The wealthiest eighty-five people on the entire planet have more money than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined. It’s hard to even take in that statistic. Between 1979 and 2007, the wages of the top 1 percent of households in the United States rose ten times more than the bottom 90 percent.

of consumption and the environmental damage it causes.38 The richest 10% of the world’s population are responsible for around 50% of global carbon emissions, while the poorest half of the world’s population are responsible for just 10% of total emissions. Put differently, if the top 10% of earners worldwide reduced their consumption to the level of