households happens to be.
Point being, since we're being pedantic today, is that being anywhere above median income in a developed nation means you are likely in the global top 10%.
Yeah.... the Median individual income is only 45k. So it kinda depends if the 70k threshold was accounting for household or single. If it's just a single income then around 75% of Americans would not make it to the top 10%.
Household income is kinda a skewed way to evaluate income, especially considering that a lot of households do not share expenses equally. Younger generations could have 5 roommates and not make the 85k median.
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No. Instead of just saying things, you could look up the study and see:
- percentage are broken out globally and by nation
- in Fig.2 that the top 0.1% has attributable GMT increase roughly equal to all others combined
- many other things that question your final assertion, which doesn't even logically flow from what you did say
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.
Two seconds worth of googling gives me 15.6 million tons of CO2 from private flights, vs 3.35 billion tons from cars.
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!
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True and I was going to post something similar. One thing to keep in mind though is that the abolition of billionaires or more broadly speaking the capitalist class would enable the possibility of a totally different economy where profits are no longer the only goal. This could result in a more efficient way of doing things and therefore drastically reduce our negative impact on nature.
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And they won't stop until we stop them.
It's funny how he (a university professor from uk) is very probably part of that 10%, but writes as if implied he's not lol. The people in rich countries has really no notion of how rich they are when compared with the rest of the world.
Also, I see that a lot of people around here seem to identify themselves in the top 10%. maybe that explains how I (low-income person from the third world) feel so detached from the community, especially in topics related to tech, as if we lived in different worlds. Well, maybe I really live in a different world than most around...
"In the United States (EU27), the top 10% contribute 3.1 (2.8) times more to global warming than the average citizen, but 17 (8) times more than the global average"
Top 10% is a salary about $155,000 for an individual or $210,000 for US household. Obviously industrialized countries like China, US, India, Russia, etc admit much higher than the global average.
Please state your approx. income and country so we judge you now.
A university professor in the UK is likely not making that.
It says average salary for a permanent UK professor is around 85k pounds. Top 10% can be as high as 115,000 pounds, but it varies greatly on where you live.
Guys, if you're in "developed" countries and you're at least 1.5x above the poverty line, you're included in the global 10%. This smells like greenwashing the ultra-rich's effect, rather than showcasing it.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02325-x
Top 1% is responsible for 20% of emissions and are 20x more responsible than the average person.
No. You are overestimating the income distribution in the world. The 10% worldwide threshold is a out 70k USD ppp, see: https://wid.world/world/#tptinc_p90p100_z/US;FR;DE;CN;ZA;GB;WO-PPP/last/us/k/p/yearly/t/false/0/200000/curve/false/country
2/3 of that would be 46k dollars. In which "developed" country in Europe would that be the poverty line? Poverty in German, iirc is around 20k euros.
This is a core component of the class war.
For all of history the ruling class have granted a minority of the proles a privileged life, who will play ball and defend their privileged position from the majority (uncle toms, lords, landowners, managers, lobbyists, politicians, even most CEO's).
Most of the richest 10-1% in the developing world earned their wealth through labor, and simply bought property or invested in retirement funds at the right time. They are still pawns, and not the ruling class decision makers — mostly born into so much wealth that they never had to work a day in their lives — who control corporations, political parties, military and geopolitical actions. They are the ones who own the media and propaganda machines, finance the class and culture wars, corrupt our political and democratic institutions, and have prevented our transition away from fossil fuels for 50+ years. Hell most of the 1-0.1% are not decision makers; probably successful doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, entertainers, etc.
No war but class war...
This should have been the headline.
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We need build a world where everyone is equally responsible for global warming. It's only fair.
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So we should do something about it
Now let's look at Who those 10% of world population are:
Right! mostly Americans and our rich westener friends. propably contributing 100 times more than a fella from Zimbabwe does.
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10% of income is basically $70k/y. If you're above this line - you are the problem
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10%, chances are very good that you're it.
Not that it matters much, postfossil indefinitely sustainable planetary population is a lot less than one billion, perhaps as low as 100 million. It would be just 500000 if we were a just another species our size.
No, I don't have a pre-tax income above $70k USD. Do you?
I do, or close enough.
Did you read my second paragraph, about the postfossil planetary ecosystem carrying capacity? And no, without fossil fuels you can't build and maintain renewable or nuclear energy infrastracture, either.
This. And it's 10% by income and not 10% by wealth. If you are even in the 2% of income ($180k/y), you're basically a wageslave with a chance not to retire in time
In 1800 the global population was a bit over 1billion.
So burn the rich.
And see bootlickers still defend the billionaires saying they worked hard and therefore deserved to do however with their wealth.
This is why I support carbon taxes
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