The leftist website Vox has churned out another ridiculous and revealing piece: to save the planet from climate change, don’t be rich!
Vox‘s David Roberts wrote on July 14 that individual decisions to cut down on carbon emissions won’t matter much on a global scale because it is the wealthy who are the primary drivers of carbon emissions. Roberts cites data showing that the richest 10% on the planet produce 49% of all carbon emissions and that the United States easily leads in carbon dioxide consumption per household.
“The rich, in other words, are the ones that should be getting hassled about their choices,” wrote Roberts. “For most working schmoes, this kind of moralizing of lifestyle is as pointless as it is off-putting.”
Roberts argued that while the rich could be encouraged to cut down on their carbon emissions, they likely won’t, which is why it’s necessary to tax them instead.
“The obvious and most direct approach to addressing the role of individual choices in climate change is to tax the consumptive choices of the wealthy,” wrote Roberts. “For now, and for the foreseeable future, carbon emissions rise with wealth. Redistributing wealth down the income scale, ceteris paribus, reduces lifestyle emissions.”
Roberts concluded his incoherent piece by telling the rich to “quit flying so much.”
“If you’re not, the best thing you can do to reduce carbon emissions is to get involved in politics and policymaking,” Roberts said. “That’s the only frame for climate mitigation that makes sense.”
When Vox tweeted this piece out on Sunday, they got rightfully slammed over it in the replies:
Indeed, Roberts’ piece is reflective of the true nature of the environmentalist Left: the environment is simply a pretext for Marxism. As explained here and here, environmentalists have tended to sympathize with and even openly endorse Marxism and have admitted to their desire of de-industrializing the planet over their fanaticism.
Two questions for Roberts: where is his outrage over the massive amount of carbon emissions emitted by the likes of Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio, who champion themselves as environmentalists?
The fact is that even if man-made climate change is such a catastrophic issue — and there’s no evidence to suggest that it is — the answer lies in the private sector, as technology and innovation have already helped reduce carbon emissions. In fact, according to Professor Robert McCormick, “rich countries take more carbon out of the air than poorer ones,” a fact that disproves the entire premise of Roberts’ argument.
But facts don’t matter to ideological fanatics like Roberts.