RvTV95XBeoWealthiest 10% of US Households Responsible for 40% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Study
I’d like to see it divided up even more on the top 10%. To be in the top 10% of household income in the US, you would need to earn $184,000/year. That’s just two people earning $92k/year, which is reasonable for mid career or early mid career in or near a city.
TIL I'm in the top 10%. Yeah I can't believe I pollute any more than the other 90%. I work 100% from home, only my wife commutes 3 days a week. House is a modest 2200 sq ft. I don't have a boat or RV or plane or anything. I have some modest investment in hotels, cruise lines, and airlines (like under $5k all in). So yeah, this study leaves a lot to be desired.
Like lots of data, it’s an average. There are lots of people, similar to you, who are not absolute gas guzzlers I’m the top 10%. The top 10% also includes the 1% and the .1%, which will greatly increase the average for the entire category.
Similarly to how an average doesn’t tell the whole story, neither does how you invest. Assumptions have to be made to come up with these articles, such as how much carbon emissions are created through investments, which isn’t exactly cut and dry.
TL;DR just because an article says that a group of people are the cause of something, it doesn’t mean that everyone in the group is causing it.
It also depends on how the data is being used. For this study source of wages is being heavily weighted as well as what companies an individual chooses to invest in. So while household is the focus of the headline companies are more the focus, since by the metric used it seems as though someone who lives a green life style on paper living in a tent and biking but invests majority of their money and sees it grow would be a heavier polluter than someone who makes less but lives in a big house, drives suvs and pick ups, but doesn’t see their net worth increase with most money not being used towards investments but paying off debt.