Unpopular opinion: to stop climate change we just need to get poorer

Unpopular opinion: to stop climate change we just need to get poorer.

Our consumption produces over 60% of all greenhouse gases. So forget about evil Chinese chemical factories or ruthless capitalist executives. It's our rich lifestyle that harms the planet.

It's not about buying an electric car instead of a petrol one. It's about not buying a car at all. It's not even about using car-sharing or other low-emission means of transport. It's about stopping travelling so frequently.

We often feel like we don't have enough money to do what we want, but the reality is that we have more than anyone before us ever dreamt of. Our grandfathers were not going for weekend gateways or takeaway meals every week.

How to get poorer is the problem: work less, produce less and earn less?

Maybe. But then the same formula should be applied to everyone.

As always, it all comes down to inequality.

Top-skilled workers in rich economies could even work a 20h week, but they will still make more money than the worse-offs working 60h+ per week. Therefore, they'll still consume more.

In fact, the world’s richest 1% produce more than twice the emissions of the 3.1 billion poorest humans. But I'm fairly sure they don't work twice the time. Quite the opposite I would expect.

Fighting climate change while still chasing financial growth is not realistic.

This also applies at a personal level.

Our expectation of always getting better jobs, growing our finances and consumption over time is not sustainable anymore.

Quoting Greta Thunberg, it's not just governments talking "bla bla bla", but it's also us in our everyday lives.

How to change this? I don't know :(