this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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Who is reading this without being part of the 10%?
According to this study, an income of $38,000/year puts you in the top 10% of carbon emitters. This study puts it at €42,980, or about $50K USD. That's a little higher than the median income in N. America, Europe, and Australia.
That said, carbon emissions are just one way humans impact the environment; other facets are far less variable (we all produce about the same amount of human waste per day, for example).
Why does this matter?
We have to know if we have to change our lives or those of the 1,000 billionaires.
It would be easy to change our lives but it becomes difficult if we wait for the billionaires to change instead.
what's the cutoff to be in the 90%?
Wealth distribution pyramid has $100,000 as limit to top 7.7%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
So $90,000 could be the cutoff.
Of course students don't have that. However I would include anybody into the top 10% who will own $100,000 at one point in their life which should be anybody with real estate or a private pension plan in the West.