“Between 1970 and 2000, the number of private jets worldwide multiplied by ten times over. These luxury planes emit six times more carbon per passenger than normal commercial jets. Private yachts that stretch the length of football fields burn more than 200 gallons of fossil fuel per hour. The top-earning 1 percent of households, one Canadian study has found, generate three times more greenhouse gas emissions than average households — and twice as much as the next 4 percent. Those in the global 1 percent, Oxfam calculates, may well be stomping a carbon footprint 175 times deeper than the poorest 10 percent. Another analysis concludes that the richest 1 percent of Americans, Singaporeans, and Saudis on average emit over 200 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year, “2,000 times more than the poorest in Honduras, Rwanda, or Malawi.” Our global environmental crisis would not, of course, suddenly melt away if the world’s most affluent suddenly ended their profligate consumption. But the wealthy pose our single biggest obstacle to environmental progress.”
