Ben's Blog

January ’25

I feel enormous sympathy for the poor people who have lost their homes in these catastrophic fires, it was not their fault. But most of the houses being burnt belong to the rich, the very rich and the super rich.

The average house price in Pacific Palisades was $4.5 million. For these people I have little sympathy. They have only themselves to blame. Many of us are painfully aware that these fires were fuelled by the climate crisis, but many of us are blissfully ignorant of the fact that this crisis is caused by making too much money, then spending it on things we don’t need. This is called discretionary spending. The median income in the U.S.A. is $80,000. About half of that income is spent on discretionary items and half on necessities. The list of necessities doesn’t vary with income levels. We all need pretty much the same basic things to get by. The richer you get, the percentage of your wealth you spend on the necessities of life dwindles, until it is practically zero.

Many of our favourite actors and movie moguls like to live in Malibu, where brave men and women are risking their lives mansions filled with useless crap. According to Wikipedia the top 20 actors in Hollywood make an average of $50 million per film. According to Our World in Data, every dollar you make generates 270 grams of carbon emissions. So, while your average citizen is spending half their earnings on things they don’t need, and generating about 10 tons of CO² per year doing it, your movie star is making $50million and generating 13,000 tons of CO². When we go to the movies we all have to chip in a few dollars to pay the movie stars, from the lowliest farm worker in Uganda, to rubbish sorters in the Philippines. Every dollar we pay  generates 270 grams of CO². It doesn’t seem much does it? but it soon mounts up. So when Keenu Reeves made a staggering $156 million for a few months work on The Matrix sequels in 2003, he personally generated around 40,000 tons of CO², ouch! That is 1500 times an average worker in the U.S. and 75,000 times a garbage sorter in the slums of Manilla, who make about $2 per day, and if they forego eating for the day, they can go to the movies and help Keenu buy another Learjet. That is why I have little sympathy for the mega rich, as their mansions burn down in front of their eyes, forcing them to retreat to their island in the Caribbean or their chalet in the Swiss Alps. They themselves are fuelling the flames. As my friend Luke said,” forgive them, for they know not what they do, but they bloody well should know!”

https://binsblog.org/2024/12/11/warning-net-zero-by-2050-is-unachievable/

Ben Boyang January ’25