New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is warning, yet again, about the perils of climate change and the need to be good stewards of the environment.
This time, however, Kristof is not writing from the Manhattan offices of the “old grey lady” because he’s in the middle of a New York Times-sponsored around-the-world private jet tour that costs $135,000 per person.
Kristof’s column, entitled, “A Parable of Self-Destruction,” was written on Easter Island off the coast of South America. It tells the story of how the island became uninhabited due to deforestation and unsustainable practices by the natives.
“That brings us to climate change, to the chemical processes we are now triggering whose outcomes we cant fully predict,” Kristof wrote after recounting what is alleged to have happened to the natives. “The consequences may be a transformed planet with rising waters and hotter weather, dying coral reefs and more acidic oceans. We fear for the ocean food chain and worry about feedback loops that will irreversibly accelerate this process, yet still we act like Easter Islanders hacking down their trees.”
My column from Easter Island, one of the coolest (and most remote) places on Earth. It also offers a parable of environmental self-destruction: https://t.co/zHsrroXWtY pic.twitter.com/cNRTySkCmu
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) March 18, 2018
Kristof was on the island as part of an around-the-world tour organized by the New York Times. Limited to only 50 people at a cost of $135,000 per person, “based on double occupancy,” the tour offers the chance to “circle the globe on an inspiring and informative journey by private jet, created by The New York Times in collaboration with luxury travel pioneers Abercrombie & Kent. This 26-day itinerary takes you beneath the surface of some of the world’s most compelling destinations, illuminating them through the expertise of veteran Times journalists.”
(Kristoff apparently doesn’t read his own paper.) In 2013, the New York Times ran a “news analysis” piece entitled, “Your Biggest Carbon Sin May Be Air Travel”.
Me personally, I think the biggest sin is telling others how to live a low carbon lifestyle while living high on fossil fueled air travel yourself. Via The Daily Caller, read the full story here
See hypocrisy for definition. I’m more bothered by their lack of understanding concerning historical and natural climate change that can’t be related to CO2.
Is the Gored on the flight?
Did it snow on Easter Island?
Private jet setting New York hypocrat lectures the ‘little people’ to live impoverished lives to save the planet. Details to follow, Film at 11…..
Kristoff is one of the shallowest columnists at the NYT. An affirmation of almost all leftist cliches, but so shallow he nearly beads up.
He Tweets “…a parable of environmental self-destruction” while participating in ‘a parable of reputational self destruction’.
How shallow is that? I’ve see day old kittens piddle puddles of wee deeper than that.
He seems to be one of those effete, limp minded ‘group talkers’ who talk, talk, talk the talk and from time to time get laid for their efforts. I can just imagine the narcissistic bonk fest ( “based on double occupancy,”) that is the reality of this great grandmother of self indulgences. Verseilles would have run one of these a month if they had the technology and Caligula probably dreamed of such an adventure. Nero would have been up for it too I imagine. Putin and the gang probably do it anyway but have the wit to keep it quiet.
Lol, good one Tom. The only one I can come up with is- he’s so shallow he doesn’t detract
Refract, I meant
I’ve gotta hand it to charlatans like this who consider themselves above humanity, they’ve truly grabbed life by the horns. How long will they hold on before getting tossed by their own bull?
Do you mean “bull-wash” by any chance?
Is delusion a contributing factor to hypocrisy or is it just ignorance that is the cause?
Easter Island is not a tale of environmental damage. Benny Peiser of the GWPF laid it out several years ago in an article: “From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui” here is the formal cite:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958305054672385
Free downloads are available if you Google Benny’s name and the article title. Highly recommended. Here is the abstract:
“The ‘decline and fall’ of Easter Island and its alleged self-destruction has become the poster child of a new environmentalist historiography, a school of thought that goes hand-in-hand with predictions of environmental disaster. Why did this exceptional civilisation crumble? What drove its population to extinction? These are some of the key questions Jared Diamond endeavours to answer in his new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. According to Diamond, the people of Easter Island destroyed their forest, degraded the island’s topsoil, wiped out their plants and drove their animals to extinction. As a result of this self-inflicted environmental devastation, its complex society collapsed, descending into civil war, cannibalism and self-destruction. While his theory of ecocide has become almost paradigmatic in environmental circles, a dark and gory secret hangs over the premise of Easter Island’s self-destruction: An actual genocide terminated Rapa Nui’s indigenous populace and its culture. Diamond, however, ignores and fails to address the true reasons behind Rapa Nui’s collapse. Why has he turned the victims of cultural and physical extermination into the perpetrators of their own demise? This paper is a first attempt to address this disquieting quandary. It describes the foundation of Diamond’s environmental revisionism and explains why it does not hold up to scientific scrutiny.”
Nullius in Verba, Baby.
Yes Easter island cculture collapsed politically. We can be assured the jet pampered reporter never bothered to read the latest. BTW. I agree Diamonds Collapse was the hat tip to the mantra of the toxic greens. His next book “the world until yesterday” is a bit more of a balanced Mea culpa.
The other tell on Diamond was his claim that the Viking’s left Greenland because they would not eat fish. It could only be plausible to someone who had never known a Scandinavian.
When Europeans arrived on the islands in 1722 they assumed that the Moai were proof of a lost civilization. But there was an article few years back on Finnish history/science magazine, which said that according to new evidence Easter island never had any big civilization. Also there have been experiments that showed that you don’t need lots of people to move the Moai. You just need good technique.
Is it an accident that “The New York Times” is an anagram of “The Monkeys Write?” Interestingly, “Old Grey Lady” is an anagram of the similarly apropos “really dodgy.” Coincidence? Or cosmic joke? You decide.
Nice one!
Thank you!
What a hypocrite.
The bigger the believer, the bigger the hypocrite.
It’s not for me, it is for thee.
The cause of death: He drowned in his own bull wash.
These stunts are hypocritical yes, for sure, but I’m not among those who deny that humans are destroying our collective home–Planet Earth–at a record rate. Having lived and worked in multiple developing countries on 4 continents, I’ve witnessed human-caused environmental degradation and its negative impacts on local populations first hand. We ALL need to wake up and live lives that are more sustainable which means questioning many of the things we hold dear as Americans. The Earth won’t continue to groan and accept our ignorance. She will be fighting back, because you see nature has created a system that ensures it WILL survive.
Well, Henry, why not tell us of a few of the problems, and what you think should be done. Also, what do you do to stop the destruction you know about?
I’ll suggest many people need clean water, more Vitamin A, and abundant cheap electricity. I contribute by arguing against those that want to waste wealth to create expensive electricity, and prevent developing countries from developing. The wasted wealth could be used for clean water and Vit-A
Your turn.
I think Henry is a believer in Gaia.
@shoehorn March 20, 2018 at 4:09 am.
What if he is? Is there something wrong with regarding the Earth as an intelligent superorganism? If so, what?
“We ALL need to wake up and live lives that are more sustainable which means questioning many of the things we hold dear as Americans.”
Henry,
So, THAT’S what “sustainable” means?!
Could you be so kind as to expound on the details of the lives which you envision us all leading in your “sustainable” woke state?
Specifics would be great. What actions must we take? What would our daily lives look like under your regime? Transportation? Housing? Travel? Families? Food? And everything?
Thanks.
Nothing like an empty, non-specific claim that calls for non-specific action.
The problem is poverty, not man.
Allow those people to get rich and all these problems go away.
The earth doesn’t care a flying flip what we do to it. It isn’t alive.
It would be difficult to fly an airplane with nuclear power.
MarkW, March 20, 2018 at 6:54 am:
I am certain, from direct personal contact with Gaia’s mind, that she is very much alive.
If one believes that the burning of fossil fuels is bad then one should stop making use of all goods and services that involve the use of fossil fuels. Apparently Kristof is not doing that. Lucky for him is the reality that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is really zero. The real problem with the use of fossil fuels is not climate change but because they are finite, we will eventually run out.
“The real problem with the use of fossil fuels is not climate change but because they are finite, we will eventually run out.”
Why do you think this is a problem?
I think as supply becomes less, if it does, then the price will go up, efficiency and substitutions kick in, and on we go. Note, we already use what is called unconventional carbon-based fuel. Some particular thing might be finite, resources are not.
Well apparently they ARE. Entropy implies the heat death of the universe at some point in the future,..
Life as we know it, is just surfing a wave of entropy that will in the end break upon the shore of the laws of thermodynamics.
The Earth’s supply of fossil fuels is finite. There is just so much to be had and when that runs our it is gone. Before the fossil fuel runs out mankind must switch to alternate sources of energy and must decrease our population so that alternate sources of energy will be sufficient.
The peakists have been predicting that the end of fossil fuel is 20 years off for over 50 years.
The end of fossil fuels is hundreds of years off.
We already have alternative fuels (nuclear) that are more than adequate to take over from them completely.
In 200 years, who knows what new alternatives will be available.
Yep, and it looked at one point like mankind would run out of whales.
“… and must decrease our population so that alternate sources of energy will be sufficient.”
When are you going to lead the way? At your funeral I would like to acknowledge that you did walk the walk.
+11
Bingo. willhaas, thanks for your time on this earth.
Liberals enter into terminal hypocrisy. Women and children hardest hit.
It would be funny to see a Josh cartoon of Kristof as Marie Antoinette: “Let them install solar panels!”
I wanted to comment on the real reasons for the demise of Easter Island, but Walter beat me to it.
The bigger problem is he doesn’t understand that there even is hypocrisy.
Really.
When you see yourself as morally superior, that’s what happens.
Conservation and sacrifice are for the Little People.
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
So Al Bore is not the only green hypocrite. The most inconvenient one, maybe, but not the only one.
All Bore
Credo
The resources of the universe are finite, but not as finite as some would have you believe.
The population cannot continue to expand indefinitely, but will not stop as soon as some people would have you believe.
CO2 does affect climate, but not nearly as much as some people would have you believe.
Windmills and solar panels do generate electricity, but not nearly as much as some people would have you believe.
The major conflicts are down to people who can Do Sums, against people with Art History degrees.
“NYT’s Nicholas Kristof Would Flunk An 8th Grade Science Test”
https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/03/03/nyts-nicholas-kristof-would-flunk-8th-grade-science-test-12657
Oh that was cruel. He didn’t have a potential endocrine distruptor’s chance in hell in that handling.
I see he has a law degree. Explains a lot really.
With apologies to all the decent law degree holders out there. Kristof does you a great disservice.
In some far future, archaeologists and anthropologists will wonder, hypothesize and argue over why a once thriving civilisation would go into terminal decline whilst covering the land in useless, labour intensive, very tall monuments.
The most popular theory will be that they worshipped an all powerful God named Mercedes, who demanded extreme sacrifices in terms of riches, food and profitless labour. The whirling three bladed sword symbol of Mercedes will be seen all over the land, by this time returned to wilderness, It will be assumed that the sparse, undernourished, and superstitious inhabitants, whose great God Baall forecasts all consuming fire unless sacrifices of food and young women are given to the Mercedes high priests, are all that remain of this long perished civilisation.
Most likely will be a F. O. R. D. Found on rubbish dump.
I wonder if he’ll be dropping in on Marrakesh?
“COP22, the UN’s climate conference that took place in 2016, has left Marrakesh with a gleaming globe of an airport, eerily empty as security demands that only passengers and staff be admitted.”
Sounds like it could be comfortable and exclusive enough for him.
https://life.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/how-marrakesh-is-attracting-a-new-kind-of-holidaymaker/
Seems the key word is ‘may’. We should for sure spend trillions on a ‘may’ have dire consequences?
The NYT have another feature piece (perhaps same or overlapping) blaming sea level rise for damaging erosion, etc. There’s just one problem they overlooked—actual sea level rise.
https://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=810-003
Strange you hardly (ever) see responses from the likes of Mosher or Stokes on these types of posts. Anybody else notice?
He knows best
Just as him
– If it helps – and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t – what really happened to Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is a matter for debate; accusing the Islanders of wiping-out their own biome is likely self-serving deception (why didn’t they do that anywhere else?), and ‘axes’ likely weren’t the culprit. The palm trees on Easter Island didn’t produce big, heavy coconuts, they produced small, thin-shelled, golfball-sized coconuts – a meal-in-a-bag for the human-introduced vector that probably cleaned-out Rapa Nui – rats:
“Whether rats were stowaways or a source of protein for the Polynesian voyagers, they would have found a welcoming environment on Rapa Nui {Easter Island} —an almost unlimited supply of high-quality food and, other than people, no predators. In such an ideal setting, rats can reproduce so quickly that their population doubles about every six or seven weeks. A single mating pair could thus reach a population of almost 17 million in just over three years. On Kure Atoll in the Hawaiian Islands, at a latitude similar to Rapa Nui but with a smaller supply of food, the population density of the Polynesian rat was reported in the 1970s to have reached 45 per acre. On Rapa Nui, that would equate to a rat population of more than 1.9 million. At a density of 75 per acre, which would not be unreasonable given the past abundance of food, the rat population could have exceeded 3.1 million.”
http://www.americanscientist[dot].org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200?fulltext=true&print=yes#53361
Sorry – I tried to dumb-down the link but it didn’t, so here it is:
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200?fulltext=true&print=yes#53361
– and the link is expired anyway. This link appears to quote the original article:
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/rats-not-men-to-blame-for-death-of-easter-island-431105.html
THAT is what gets my goat the most, green hypocrisy!
Heck, if I had the money (and I’m still waiting for that dark-money check from Big Oil/Coal/Gas/Etc.) I would love to take an around-the-world tour like this in a private jet. It would be a once in a lifetime opportunity!
Unfortuantely, it would be ruined by the narcissistic ramblings of the CAGW preachers. Could you imagine having to listen to these clowns every day, hour after hour? Maybe I’ll stick with a “stay-cation”.
So this is the current ticket price of liberal indoctrination camps. Whatever happened to the 30 cent kool aid method?
Come on, people, give the man a break. Saving the planet is a tough job. Need proof?
There is evidence that the trees of Easter Island were killed off by rats brought by European trading vessels.
Anything to blame it on us…
How well is the crew of the jet trained in operations in remote areas?
I wouldn’t ride or fly this bunch of self righteous par-tay people anywhere.
There is risk to this..
TG: Good point. Would not be surprised to learn that they took in Antarctica and got stuck in sea ice.
Clueless? Probably not. Bigot or sanctimonious hypocrite.
How in the world does . .
“how the island became uninhabited due to deforestation and unsustainable practices by the natives. . . ”
. . lead to . .
“That brings us to climate change . .”
??
Can we get a list of the 50 participants in this $135K world tour; Who are the sycophant-fawners that paid 5K a day to sit next to Kristoff, on the private jets, on their make believe journalistic trip around the world?
(and does this Kristoff dbag get to deduct ALL of the expense as work related? Or was this a considered a work related trip and it was a completely paid for tax free perk by the NYT?).
Hypocrisy is a mainstay for the NYT. However I am still waiting to see the proof that CO@ is doing any damage to the climate before stopping air travel in favour of a donkey. Lack of understanding of historical and scientific matters is also a mainstay of the NYT.