Catastrophic Climate Change is on our Doorstep yet Billionaires Steering Humanity Don’t Give a Shite

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NyriasNeo@reddit

well, most Americans also do not give a sh*t. It is not just the rich.

About a little more than 1/3 voted for "drill baby drill". About a little less than 1/3 voted against. About 1/3 did not care enough to vote.

So a little more than 2/3 don't give a sh*t by either voting for "drill baby drill" or did not bother to vote at all.

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Wave_of_Anal_Fury@reddit

And when you look at what's happening with travel, it's not just Americans that don't care. Among other trends:

Our flight frequency counter shows the number of (one-way) flights in the schedule from Monday 29th December 2025* to the end of the current week. With 12,092,765 flights in total to the end of this week, the average number of commercial flights per day is 102,481.

https://www.oag.com/airline-frequency-and-capacity-statistics

At an average of 150 passengers per flight, 15,372,150 are flying every single day of the year, and 1,813,914,750 passengers total through April 26.

As for private planes, despite the more bombastic headlines, they're a trivial portion of global emissions.

Only 1.8% of the carbon pollution from aviation is spewed by private jets and aviation as a whole is responsible for about 4% of the human-caused heat-trapping gases, the study said.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/carbon-pollution-from-high-flying-rich-in-private-jets-soars

.018 (1.8%) * .04 (4%) = .00072 (.072%)

And when you look at what it means to be global poor:

Half of the global population lives on less than US$6.85 per person per day

648 million people in the world, about eight percent of the global population, live in extreme poverty, which means they subsist on less than US$2.15 per day.

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/developmenttalk/half-global-population-lives-less-us685-person-day

Americans typically are the global rich, whether they feel like it or not.

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SRod1706@reddit

I'd post (and get downvoted) for pointing out that a reduction in the oil supply (for any reason) would result in escalating prices, which would piss off people.

Based on what we have seen from humanity, higher fossil fuel prices are the only way to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Nothing else will move away from them.

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Hugin___Munin@reddit

So many people I know who do the whole care for the environment climate change idea with home solar and batteries plus an EV and no plastic stuff are fine with flying overseas once or twice a year.

When I point out that it undoes all that CO2 they are trying to stop I get so much push back , I don't bother any more.

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drhugs@reddit

About 1/3 did not care enough to vote.

They needed the option 'none of the above'

Down-votes need to be invented.

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daviddjg0033@reddit

I listen thanks for this you and Climate Chat w/Dan and Leon +2 are the two I watch. One - I still do not see how a AMOC slowdown does not mean high summer temperatures but lower winter - like Siberia - and Siberia has been burning. Also losing permafrost buy the crater. Two - no -ism is going to save us. Your billionaires list cannot compute the value of Putin or the oligarchs. Three - many millionaires-on-paper (home assets + retirement + car) will not be feeling secure. I am speculating here but it is two things: Doom spending or taking that plane or cruise trip now before oil goes up.
Previous A rated credit is now subprime and has not been acknowledged plus subprime borrowers are given so much to extend the loan instead of default. That will end soon.

Communism or whatever the east is alone would have tipped us into a climate equilibrium we cannot escape on human timescales. My message is adapt cloud brightening to moving the most vulnerable away from the Potomac sinking delta or even NYC area.

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paulhenrybeckwith@reddit (OP)

Catastrophic Climate Change is on our Doorstep yet Billionaires Steering Humanity Don’t Give a Shite

George Monbiot wrote an excellent article in the Guardian, asking why the powers that be happily allow humanity to head to oblivion: simple bottom line: billionaires...

References & Links:

Me on Facebook comment: "So the number of billionaires on the planet is 0.413 ppm or 413 ppb, while the CO2 level in the atmosphere is 431 ppm. The billionaire concentration is thus 431/0.413 which is 1043.58 times higher than CO2 concentration in the air, yet they are destroying us all (see book called "Goliath's Curse" by Luke Kemp on the history and future of societal collapse..." https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CeXP4ivK5/

Guardian article: A catastrophic climate event is upon us. Here is why you’ve heard so little about it George Monbiot https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/23/catastrophic-climate-event-scientists-atlantic-system-collapse-billionaire-existential-crisis

X post on who runs society: https://x.com/mhdksafa/status/1289255836250824704

Guardian article: I wish we could ignore Bill Gates on the climate crisis. But he’s a billionaire, so we can’t -- George Monbiot https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/08/bill-gates-climate-crisis-billionaire-essay-cop30

Peer-reviewed paper in Science Advances: Observational constraints project a ~50% AMOC weakening by the end of this century https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adx4298

Peer-reviewed paper in Science Advances: Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.adk1189?

Peer-reviewed paper in Geophysical Review Letters: European Temperature Extremes Under Different AMOC Scenarios in the Community Earth System Model https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2025GL114611

Peer-reviewed paper in Nature: Collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation would lead to substantial oceanic carbon release and additional global warming https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03427-w

Carbon Brief article: Ocean current ‘collapse’ could trigger ‘profound cooling’ in northern Europe – even with global warming https://www.carbonbrief.org/ocean-current-collapse-could-trigger-profound-cooling-in-northern-europe-even-with-global-warming/

Ask MIT climate: What would happen if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) collapses? How likely is it? https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-would-happen-if-atlantic-meridional-overturning-circulation-amoc-collapses-how-likely

Peer-reviewed paper in Wiley Climate Change: Multi-Stability of the Present-Day Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wcc.70049

Peer reviewed paper: Future of the human climate niche https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1910114117

DeSmog article: Bill Gates Gave $3.5M to Think Tank Run by Climate Crisis Denier Bjorn Lomborg Tax records reveal that the billionaire’s foundation has donated for years to Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center. https://www.desmog.com/2025/11/05/bill-gates-donated-climate-denier-bjorn-lomborg-copenhagen-consensus-center/

Guardian article: US economists win Nobel prize for work on climate and growth: William Nordhaus and Paul Romer honored over two of most ‘basic and pressing’ issues https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/08/two-us-economists-win-nobel-prize-for-work-on-climate-and-growth-william-nordhaus-paul-romer

Guardian article: ‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilization argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/self-termination-history-and-future-of-societal-collapse

Linda McQaig book: Cancelling Billionaires before they cancel us https://bookcity.ca/item/a-c8S3j7QPP_qFf4P1ADug/lists/LM03QNH2Krh8/

Maps.com Mapping the Motion of the Oceans at Different Depths https://www.maps.com/animated-ocean-currents-map-shows-currents-at-various-depths/ https://vbschools.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/3dviewer/index.html?appid=16f7372c7e624f31bfa03a978593ce85

Copernicus Ocean Data: https://data.marine.copernicus.eu/viewer/expert?view=catalogue

Nature Geoscience paper: An unprecedented view of ocean currents from geostationary satellites https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-026-01943-0

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

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Robinhood192000@reddit

Oh wow you are actually posting on here now. I used to be a moderator on this sub a while ago and reached out to ask you to do an AMA on here. I've been away from the sub for a couple of years now and here you are posting. I am happy.

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Coco_Cannibal@reddit

He is posting on here since years, and sometimes newbies even shit on him in the comments, were you loving under a rock?

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Electrical-Effect-62@reddit

He said he hasn't been here for a few years..

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bipolarearthovershot@reddit

Paul, we are so incredibly fucked!!!

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Cultural-Answer-321@reddit

Aristocrats have never ever cared.

And it never ends well.

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ApocalypseYay@reddit

Catastrophic Climate Change is on our Doorstep yet Billionaires Steering Humanity Don’t Give a Shite

Well, they do have to worry about the next quarter, right.

Yachts to buy, supermodels to snort off, Epstein's to befriend, and so on.

And think of the poor workers! If they don't deliver a great quarter, they will have no money for food. Billionaires gotta eat.

Profit before people.

Thanks, capitalism.

Sick, sociopathic evil.

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Jovan_Knight005@reddit

Capitalism as it stands is has grown from a curable sickness to a cancer that can't be removed. Not that other ideologies like Communism and Socialism are better in that regard, mind you.

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JMaster098@reddit

Ain’t no way you are still anti-communist in 2026 bruh lol

Legit being driven to mass extinction because of the never ending, higher profit motive and you seriously are saying the productive system in direct opposition to that is not “any better in that regard”.

Do you even know what Socialism is? or Communism? what about either of these concepts are cancerous to anyone but a parasitic, greedy westerner?

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Jovan_Knight005@reddit

The predecessor country to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia started collapsing in the early 1990s during its Civil Wars and ended by Montenegro seceding from Serbia and Montenegro.

But that's its own can of worms that i'm not willing to open tonight.

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FOSSChemEPirate88@reddit

Most folks are able to acknowledge the rich view the poor as cattle.

Look at a CAFO, industrial livestock feeding operations. Crammed in, only enough room to do something profitable for their owners, before they're killed off.

Thats what billionaires want from you and your family.

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StatementBot@reddit

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