{"id":24297,"date":"2021-02-16T01:19:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T01:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=24297"},"modified":"2021-02-17T04:33:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T04:33:28","slug":"private-planes-mansions-and-superyachts-what-gives-billionaires-like-musk-and-abramovich-such-a-massive-carbon-footprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/private-planes-mansions-and-superyachts-what-gives-billionaires-like-musk-and-abramovich-such-a-massive-carbon-footprint\/","title":{"rendered":"Private planes, mansions and superyachts: What gives billionaires like Musk and Abramovich such a massive carbon footprint"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Richard Wilk<\/a>, Indiana University<\/a><\/em> and Beatriz Barros<\/a>, Indiana University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tesla\u2019s Elon Musk and Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos have been vying for the world\u2019s richest person ranking<\/a> all year after the former\u2019s wealth soared a staggering US$160 billion<\/a> in 2020, putting him briefly in the top spot<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk isn\u2019t alone in seeing a significant increase in wealth during a year of pandemic, recession and death. Altogether, the world\u2019s billionaires saw their wealth surge<\/a> over $1.9 trillion in 2020, according to Forbes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are astronomical numbers, and it\u2019s hard to get one\u2019s head around them without some context. As anthropologists who study<\/a> energy and consumer culture, we wanted to examine how all that wealth translated into consumption and the resulting carbon footprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking in a billionaire\u2019s shoes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We found that billionaires have carbon footprints<\/a> that can be thousands of times higher than those of average Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wealthy own yachts, planes and multiple mansions, all of which contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. For example, a superyacht with a permanent crew, helicopter pad, submarines and pools emits about 7,020 tons of CO2 a year, according to our calculations, making it by the far worst asset to own from an environmental standpoint. Transportation and real estate make up the lion\u2019s share of most people\u2019s carbon footprint, so we focused on calculating those categories for each billionaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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CC BY-NC-ND<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To pick a sample of billionaires, we started with the 2020 Forbes List<\/a> of 2,095 billionaires. A random or representatives sample of billionaire carbon footprints is impossible because most wealthy people shy away from publicity<\/a>, so we had to focus on those whose consumption is public knowledge. This excluded most of the superrich in Asia and the Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We combed 82 databases of public records to document billionaires\u2019 houses, vehicles, aircraft and yachts. After an exhaustive search, we started with 20 well-known billionaires whose possessions we were able to ascertain, while trying to include some diversity in gender and geography. We have submitted our paper for peer review but plan to continue adding to our list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We then used a wide range of sources, such as the U.S. Energy Information Administration<\/a> and Carbon Footprint<\/a>, to estimate the annual CO2 emissions of each house, aircraft, vehicle and yacht. In some cases we had to estimate the size of houses from satellite images or photos and the use of private aircraft and yachts by searching the popular press<\/a> and drawing on other studies<\/a>. Our results are based on analyzing typical use of each asset given its size and everything else we could learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did not try to calculate each asset\u2019s \u201cembodied carbon<\/a>\u201d emissions \u2013 that is, how much CO2 is burned throughout the supply chain in making the product \u2013 or the emissions produced by their family, household employees or entourage. We also didn\u2019t include the emissions of companies of which they own part or all, because that would have added another significant degree of complexity. For example, we didn\u2019t calculate the emissions of Tesla or Amazon when calculating Musk\u2019s or Bezos\u2019 footprints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, these are all likely conservative estimates of how much they emit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your carbon footprint<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To get a sense of perspective, let\u2019s start with the carbon footprint of the average person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents of the U.S., including billionaires, emitted about 15 tons of CO2 per person<\/a> in 2018. The global average footprint is smaller, at just about 5 tons per person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, the 20 people in our sample contributed an average of about 8,190 tons of CO2 in 2018. But some produced far more greenhouse gases than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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