Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Huffington Post has noticed that many university academics are utter climate hypocrites, that many of them rate their personal importance by how many professional air miles they can accumulate every year.
The Climate Change Hypocrisy Of Jet-Setting Academics
By Nives Dolšak and Aseem Prakash
03/31/2018 09:00 am ET
Recently, we witnessed a fascinating conversation among a few of our professorial colleagues about their frequent flyer status on a prominent airline. Two of them had achieved “Diamond” status ― the very top of the priority boarding pecking order. They spoke the most and were the loudest. The others, with either Platinum or Gold frequent flyer medallions, also noted how “busy” they were with “all this travel.”
The group casually mentioned the various benefits ― such as seating upgrades and access to airport lounges ― that come with their statuses, but the bragging was not really about those perks. It was about importance and recognition. After all, only the most successful academics fly around the world, attending conferences, participating in workshops and giving lectures. Congratulations all around!
…
But while these universities are working to help their communities take on climate change, academics are accumulating big carbon footprints with their jet-setting professional styles. As The New York Times noted, “Your Biggest Carbon Sin May Be Air Travel.”
This is a notable disconnect between what universities preach and what their culture incentivizes and their star professors do. Academics are probably among the people most aware of the threats posed by climate change. But might their own carbon-profligate lifestyles undermine their moral authority to demand that coal miners, Teamsters working on oil pipelines and mining-dependent Native American tribes sacrifice their own economic well-being to fight climate change?
…
Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-dolsak-prakash-carbon-tax_us_5abe746ae4b055e50acd5c80
The author notes that in 2014, University of Washington academics submitted claims for 136 million miles of professional travel – enough for a return trip to Mars.
This issue goes beyond feeling outraged at the blatant climate hypocrisy.
Why should any of us take academic warnings about anthropogenic CO2 seriously, when behind closed doors those same academics demonstrate their true level of concern by competing with each other to create the largest possible professional carbon footprint?
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What’s this? More liberal/leftie hypocrisy? Surely not!
Don’t you know who I am? Do as i say not as I do all you little people
Some pigs are more equal than others.
Why does this egregious hypocrisy of climate “scientists” come as no surprise?
+10
+1010 no pressure
“First, transparency.” (Quote from the article.) The authors, who are UOW professors, then neglect to reveal how many air miles they have sinned in the past year. Travel is evil, we should all be on foot or on bicycles. No, wait, bicycles are made in factories, which are also evil. Welcome to the new Dark Ages.
It doesn’t matter how many air miles the authors of this article have accumulated, because they aren’t preaching at people to return to the Dark Ages and face famine and dire poverty.
I’ll start believing that CO2 might be a problem when the people who claim it’s a problem start acting like it’s a problem …
w.
We Care A Lot
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d1g9PFtSCKw
Looks like a high carbon production.
Will.i.am, as you might remember, flew in a massive private helicopter from London to Oxford in order to deliver a “we’re all doomed!” climate change lecture. Just to keep up the facade, he pulled a bicycle out of the chopper and pedaled the final few hundred metres.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2148557/The-Voice-judge-Will-goes-Oxford-University-climate-change-debate-gas-guzzling-helicopter.html
The bicycle part was the most insulting.
Like ordering a double cheeseburger, a large side of fries, and a DIET coke.
Agree 100%. It’s tough to believe in someone’s statements when they obviously do not.
+10^3
I’ll start reading the Huff Post when they realize CO2 is not the primary driver of global temps.
Sweden introduces aviation tax in effort to help climate
https://www.rt.com/news/422924-sweden-aviation-tax-climate/
Passengers departing from Swedish airports will be hit with an extra charge of between 60 and 400 kronor ($7 and $48) depending on where they are flying to. The charge will apply to everyone except flight crews, passengers stopping without changing planes and babies being carried in a guardian’s arms.
These liberal elites get so upset when we are unwilling to change our lifestyle to fight climate change, yet here they are bragging about who among them has the biggest carbon footprint. If they really believed their own hype about catastrophic climate change, wouldn’t they want to set an example for everyone else?
Could it be said that they are hoist by their own shibboleths? No. Oh, well. “Educated” hypocrites do as all hypocrites do and it’s especially true of those who have achieved the status of highly educated ignoramuses who have weaonized their own ignorance and delusions.
That’s why, as annoying as he can be, I have some respect for Ed Begley Jr. – at least he walks the talk.
Granted, he gets crazy if you challenge him, but he’s no hypocrite at least.
How many air miles have Al Gore and his Flying Circus accumulated over the past decade?
Doesn’t Al Gore claim to be Climate Neutral?
Of course Al is carbon neutral. For every pound of carbon dioxide he produces powering his many mansions, flying incessantly about the world, or running global media events, he prevents someone else from producing one by encouraging countries to run various scams like carbon ‘markets’ and taxes that force everyone else to use less energy.
Heck, isn’t that the DEFINITION of a carbon market? Forcing those who can’t afford to produce CO2 to sell their ‘credits’ to those can. Rewarding virtue signaling and penalizing actual productivity. Why, It’s Economic Marxism of the purist form, completely divorced from value and worth.
~¿~
He’d be better off if he was calorie neutral.
At one time he had the company of a board he sat-on pay for carbon credits to offset his travels, so he pretended jet-setting across the globe was being done responsibly.
Al Gore used to, and probably still does, purchase the carbon credit offsets for his travel from a carbon trading company controlled by his Generation Investment Management climate fund…
Or Arnie:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/06/arnold-schwarzenegger-oktoberfest-215685
“…six years after leaving Sacramento, he’s still reinventing himself—as a kind of globetrotting do-gooder, promoting a handful of causes like fighting climate change and gerrymandering.
But mostly, he’s having a hell of a good time. Wherever he goes, everybody knows him. Everybody loves him.
With a net worth estimated at $300 million, he zips around the world in private jets and has restaurant owners pick up his tab because they’re just so honored he chose to eat there.
Constant selfies. He sounds off on whatever he wants, but has no actual responsibility. His perfect day is waking up and not knowing what country he’ll eat dinner in.”
That’s why his cardiovascular system is for shit. So much for Conan the Magnificent.
Sounds like a couple of former presidents. And most celebrities.
” Everybody loves him.”
Especially the maids. 😉
If only someone invented some kind of televisual method of meeting but I can’t imagine that would happen in these ‘professorial colleagues’ lifetimes — not while all the BIG BUCKS keep rolling in!
Right and don’t forget all those people involved looking after these hypocrites to ensure they are waited on hand and foot and fed – in fact the very people whose lives these academics are happy to screw up. Weapons grade stupidity and hypocrisy hardly begins to describe these academics.
Weapons Grade Stupidity …… now that’s a good one!
WGS… Most often observed in combination with an extreme desire to leave a “big mark” on society.
There are EXCELLENT televisual meeting programs – my wife uses one to give Webinars on her professional speciality. The particular one she uses is ‘Zoom’, but there are many others.
Ah! But then the ‘climate experts’ wouldn’t be able to spend a week in a nice resort at someone else’s expense! (Probably the taxpayers’).
A friend of mine runs just such a company used by many to hold meetings and presentations for all sorts of industries world wide. But of course the elite have to have it better than the likes of us.
James Bull
When its the Huffington Post that has noticed this hypocrisy – you really have to take notice…!
When the Puffington Host notices hypocrisy, the hypocrisy is of truly monumental proportions, especially if it occurs amongst its own anointed ones. The main support of CO2 Global Warming Alarmism is held firmly in place by the Group Dynamic rewarding true belief and systematically punishing criticism or analysis of the hollow shell of CO2 Global Warming Alarmism, which would harm the acolyte’s benefits.
Academics are so very important. A PhD literally makes you a better person.
Source please.
It’s peer reviewed science! So it MUST be true!
~¿~
(No, you can’t look at the data. Why should I let you when you just want to find something wrong with it?)
Well, I think we’ve come along some, in my youth a fellow had to be a WASP PhD to be the better person.
…and 97% of them agree.
’round here, to most ordinary people, it usually designates that you are some kind of bludger.
Huff post may have noticed the hypocrisy – but as far as academics are concerned, it will go over like a lead balloon.
The lead balloon of hypocrisy will go high above their heads.
But don’t worry – the ‘Mythbusters’ actually built and flew a lead balloon!
By golly,
The top members of The Party usually have more rights than the Common People. How was it in the USSR? Common People stood in line to get food from the stores, the Top Party Members had the food delivered in time for their breakfast. Common People were put on long waiting lists for a car, the top brass meanwhile got a car with chauffeur. No doubt the climate lectures must have similar privileges. /SARC
While at the same time the party was preaching about love, peace and equality. If words would have been enough, communism would have been a paradise. Communism was like feudalism, but atleast the kings and nobles were more honest about their beliefs.
Simon Montefiore in his book the “The Young Stalin” mentions that by “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” Lenin meant exactly that :” OF the proletariat “, not ” BY the proletariat”. In similar vein , in his recent book about the communist spies in Britain (Philby , Burgess , Fuchs etc) Richard Davenport-hines talks that the early sympathisers of Soviet Russia admired the communist system because it encouraged working people to stay in their ordained roles and not try to “ape” the bourgeoisie by attempting to improve their status.
Clearly the global warming advocates are following a well worn path.
Nothing new here. You had the same situation with the Church, preaching about the sinfulness of sex to the obedient faithful while they themselves were practicing pedophiles. Ditto for politicians who craft laws to penalize those who miss paying their taxes while they themselves game the system.
Four feet good, two feet better.
– 1984
or the climate prime team version, four engines good, two feet, no way.
Six feet is under review.
No need for sarc, it’s true.
education is no substitute for common sense
It would appear that “common sense” isn’t all that common.
sigh, how many years have we all been pointing this out?
but now the presstitutes “discover it”??
facepalm
and because some media talking heads mention it the sheeple will now discuss and go gosh golly gee tsk tsk
I think I managed 150,000 air miles last year. Does that give me tenure?
“But might their own carbon-profligate lifestyles undermine their moral authority to demand that coal miners, Teamsters …”
Since when do academics have ‘moral authority’?
There is a lot more moral authority in the company of coal miners than some motley assemblage of academics. Since when do academics study, apply, review, approve and enforce morals? And by what authority?
Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.
Those who can’t teach, criticise.
Now, where do academics who preach against ‘climate change’ fit on that spectrum? The greatest teaching is by example, not criticism. Obviously the flight-profligate like me are not eligible to preach against air travel. And to preach against carbon emissions, fly all over the place, and upon arrival, preach against air travel some more, obviously disqualifies the speaker as a climate-moral authority.
Is it now, “Become an academic and see the world”?
Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.
Those who can’t teach, [
criticise] teach teachers.Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.
Those who can’t teach, leach.
Drat!
Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.
Those who can’t teach, [
criticise] teach teachers.Bob,
“Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.
Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.”
Those who can’t teach teachers go to Admin, and wind up as Vice Chancellors on about £236,000 annually – plus expenses . . . .
Do hope this appals!
Auto
Well, it gets an idiot out of the classroom and may be preferable to losing a very able teacher to admin.
Kicked upstairs, as it’s sometimes called.
Casablanca:
“Captain Renault: I’m shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]. Croupier: Your winnings, sir. Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much. [aloud]. Captain Renault: Everybody out at once. “
Not only hypocrites but wrong to begin with. Double whammy.
Of course they might be perfectly aware their entire premise is wrong and so comfortable they’ll do no harm by being hypocrites. For them the whole exercise is to simply control the gullible to their advantage. That’s probably true for academics, politicians and liberals in general. Not that many aren’t taken in by their own ruse, i.e the true believer useful idiots.
Get back to me when The Puffington Host notices that they themselves also enjoy fossil-fuel dependent lifestyles, like to travel by jet to far flung destinations, and spend lots of time lecturing others about the evils of such activities. It’s hypocrisy squared.
Hypocrisy isn’t the problem with academics, it is the quality of the science and education that they are producing. They are no longer centers of higher learning, they are liberal indoctrination Orwellian Re-Education Camps.
Deplorable Climate Scientists Have Destroyed Credibility of Science
Here at CO2isLife we have always maintained that CAGW isn’t a scientific issue, it is a political issue. Science is an unbiased, impartial, objective, blind and unbelievably politically incorrect process. Science is the search for truth, no matter how ugly, racist, sexist, homophobic or politically inconvenient it may be. The facts don’t give a damn if … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/02/07/deplorable-climate-scientists-have-destroyed-credibility-of-science/
How much did Bill McKibben et.al. pay for their science degrees???
https://mobile.twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/980240566465302528
With Climatism, hypocrisy is a feature dealt with by comparmentalizing and if necessary, by atonement. Work, then, is separated from climate, with the “justification” that one does, after all, need to make a living. Atonement can be accomplishment through various “sacrifices” like driving a Prius, and recycling. Participating in Earth Hour and Earth Day festivities gives you bonus points.
Perverse incentives are the reason most published research findings are false.
Professional success requires that an academic publish. Not only that but their papers are rated for impact. If you don’t publish, you won’t get a job. After you get the job, you have to continue publishing or you won’t get tenure. Publish or perish.
To get published you have to produce interesting results.
There’s no penalty for being wrong.
Interesting, but wrong, results are much easier to publish than solid, but boring, science.
We really shouldn’t be surprised if the professors follow the rules, or game the system. If we want a different result we have to change the incentives. That’s much easier said than done. one idea
“what universities preach“.
‘Preachin ain’t Teachin’
john 20:18
Thanks for the ‘one idea’ reference CB. The article and comments provide more depth to Judith Curry’s reason for leaving academia when she stated that she no longer knew how to advise her post docs.
cB–Your impact article ends with the following paragraph. —
“In today’s competitive academic milieu, it is critical that authors proactively “curate” themselves. Curate is based on the Latin word cura, loosely translated as “care.” Authors need to establish their presence on author profile platforms, use contemporary strategies to enhance discoverability, consider multiple avenues of dissemination, reach beyond numbers to tell a story, and efficiently track research outputs and activities.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987709/
This is still advertising, and despite the number of strategies, a lack of diversity. All these criteria, too much quantitative, can be easily used like regulations by controlling administrators. There are attempts to put qualitative criteria (like old times?) into the mix, but it requires a broader understanding of fields of research.
The last paragraph in your idea link–“As one of the academics who believe that understanding how nature works is valuable for its own sake, I think the cure that Sarewitz proposes is worse than the disease. But if Sarewitz makes one thing clear in his article, it’s that if we in academia don’t fix our problems soon, someone else will. And I don’t think we’ll like it.” Lots of good comments.
http://backreaction.blogspot.ca/2017/12/research-perversions-are-spreading-you.html
The man who installed computer science in our university warned me that it would not all be good. Try researching hard subjects. Happens more often in engineering, failures obvious quicker.
Thank you for making the connection with Judith Curry.
When science achieves a breakthrough, we all benefit forever more. The problem is that breakthroughs cannot be planned. In that light, I’m OK with scientists getting it wrong most of the time. Most breakthroughs are a result of serendipitous discovery … an accident meeting a prepared mind. We aren’t likely to have the breakthroughs on which we depend unless we fund curiosity based research. Funding bodies have to quit demanding objective and ‘results’. That only helps to ensure that breakthroughs won’t occur.
On the other hand, people have to quit demanding that scientists be the arbitrators of truth. Scientists have to quit pretending that they possess God’s ultimate truth. Individual scientists have to choose whether they will continue as scientists or become activists. Activism should be seen as a taint on a scientist’s work and should bring her credibility into question.
If scientists can’t get their role straight, small minded politicians will point out that we are wasting billions of dollars funding stuffed shirts who are wrong more often than right.
At one time in the past, publishing shoddy or false data and improper data analysis would have resulted in the ruination of an academic scientific career. Unfortunately, that’s no longer true in many areas and has never been true in CAGW circles.
The thing is they will never, EVER identify any greenie. Can’t do that — they are all fellow Stalinist comrades & the means justifies the ends.
Observing personal “carbon footprints” validates the entire cultural fraud of AGW by the same people who claim to be skeptical of a “science” that is actually politics. When you see the “hypocrisy” or personal consumption card played it should always be noted that human CO2 consumption is minor and dwarfed by other climate inputs.
Don’t pander to fraud, they deserve zero even if you attempt to be critical.
Agreed. STILL no empirical evidence that CO2 drives temperature. Stop paying lip service to that nonsense, and keep pointing it out as nothing more than hypothetical BS.
An inlaw was an aircraft engineer. I asked him how much fuel was expended, per seat, in a trans Atlantic flight. For a fully seated 767 a single seat uses 930 pounds of jet fuel. That’s enough to drive a big SUV coast to coast.
Curiosity beckons. How many miles for trans Atlantic flight vs. a cross country drive?
Transatlantic flight at ~35000 ft. Certainly a much larger arc travelled by the plane carrying passengers as well as the fuel, food, crew and baggage/freight. Lets not forget the SUV drives at 70mph. The plane, 400-500mph? Apples and oranges.