Green Hypocrisy, and a Simple Solution
Peter Glover at TCS Daily tries to make what I believe would have been an unfair point 5 years ago, but which is perfectly valid now. Unfortunately, he doesn’t understand the reason why he’s relatively suddenly right:
Green Hypocrisy at 30,000 Feet
They sit in economy class occasionally wiping their clammy hands. Their eyes dart furtively about. They wonder whether the stewardess or passenger next to them might have become suspicious. Some even grow moustaches or beards - to cover the ‘giveaway’ sweating top lip.
But they are not terrorists. At least not in the modern sense of wanting to blow up the airplanes they travel in. Far from it, for they love nothing more the sense of self-importance international jetsetting offers. Travelling that delivers them in far-flung destinations where they can evangelize their ascetic ordinances to thousands of fellow worshippers. But while travelling their chief fear is that they will be found out. Who they are, what they preach - and expose their moralistic hypocritical behaviour.
They are the Green Bigots, leading environmentalists, those at the vanguard of the fight to change our lifestyles, restrict our foreign flights, who insist we do our ‘bit’ to cut greenhouse gas emissions while they rack up thousands of airmiles on business and pleasure trips.”
As the UK’s The Sunday Times has recently revealed, “In the past year the directors and chief executives of groups such as WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association have crisscrossed the globe, visiting the Falklands, Japan, Africa and Brazil.” The ST’s environment editor points out, “All are running high-profile campaigns to persuade people to change their lifestyles and cut emissions of carbon dioxide.”
Fair enough. But I believe that as long as the enviros aren’t chartering their own jets, they’re not doing any (theoretically) demonstrable harm to the environment. That scheduled flight they are on is going to leave whether they are on the plane or not.
But ….. there is a way to avoid getting on the plane in the first place, and I don’t see any evidence that the uber-sophisticated enviros are taking advantage of it. I am talking about web-based meetings. Enviros should be scheduling 80%-90% of their meetings and conferences in this manner. If they’re not doing this within a year or so, I will have to conclude that they are guilty as charged — that they are more interested in jet-setting than they are in “saving” the environment (which, just to be clear, is doing just fine and is in no need of “saving”).
