From the public school toffs behind Extinction Rebellion to the jet-setting celebrity activists, climate change really is a problem for the first-world elite.

Which is ironic, really – because if there really is a “climate emergency” (spoiler: there isn’t), they’re the ones causing it.

The rich are primarily to blame for the global climate crisis, a study by the University of Leeds of 86 countries claims.

The wealthiest tenth of people consume about 20 times more energy overall than the bottom ten, wherever they live.

The gulf is greatest in transport, where the top tenth gobble 187 times more fuel than the poorest tenth, the research says.

The idea of a “global climate crisis” is a load of old cobblers, fortunately.

But what this study does show is that, if the climate cultists take their own bullshit seriously, they should be screaming “How dare you!” into their mirrors. Because the foundational premise of the “climate crisis” argument is that human carbon dioxide emissions are the cause.

And which humans are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide?

The researchers found that the richer people became, the more energy they typically use. And it was replicated across all countries.

[…]in transport the richest tenth of consumers use more than half the energy. This reflects previous research showing that 15% of UK travellers take 70% of all flights.

The ultra-rich fly by far furthest, while 57% of the UK population does not fly abroad at all.

That would be the ultra-rich like James Cameron, Leonardo di Caprio, Al Gore, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman…the list goes on and gets wealthier than the habitués of Jeffrey Epstein’s pedo island.

Professor Kevin Anderson, from the Tyndall Centre in Manchester, who was not involved in the study, told BBC News: “This study tells relatively wealthy people like us what we don’t want to hear.

“The climate issue is framed by us high emitters – the politicians, business people, journalists, academics. When we say there’s no appetite for higher taxes on flying, we mean WE don’t want to fly less.

“The same is true about our cars and the size our homes.”

What’s this “we” and “our” business?

“We” are not the troughers who fly Business Class from climate junket to environmental summit, all hosted at exclusive, five-star resorts across the globe.

Those collections of cars, private planes, helicopters and gigantic, energy-sucking mansions aren’t “ours”.

They’re yours.

Yet you have the gall to tell the rest of us to tighten our belts “for the planet”.

As Dale Kerrigan would say, “Tell ‘em to get stuffed”.

A climate change activist urging you to curb your excessive lifestyle. The BFD.

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Punk rock philosopher. Liberalist contrarian. Grumpy old bastard. I grew up in a generational-Labor-voting family. I kept the faith long after the political left had abandoned it. In the last decade...