Billionaire called out for trying to fix a problem created by a leisurely activity on his superyacht
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Billionaire called out for trying to fix a problem created by a leisurely activity on his superyacht")
Larry Ellison loves shooting balls in the basket in his superyacht Musashi. He has a man chasing the yacht on a speedboat to collect the balls that fall into the ocean.
Superyachts are the toy of the rich. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault, Roman Abramovich, and Mark Zuckerberg all own sailing beauties. While they are a symbol of luxury, they are also the bane of the environment. These fuel-guzzling beasts are major culprits when it comes to heating up the climate.
This has not stopped the rich from using them. Larry Ellison, who co-founded software company Oracle Corporation, seems to want to play his part in helping the environment. However, he seems to be missing the point.
According to a Reddit post that draws on an article in Luxury Launches, Ellison loves playing basketball on his $160 million superyacht. The 288-foot superyacht, Musashi, offers him a place to shoot hoops. Balls can go tumbling down the boat into the ocean.
Ellison is aware of the plastic pollution that the presence of basketballs in the ocean can cause.'
Larry Ellison's idea to remove plastic pollution from ocean
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So, he has a man who follows the yacht in a speedboat and picks them up. Ellison might be trying to keep the ocean free of plastic, but in doing so, he is forgetting the amount of pollution the speedboat is causing. In fact, experts say that the speedboat warms the planet several notches more than the harm a basketball would ever cause.
People are shocked to see him indulging in a wasteful practice, and left angry messages under the Reddit post.
Surveys and reports over the years have found that the richest people on the planet are mostly responsible for heating it up. According to a study released in May this year, 10 per cent of the world's richest individuals have a higher carbon footprint than the poorest 50 per cent.
In fact, they have been responsible for two-thirds of observed global warming since 1990. "Our study shows that extreme climate impacts are not just the result of abstract global emissions, instead, we can directly link them to our lifestyle and investment choices, which in turn are linked to wealth," lead author Sarah Schongart, from the ETH Zurich in Switzerland, said.
The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Richest 1% need to cut their emissions by 97% by 2030
Meanwhile, an Oxfam survey earlier this year found that the habits of the super-rich have led them to consume their share of carbon emissions for 2025 in just the first 10 days of January, with 2.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. In contrast, the world's poorest 50 per cent produce this much emissions in about three years.
The richest one per cent release around 76 tonnes of CO2 each year. The world needs to meet the 1.5°C goal, and for this, Oxfam noted that the richest 1 per cent would have to cut their emissions by 97 per cent by 2030.
