Guest essay by Eric Worrall
How many global warming crusaders do you know about, who manage more air miles in a year, than most normal people manage in a lifetime?
President Obama is not shy about air miles – according to Breitbart, he is scheduled to fly on Airforce One, to give a speech in Florida on Earth Day, about the dangers of global warming.
On Earth day last year, for instance, Obama burned more than 35,000 gallons of fuel and emitted 375 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in his trips around the world.
Air Force One burns five gallons of fuel every single mile it flies and costs the American people $179,750 an hour. But that is just for the plane itself as the personnel also include 75 people who travel with the president each of whom often get paid overtime during the trips.
Perhaps President Obama will be joined by UN environment ambassador Leonardo DiCaprio, who also seems to believe his mission to save the world, trumps any personal carbon expenditure. According to a report about Wikileaks, DiCaprio flew a private jet 6 times in 6 weeks, in April and May 2014, courtesy of Sony.
Al Gore’s carbon footprint has been a running joke for years – his eye watering home electricity bill, his beachfront mansion, his willingness to fly long distances, to lecture the rest of us about the environmental dangers of flying, the way he made a vast personal profit by selling his TV station to oil interests. You have to almost admire Al Gore’s apparent enthusiasm, for trampling the environmental sensibilities of his green admirers.
What about climate scientists? They might not quite manage a Presidential scale climate footprint, but in my opinion some of them live pretty well – they seem happy to say take a long distance flight to Tahiti, and use their grant money to buy a little Tahitian luxury accommodation, in order to save the rest of us from enjoying similar experiences.
Of course, if there isn’t a pressing green reason to visit a luxury hotel in Tahiti, there is always the next annual climate Jamboree, in some expensive, exotic holiday spot. Or one of the intra-annual working groups, if you want to get more involved in the green jetset lifestyle.
My point is, the only green I have ever heard of, who received any kind of censure for carbon profligacy, is Richard Branson. And he owns an entire fleet of jet aircraft.
The lesson, in my opinion, is clear. If you want a green pass for flying your own private jet, without attracting green disapproval, all you have to do is say you are concerned about CO2. Then nobody in the green movement will care what you actually do – all they seem to care about is what you say. By voicing support for approved green narratives, you will have established yourself, in the eyes of the greens, as one of their in crowd. You will not be expected to live by the same rules, and standards of behaviour, as ordinary folk.
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The environmentalists won’t even notice the hypocrisy of such things until a Republican takes over. Then the media will wake up and start reporting the war dead again, and the homeless and the inner-city murders. The fact that the lunatic fringe has been rather silent about these things has been just about the only positive to having a Democrat loon in the White House.
Yeah, What ever happened to “Code Pink”? They were SO concerned and SO vocal during the last administration.
I guess GWB solved all Code Pink’s complaints just in time for BHO to step in.
Just in time for BHO to step in WHAT? 😉
do what I say but don.t do what I do
AGW = Hypocrisy, Lies, Hate,Deception + lots of CO2
Talking about VW Beetles. Those Germans who “bought into” that “system” never ever saw a “Beetle”. Never ever saw their “holiday camp”. In fact no German ever saw a “VW”. Hitler went to war on those funds. In fact, it was Allied military that saw the first “VW Beetle”, 12,000 or so. Many “allied” countries didn’t take up the “offer” of what is now VW etc.
But they sure saw their Kübelwagen.
http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/uploads/pics/kuebelwagen_8.jpg
http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/466.0.html
Basically the cross version of the Beetle.
They sure did as well as the amphibious version too.
Mr Kuhn,
Where are you?
The warmists have suddenly gone very quiet when it comes to attempting to defend green hypocrisy.
Another one for Crispin’s list:
Kermit’s Lament (It isn’t easy being green)
OT: Wondering how many posties at WUWT would boycot Facebook?
I already do.
On FaceBook you’re not the customer, you’re the product.
I boycott Google and Wal-Mart as well.
FB are now demanding a photo ID (Passport, drivers licese etc), via unsolicited e-mail, to prove who I am. I say that pages like “No Treble” (A page for bass players), “Penrith” (A city in NSW, Australia) and “The Fred Hollows Foundation” (A brilliant man passed away) cannot possibly have been setup with someone with a photo ID. Not sure if my account was “hacked” or not, but it’s a bit too much “police state” like for me. So I guess it’s adios muchachos FB!
Jebus Crust Alminty – Branson owns a SPACESHIP!
He’s so proud of it his gigantic jets often sport a sign that says ‘My Other Plane’s a Spaceship’.
Whiney, bogus green billionaire.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr!
He’s a Ted Turner clone. Probably on his way to irrelevent insanity Like Turner.
Leo dicaprio is building an Eco resort at sea level on the uninhabited island he bought in Belize where he can take advantage of weak or non existent environmental protection laws to build over 100 residences for 5$ million and up . In nearby Costa Rica where environmentalism ( and social justice ) is actually taken seriously no development is allowed on the first 100 meters of shoreline ,which is public property . By contrast dicaprio intends to ” improve ” his island by excluding the local subsistence fisherman from their traditional access to the island for the last 100 years . Human shoreline development is the single greatest destroyer of coral reefs worldwide , but that is okay because dicaprio plans on building artificial reefs to go along with his air purification and enhanced circadian lighting he plans to share with his Eco buddies while hosting environmental conferences . Doesn’t get much more natural than that . How he plans to power the energy hungry desalinators he will need for the swimming pools , toilets , showers and gardens his uber rich Eco buddies will enjoy , not to mention the waste water and sewage treatment plants he will need on his environment enhancing 100 acre Eco resort is not clear as yet . But since fossil fuels will bring people , supplies ( garbage ? ) and such , to and from the Eco resort it seems like a fossil fuel generator may help . What I really don’t get though , is ( especially as a UN climate ambassador ) how he could build a half billion dollar resort at sea level , in a hurricane zone too , while preaching the dangers of global warming . One can only conclude that either he doesn’t believe a bit of what he espouses or else he is a mental defective . You pick .
A recent trip to Seattle was interrupted by the arrival of His Highness Obama. The reason for the master to come down from his mountain to talk to the unwashed masses. A Democratic party fund raiser and $1000 a plate dinner with a speech by the most exalted one Obama as the main entertainment. Not only were Air Force one and two C17’s at the airport it was rumored in the media that Air Force two was on standby to come to Obama’s rescue if something would cause Air Force one to become unusable due to a fault. If you look at the carbon foot print of the cross country junket it becomes apparent that Obama does not have a clue what a reasonable expenditure of fossil fuels is. Jet fuel is measured in LBS on an airplane but a 747 hold over 50000 gallons for 4000 miles range. A C17 holds over 35,000 gallons for 5000 miles range. Add it up and you get around 150,000 gallons of fuel expended for a fund raising dinner junket.
“On Earth day last year, for instance, Obama burned more than 35,000 gallons of fuel and emitted 375 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in his trips around the world.”
So how does 140 tons of fuel (approx. wt of 35,0000 gallons. ) turn into 375 tons of CO2?
Take the principal component of Jet A1 to be C12H26, giving ~144/170ths of the fuel as the weight of the carbon, and the weight of CO2 at ~44/12ths of the weight of carbon, 140 tonnes of fuel generates ~435 tonnes of CO2. However, I make 35,000 US gallons of Jet A1 to be 105 tonnes, not 140, giving 326 tonnes of CO2.
I regard myself as green, and have no less right to take foreign holidays or foreign business trips than anyone else, including those who question AGW. The problem of high CO2 emissions is a problem for human society as a whole to fix, and individual reductions can make only a limited difference. We have a solar hot-water panel and I use public transport almost exclusively (easy when you live in London and happen to qualify to get it for free), but it’s only a start.
So what can you do individually to be carbon neutral in a society providing very little support for it?
At the moment the best way is to offset your personal CO2 emissions by paying for more trees to be planted than would otherwise be the case if you did kept the money. In my case the extra trees are probably expanding a forest in Tanzania. The scheme is run by BP and is called BP Target Neutral. See https://www.bptargetneutral.com/uk/ . The cost of offsetting 22,000 miles of air travel for two of us was £60 or around $90.
And how do we know that BP Target Neutral actually uses the money to plant trees? Well they hire some well-known environmentalists and greens to oversee and audit the scheme. People who are involved with organisations I trust, like WWF who prefer to work with industry to persuade them to do the right thing rather than Greenpeace who often try to sabotage it.
So my conscience is clear. And so should Al Gore’s be too, since he is also offsetting. CO2 gets emitted from flights, and the same amount gets absorbed by additional new rain forest financed by the offsetting contributions. Net zero CO2 emissions. End of story.
The letters “offset” do not appear even once above in 88 posts. The US president and Al Gore have jobs that require travelling and resulting CO2 emissions. They ensure that additional CO2 is absorbed elsewhere to match their emissions.
But carbon offsetting is no more than a short-term solution. It just isn’t possible to plant enough trees to offset all the CO2 emissions each year from burning fossil fuels. I (and they) can use it right now because not many people care about offsetting so there’s plenty of suitable spare land for it. The long-term solution for air flights is probably some sort of biofuel farmed using energy produced by renewables. But it isn’t in place yet. My guess is it will take 20 to 30 years. I may not be around then.
And talking of trees, although not part of such an offset programme, China has planted 66 billion trees as part of the “Great Green Wall”, albeit with only limited success in their aims of rolling back the desert. See http://www.economist.com/news/international/21613334-vast-tree-planting-arid-regions-failing-halt-deserts-march-great-green-wall . I do not believe this particular project would qualify as offsetting, since the trees are going to be planted anyway – they are not extra. That is why offsetting schemes have to have good audit credentials or they would be worthless.
It’s amazing that trees can live of that CO2 poison.