Will Affluence Ruin the Environment?

• Edwin S. Rubenstein
• January 5, 2021
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
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Will Affluence Ruin the Environment?
An NPG Forum Paper
by Edwin S. Rubenstein
January 2021

If 2020 teaches us anything, it’s that the next crisis is likely right around the corner, and could be prevented, or at least contained, if we act swiftly. A pandemic that scientists long warned was likely to occur, occurred, and has already killed well over 240,000 people in the U.S. Dozens of large wildfires – the latest evidence of the climate emergency – are torching the American West, their smoke more damaging to health than almost any fire season on record. But if we move quickly, we can limit the climate chaos.

A recent study in the academic journal Nature Communications warns that despite all the buzz about green technology mitigating man-made environmental problems, the only way for human consumption to become sustainable is to rein in wealthy consumers: “The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions,” write Thomas Wiedmann of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering in New South Wales, Australia, and co-authors from New Zealand, Switzerland, and England.”

The facts are clear: the wealthiest 0.54%, about 40 million people, are responsible for 14% of lifestyle-related greenhouse gas emissions, while the bottom 50% of income earners, almost 4 billion people, only emit around 10%. The world’s top 10% income earners are responsible for at least 25% and up to 43% of global environmental impact. Most people living in developed countries fit into this category, meaning you don’t have to consider yourself rich in order to be globally affluent. Even poor people in the U.S. and other wealthy countries have a disproportionately large and unsustainable resource footprint compared to the global average.

How to address the problem? The scientists who wrote the study advocate weaning top earners from their excessive lifestyles. This means “…not consuming certain goods and services, from living space (overly large homes, secondary residences of the wealthy) to oversized vehicles, environmentally damaging and wasteful food, leisure patterns and work patterns involving driving and flying.”

The nerve! What right do climate scientists have to tell the rich and successful how to spend their money? The top earners worked hard, played by the rules, and paid their taxes. The entrepreneurs among them created businesses that employ workers of all income classes. But super affluent, powerful business owners have a vested interest in promoting a high consumption, high population growth, economy: It’s good for business.

CEOs (and their stockholders) go to extraordinary lengths to promote economic and population growth, the latter fueled mainly by unskilled, low-wage immigrants. Higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) means higher sales; higher immigration means lower labor costs, as foreign-born workers displace the native-born in the labor force. Taken together, the two trends help them realize their ultimate objective: profits, profits, profits. Yet it’s more than just the pursuit of more money that drives these people. The richest of the rich usually hang out with others in their lofty socio-economic bracket. Their position relative to others in the group is important to their status and self-esteem.

Everyone, in every socio-economic stratum, wants to be rich. Being rich is perceived as being good. It implies more freedom, fewer worries, more happiness. This 
perception creates a “…growth spiral, driven by the affluent, with everyone striving to be ‘superior’ relative to their peers while the overall consumption level rises.” Lifestyles that are average or normal in rich countries rapidly become aspirations for the rest of the world…. Continue reading the full Forum paper by clicking here.