Gore Supporters’ Energy Hypocrisy

This has been all over conservative talk radio, but we can’t resist including it here.



It’s not just cheap fun at the expense of the energy nannies.

It points to the reality of environmentalism.

Affluent environmentalists expect to have plenty of energy themselves in the Green utopia they are trying to bring about.

They can afford $8.00 per gallon gas.

They will often make minor and symbolic sacrifices in support of their claim of righteousness. They may live on the East Side of Milwaukee, and bike to work downtown. But that’s not difficult if you have enough money to pay the inflated real-estate prices on the East Side.

They may drive a hybrid auto. After all, they can afford one, while working class Americans can’t.

But they will never forego the opportunity to jet off to some exotic location for a vacation.

Being affluent and elitist, they expect all their privileges and prerogatives to continue just fine in their Green utopia. That less affluent people will be harmed is something they don’t much care about. Indeed, they view it as their proper role to tutor “lessor breeds” on how to live their lives -- and to use coercion, if necessary, to do it.

The Eco-Pretensions of the Rich

Via Shack Sounds Off, an article by Charles Krauthammer in Time Magazine (which does tolerate some dissent from its insipid liberal bias) on the Hollywood environmentalists.

Goldman Sachs has been one of the most aggressive firms on Wall Street about taking action on climate change; the company sends its bankers home at night in hybrid limousines.

--The New York Times, Feb. 25

Written without a hint of irony--if only your neighborhood dry cleaner sent his employees home by hybrid limousine--this front-page dispatch captured perfectly the eco-pretensions of the rich and the stupefying gullibility with which they are received.

Remember the Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore global-warming pitch at the Academy Awards? Before they spoke, the screen at the back of the stage flashed not-so-subliminal messages about how to save the planet. My personal favorite was “Ride mass transit.” This to a conclave of Hollywood plutocrats who have not seen the inside of a subway since the moon landing and for whom mass transit means a stretch limo seating no fewer than 10.

Leo and Al then portentously announced that for the first time ever, the Academy Awards ceremony had gone green. What did that mean? Solar panels in the designer gowns? It turns out that the Academy neutralized the evening’s “carbon footprint” by buying carbon credits. That means it sent money to a “carbon broker,” who promised, after taking his cut, to reduce carbon emissions somewhere on the planet equivalent to what the stars spewed into the atmosphere while flying in on their private planes.

In other words, the rich reduce their carbon output by not one ounce. But drawing on the hundreds of millions of net worth in the Kodak Theatre, they pull out lunch money to buy ecological indulgences. The last time the selling of pardons was prevalent--in a predecessor religion to environmentalism called Christianity--Martin Luther lost his temper and launched the Reformation.

What is wrong with this scam? First, purchasing carbon credits is an incentive to burn even more fossil fuels, since now it is done under the illusion that it’s really cost-free to the atmosphere.

Second, it is a way for the rich to export the real costs and sacrifices of pollution control to the poorer segments of humanity in the Third World. (Apparently, Hollywood’s plan is to make up for that by adopting every last one of their children.) For example, GreenSeat, a Dutch carbon-trading outfit, buys offsets from a foundation that plants trees in Uganda’s Mount Elgon National Park to soak up the carbon emissions of its rich Western patrons. Small problem: expanding the park encroaches on land traditionally used by local farmers. As a result, reports the New York Times, “villagers living along the boundary of the park have been beaten and shot at, and their livestock has been confiscated by armed park rangers.” All this so that swimming pools can be heated and Maseratis driven with a clear conscience in the fattest parts of the world.

If Gore really wants to save the planet, he can try this: Turn off the lights. Ditch the heated pool. Ride the subway. And spare us the carbon-trading piety.

We differ just a bit from Krauthammer on this. Favoring free markets, we see nothing wrong with buying and selling the right to pollute. Not only are the affluent polluters better off, the people who produce those “pollution rights” are better off too -- unless some form of thuggery like that of the Mount Elgon park rangers is involved.

But then, how can people who are not free marketeers endorse such a scheme? Are they big government liberals (or even socialists) when it’s convenient to be, but then turn free marketeers when their lavish lifestyle requires it?

So the hypocrisy charge sticks.

Add to that the fact that we are not convinced that global warming has a human cause, nor that the effects are particularly dire.

Then there is the practical reality, which Krauthammer explains.

The other form of carbon trading is to get Third World companies to cut their emissions to offset Western pollution. The reason this doesn’t work--and why the carbon racket is a farce--is that you need a cap for cap-and-trade to work. Sulfur dioxide emissions in the U.S. were capped, and the trading system succeeded in reducing acid rain by half. But even the Kyoto treaty doesn’t put any cap on greenhouse gases in China and India, where billions of these carbon credits are traded. Sure, you can pretend you’re offsetting Western greenhouse pollution by supposedly cleaning up a dirty coal plant in China. But China is adding a new coal plant every week. You could build a particularly dirty “uncapped” power plant, then sell hundreds of millions in carbon credits to reduce it to a normal rate of pollution. The result? The polluter gets very rich. The planet continues to cook. And the Gores of the world can feel virtuous as they burn up the local power grid.

Thus the Hollywood crowd is not morally serious and not intellectually serious.

But we knew that already, didn’t we?

Al Gore: Mansion Consumes 20 Times More Energy Than Average House

From the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, via Hot Air, how global warming guru Al Gore is an energy glutton.

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

Of course, just because one is a hypocrite does not mean one is wrong on a particular issue.

If we find that a conservative Christian minister is engaged in an adulterous affair, that doesn’t make adultery a good idea.

But on issues like this, unsophisticated people tend to look for the “moral” side, and assume that, since one side is more “moral” than the other, it must be right.

Thus a little cynicism is a good logical tonic. Once you decide that no group is particularly moral, you can examine an issue on its merits.

And while we are at it, consider John Edward’s six million dollar mansion.