I can’t abide hypocrites.
And national treasure Ann Althouse has found a doozy. Excerpt:
This is one of my longtime issues — the hypocrisy of those who purport to care deeply about carbon footprints yet enthusiastically imprint their feet all over the world and encourage (and even pressure) others to do the same.
I like to see how the NYT deals with this subject — the NYT, with all its concern-mongering about climate change and all its travel articles and ads and its need to serve the emotions and vanities of its readers. What are we having today? A little shame, spiced with humorous self-deprecation, along with the usual self-esteem boosting about our progressivism and our love of the good life?
For this article, the author is by Andy Newman. Let’s read:
[T]hese are morally bewildering times. Something that seemed like pure escape and adventure has become double-edged, harmful, the epitome of selfish consumption. Going someplace far away, we now know, is the biggest single action a private citizen can take to worsen climate change. One seat on a flight from New York to Los Angeles effectively adds months worth of human-generated carbon emissions to the atmosphere. And yet we fly more and more….
What’s morally bewildering? If you believe what the consensus of climate scientists and the proponents of the Green New Deal are telling us, you should never travel. Everything else is morally wrong. If you are bewildered, you’re just bewildered about whether you — as opposed to those other people — want to center your life on morality.
But here’s the giggle line:
How does Newman bring this thing in for a landing? He’s still taking his family to Greece and Paris this summer. His reasoning is pathetically emotional: “We’re going because last year we canceled vacation to come home and watch our dog die. We’re going because the New York City public high school application process was an ordeal.” Why not rent a car and drive your spouse and teenager to a state park in upstate New York? You can hike and sleep in tents.
Mostly we’re going because of things we saw last time we were there. The tiny beach at the base of the towering cliff. The playground where the little children played past midnight while their parents and grandparents sat chatting. Chubby partridges pecking around the ruined temple of Poseidon.
So you’ve already gone, but you want to re-see what you’ve seen, because somehow the way they do it in Europe is more to your taste. I’m sure there’s a tiny beach with a towering cliff at one of those state parks I linked to.
This Newman – what an asshole. He whines about the “carbon footprint” he produces, but then blithely announces he’s going to take his family to Europe anyway. His reason is, effectively, because “fuck you, that’s why.”
Oh, but he bought some “carbon offsets,” which are the purest corral litter. The fact is, he has no intention of changing his lifestyle; he just wants Top Men in the Imperial City to force you and I to change ours. The proper response to this is, of course, “fuck off, slaver.”
Newman’s particular brand of hypocrisy isn’t unique to him. Take a look at AL Gore’s mansion. Take a look at Leonardo DeCaprio’s private jet, which he uses in this globe-trotting campaign to stop carbon emissions – except, apparently, for his. A few moment’s searching would certainly reveal many, many more such examples.
What is it about these jerks, what weird cognitive dissonance is it, that makes them immune from the results of their own pet issues?
