First of all, we are going to dig deeper into the title of the article : “For the sake of life on

earth, we must put a limit on wealth”. In fact, we easily notice a sense of urgency with the
terms : “for the sake”, “we MUST”. Those terms show that it is a matter that requires
immediate attention. It needs to be seriously addressed and solved as soon as possible for
us to live safely on Earth.

However, this situation does not seem to deter ultra rich individuals at all. The world
desperately needs them to cooperate. They are the only ones who can make
a real change on the planet.

The author goes as far as to use the word “ecocide” to describe very wealthy people’s
actions on the climate state. An ecocide is “the destruction of the natural
environment of an area, or very great damage to it” (Cambridge dictionary).

According to The Guardian, “the richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more

carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, with dire consequences for vulnerable
communities and global efforts to tackle the climate emergency”. Turning
off the lights and being mindful of what we throw away is a good start ; but it is
The living world
nowhere near enough what Earth needs in order for us to survive.
will not be able to make up for the chaos richer people created, no
matter how hard we try.

As George Monbiot stated, what matters is not what you do but what you stop doing. However,
rich individuals, like Bill Gates, are merely putting on a show. They suggest solutions
without actually altering their luxurious lifestyles nor acknowledging their contribution to
the issues at hand. The author talks about it in the fifth paragraph of the article.

We have chosen to use this graph to explain our point better. It is from The Guardian and is
titled : ”Twelve billionaires’ climate emissions outpollute 2.1m homes, analysis finds”.
Since George Monbiot mentioned Bill Gates, we will direct our
attention specifically to him. According to this analysis, he ranks as the
second-highest emitter among the twelve billionaires studied. The analysis reveals that
Gates' emissions exceed those of over 6 million homes combined.

It is interesting to connect this article with George

Monbiot's discussion in the second paragraph, where he
mentions jets designed for 174 passengers being used for just one person. These jets, “are
filled at the airport with around 25,000 litres of fuel. That’s as much fossil energy
as a small African town might use in a year”. This part reinforces the idea that the
living world is not as responsible for the climate state than ultra-rich individuals.

As we can see, rich people tend to be extremely greedy.

In fact, many billionaires do not only use their money and power for urgent situations. For
example, Taylor Swift, an American singer, has been exposed for using her private jet to go
see her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, at the Super Bowl.

She has also been exposed several times for not-so necessary other trips. Instead of taking
accountability for her actions, her team decided to threaten the student that exposed her
trips on a social media account, even though those trips are visible to everyone on the
internet, since flight tracking is public information.

LA Times states : “Jack Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida, received a
cease-and-desist letter in December from the “Look What You Made Me Do” singer’s legal
team alleging he “engaged in stalking and harassing behavior” by publishing “real-time and
precise information” about the singer’s whereabouts. Sweeney published details about
Swift’s flights — including jet model, takeoff and landing locations and carbon emissions
per flight on his @taylorswiftjets social media pages.”

As we have seen in the previous texts, money and power come together. George Monbiot
obviously agrees with this point since he states that “money conquers all”.
This coincides with all we have seen until now. Taylor Swift is a white billionaire. Therefore,
she has more power and influence than any student.

Unfortunately, Taylor’s case is not rare, since a lot of ultrarich people are often
criticized for their horrible carbon footprint, like Mark Zuckenberg, Kim Kardashian, Travis
Scott or even Beyoncé.

Therefore, we can deduce that these people do not care at all. This is well shown in the
third paragraph of the article when the author talks about a meeting of the rich and famous
convened by Google : “its delegates arrived in 114 private jets and a fleet of mega yachts, and
drove around the island in supercars”. This is extremely ironic since this meeting was
convened to discuss climate breakdown.

The last paragraph states that only a small part of the society is privileged enough to
completely flourish.