Renewable Revolution

The ATTITUDE of the 1% is summarized in the above images

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2


I am certain, as is the case in the USA, that the Chinese 1%'s carbon footprint is orders of magnitude above the Chinese version of  our "J6P".  Those who love to point at J6P piggery in the USA should drop that broad brush and start looking at per capita carbon footprint and, when available, decile breakdown of that per capita carbon footprint. Please observe in this table that the per capita carbon footprint in the USA has been going steadily down over the last decade (as of 2012, it is down to 17.3 metric tons ⁹) and that there are 11 countries with a higher per capita carbon footprint than the USA.


 ⁹USA highlighted in yellow.Click here for a closeup

As a matter of fact, as of the end of 2012, an October of 2013 government press release confirms the USA's carbon emissions have now shrunk to 1994 levels.

 
Joe Six Pack (J6P) makes a real convenient whipping boy but that does not reflect the facts on the ground even before you account for 1% piggery. What matters is not data points like how much retail space there is in the USA (a huge amount is now empty anyway since 2008) but who OWNS that retail space and all the other large carbon footprint piggery. The wealth breakdown in the USA (as of 2007 - it's even more concentrated at the top now according to senator Bernie Sanders) shows that 1% own 42.7%, the next 19% own 53.7% and the BOTTOM 80% own 7%.¹⁰

I am using the financial wealth stats rather than the "net" worth stats because that reflects the sad reality that the 15% attributed to the bottom 80% is now about 7% and the "net" worth of the top 20% matches 2007 financial wealth percentages (The top 20%, but mostly the top 0.5%, have exponentially increased their ownership of everything in the USA since the Greater Depression began in 2007).

The last time I checked, when you OWN something, you are responsible for its carbon footprint. The fact that the predatory capitalist "drug pushers" are out there pushing the consumerist "drug" does not justify blaming the addicts. The addicts must be treated but the priority is to get the pushers off the street. Every addict can go cold turkey and the pushers will adjust by giving the "drug" away really cheap until they hook a new set of addicts. Focusing on the addicts while giving lip service to the evils of the 1% to the point that the addicts are given a 40/60% (99% carbon footprint vs 1% carbon footprint) responsibility ratio in biosphere degradation when it is more like a  20/80% ratio is  just plain wrong and doomed to failure. Of course the 1% love this kind of "blame the victim" illogic.

We need a REAL deciles breakdown like they did in Sweden of the CO₂ footprint of our population. Here is a look at carbon footprint in cities across the USA. Most of the heavy polluters are east of the Mississippi.¹¹.


US energy use concentration

That's a start but we still need to zero in on stock, high tech toys  and real estate ownership as a function of carbon footprint. Maybe then people would get a clearer picture of who the responsible parties for the biosphere degradation are. It is little wonder that no data of this nature is published in the USA. This is the reality that side issues like blaming gender or psychopathy for humanity's biosphere degradation fail to address.

It's really an Occam's razor type problem (a principle urging one to select from among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions). Because the 1% are our leaders, the masses of humanity always attempt to imitate what the 1% do, period. When the 1% stop their massive piggery, the small scale piggery of the masses will stop as well. Claiming that the 1% only "do what they do" because the 99% are a bunch of sheep is a half truth. True, we sheep are unfortunately permitting the 1% to parasitically prey on us. But putting the onus on the sheep is "blame the victim" illogic.

The issue is not about gender or the criminal insanity endemic to psychopaths in the 1%; psychopaths are unfortunately represented at all income levels even if they are concentrated at the top. Whether this super aggressive behavior destroying the biosphere is caused by microbes willing us to spread, testosterone in the male of the species or the inability of our big, but still brutish, brains to react to threats on a multigenerational time horizon, the fact remains that the main authors of the rampant biosphere damage are these humans in the 1%.

It's not the 99%'s biomass (e.g. ants have more than humans) that is destroying the biosphere; it's the 1%'s carbon footprint by a huge margin despite their tiny biomass. A detailed study of per capita footprint which includes resource ownership by wealth would conclusively prove that. And as to males of the species being the culprit, the statement, "We have met the enemy, an he is us, and he is "HE", is barking up the wrong tree! Perhaps a world where humans were all females and reproduction was by cloning would be less parasitic and become symbiotic with the biosphere but most women on Earth, not to mention G. I. Joe Testosterone and friends, would take offense to that notion (to put it mildly  ).

Putting women in charge, as long as there are men around, will not change our suicidal trajectory. Because the 1% are our leaders, the masses of humanity always attempt to imitate what the 1% do, period. When the 1% stop their massive piggery, the small scale piggery of the masses will stop as well. Claiming that the 1% only "do what they do" because the 99% are a bunch of sheep is a half truth. True, The 1% ARE mostly PARASITIC. But putting the onus on the sheep is "blame the victim" illogic. The less aggressive (the normal 99% that are folded, stapled and mutilated by the 1%) humans are not responsible for what the 1% has conned them into doing.

What, exactly, do you expect from sheep? The 1% pushed, connived, lied and killed anything in their way to BE the 1%. They've got the "Will To Power" on steroids. If all of us had the aggressiveness of the 1%, Homo sapiens would have self destructed long ago. Sexual dimorphism and hormones dictate different levels of strength, aggressivity and dominance in human beings for real and valid species perpetuation purposes.

Nature cares not about egalitarian relationships among opposite sexes or societies (see the moths, ants, spiders, bees, ducks, lions, chimps, etc.); it "cares" about what works to promote the reproduction of a species. Asymmetric power relationships in societies and among the sexes in species aren't democratic but they have more species perpetuation power than horizontal relationships.

That's just the way it is. If you want to "improve" on that model, you'd better but your "God" outfit on and pack a lot of sandwiches because you are bucking up against the biosphere species interrelationship status quo.

The ones who hold the power are ALWAYS in the driver's seat. If they don't adequately react to a threat to the species, it's curtains.

The 1% enjoy their RHIP which provide them many privileges but they cannot evade their responsibility.


The 1% don't have to lose their "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" attitude for mankind to survive; they just have stop believing their own PR.

If they bite the reality bullet and lead the way into sustainable living, we might make it. Otherwise, the fungi, extremophiles and the humble descendants of human microbial bacterial colonies will inherit the Earth. The planet will become hot as hell and only the simplest and toughest life forms will live here.


Send this to someone in the 1% if you know any. Who knows? They might even read it and think postively about doing the right thing.  

1.   http://the-scientist.com/2012/03/01/who-are-we-really/#comment-464838811
2.   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8393081.stm
3.   http://www.scb.se/Pages/TableAndChart____104319.aspx
4.  http://www.e3network.org/papers/Why_do_state_emissions_differ_so_widely.pdf
5.   http://www.executivetravelmagazine.com/articles/flying-on-private-jets
6.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/29/private-jets-green
7.   http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/high_flyers
8.   http://www.greendrinkschina.org/news/chinas-per-capita-carbon-emissions-solidly-reach-developed-nation-levels/
9.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
10. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
11. http://green.wikia.com/wiki/Carbon_Footprint_of_American_Cities