Carbon Emissions by Quintiles (warning, economics jargon!)

When it comes to emitting carbon, nobody beats the developed countries. Although on par with China's emissions as of now, the per capita comparison (~ 7 1/2 billion metric tons of CO2 divided by ~300,000,000 in the US; for China add one billion to the second number) is no comparison. And it can be argued that the vast, vast majority of China's emissions come only as a result of US emissions.

Now, let's drop a bomblet into population growth people's proper, organized, and simplistic worldview: The same countries with the highest per capita emissions are, with one exception, shrinking in population.

You see, with basic economic development (electrical & transportation infrastructure) and with women's education (even just finishing elementary education), population growth is curbed to nearly parity, and continues dropping with a country's improvements in quality of life and social safety nets. And this occurs almost without regard to social traditions and customs.

The real problem with carbon emissions is that we have based our transportation and mass-production infrastructures on one ingredient, petroleum. As people become more wealthy, they consume more petroleum-heavy stuff. In order to shift away from carbon emissions, we need to shift to alternative forms. This shift, as I see it, must include some way to ease the blow to folks who can't otherwise afford it, because transitions of this magnitude always move in fits and starts, and not smoothly.

That's where the title of this post comes in. I've been looking for data that separates carbon emissions into socioeconomic quintiles, or, fifths of the population separated by their relative wealth. All the data I'm finding right now are numbers like total carbon emissions for a country, or per capita carbon emissions, or, projected growth in carbon emissions based on previous years' growth (those can be thrown out the window this year). Even better would be to add in geographic location.

I know that wealthier people emit more carbon than poorer people, as a rule of consumption. What I am sick of hearing from wealthier people are admonitions that to save the planet "we" all need to stop having babies and use mass transit. Now, mass transit is important, but living close to where you work is better, so that little sleight-of-hand on the part of many wealthier folks to ignore the problem with housing says a lot. And the myth of a looming population boom is another illusion.

Again, the real problem is use of petroleum, that's it. And, without a doubt, rich people use far more petroleum than poor people (and tend to have more babies and use less mass transit, too). What I would like to see are data showing just how much more petroleum is consumed by people in the top 20% of income earners in the US, vs. the bottom 20%. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it's probably an order of magnitude greater at the top.

But, similar to rates of mass transit use by income level and birth rates by income level in the US, I have yet to find it...