> Everyone consumes, and rich people consume less than poor people relative to their wealth.
But that's irrelevant metric. The nature only cares about absolute amount of consumption, and in absolute numbers, rich consume significantly more than poor.
The fact that rich could have consumed a lot more according to our own measure of "wealth" doesn't make them less morally culpable, since this is not tracked by nature at all.
I realized I should also add, it's not just direct consumption, investment can cause emissions too. Investment often means building infrastructure, which nature counts as consumption regardless whether the investment is then recouped or not (if it's not, then it's a waste). Investment also drives consumption in other ways, often directly through advertising or people just realizing they "need" a new service or product that they didn't need before.
Even savings (richer people just keeping money in assets) are not immune from not having a side-effect on consumption. As assets prices rise, this sends the market wrong signals and the result can be for example building far more housing that is needed, again resulting in additional consumption of resources.
But that's irrelevant metric. The nature only cares about absolute amount of consumption, and in absolute numbers, rich consume significantly more than poor.
The fact that rich could have consumed a lot more according to our own measure of "wealth" doesn't make them less morally culpable, since this is not tracked by nature at all.
I realized I should also add, it's not just direct consumption, investment can cause emissions too. Investment often means building infrastructure, which nature counts as consumption regardless whether the investment is then recouped or not (if it's not, then it's a waste). Investment also drives consumption in other ways, often directly through advertising or people just realizing they "need" a new service or product that they didn't need before.
Even savings (richer people just keeping money in assets) are not immune from not having a side-effect on consumption. As assets prices rise, this sends the market wrong signals and the result can be for example building far more housing that is needed, again resulting in additional consumption of resources.