Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Utterly shameless – Washington Examiner has produced a list of climate hypocrites who spend millions buying exclusive beachfront properties, while telling everyone else that such properties will soon be destroyed by rising sea levels.
Climate activists invest in property on beaches they say are disappearing
by Sarah Westwood, Investigative Reporter June 15, 2021 07:00 AM
From Bill and Melinda Gates to climate envoy John Kerry, climate activists have sounded the alarm about how melting ice will soon raise the ocean to levels that swallow the world’s beaches.
But some of the country’s most vocal climate change activists have invested heavily in luxury oceanfront property along beaches they’ve claimed will be underwater one day due to rising sea levels.
Climate activists have long faced charges of hypocrisy from critics who accuse them of lecturing others about making sacrifices for the environment while declining to live by that example themselves. For instance, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were pilloried in the media in 2019 after the two flew on a private jet just days after Prince Harry wrote on social media that “every choice, every footprint, every action makes a difference” in protecting the environment.
More recently, Kerry faced criticism for flying on a private jet to Iceland to accept an environmental award. And Kerry is one of several activists who have put millions into homes on the water.
…
Read more: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/climate-activists-invest-property-beaches-climate-change-sea-rise
The Washington Examiner article is well worth viewing, contains lots of pictures of the luxury villas and seaside properties purchased by our climate leaders, and other extravagances owned by people who demand ordinary people accept higher costs, personal sacrifice and energy austerity.
There is a pretty obvious explanation for this hypocrisy – perhaps the green activists who purchase luxury beachside properties doubt their own public claims.
But even if this is true, I guess it is pretty difficult to walk back decades of overhyped claims of impending doom. So instead rich climate activists appear to be allowing their increasingly untenable public climate claims to stand uncorrected, while they slink off into the twilight, to spend some of the millions they received from the people they frightened on a little personal beachside luxury.
It’s part of the scam. Talk down the price of ocean front by saying it will be under water by 2030-2050, all the while they are buying it up. The climate AGW scam is like a stock market pump and dump scheme, only they are ‘shorting’ the lie, as when the sea level doesn’t increase a whole lot over the next 20-30 years, it will be even worth more.
They also build up the probability of “Severe Weather” etc. also lowering the value of ocean and lake front property. Looked at the value of the home I owned in a lake front community, not on the lake. The value had gone up ten times in from when I owned it 40 years ago. Also look at the asking price of lakeside lots. They had gone up from $50,000 to $500,000 – $1,000,000!
I always aspired to get rich enough to be a socialist.
And if I was, I’d buy me a prime beachfront property too.
And I’d also be lazing back on my banana lounge with a cocktail in one hand and an extended middle finger directed at taxpayer saps generally.
Just like Obama, Kerry, Suzuki et AL are doing.
Now don’t talk to me about the polar bear
Don’t talk to me about ozone layer
Ain’t so much of anything these days, even the air
They’re running out of rhinos
What do I care?
Let’s hear it for the dolphin
Let’s hear it for the trees
Ain’t runnin’ out of nothin’ in my deep freeze
It’s casual entertaining
We aim to please
At my parties
It’s supposed to be a parody of the Right, but it’s a parody on the Left, these days.
If you pay attention,these same bandits are doing the same to Coal and Oil stocks and resources,railways and pipelines and competition in other countries.
The activities and funding of the Canadian Wing of Gang Green being a perfect example..
Very strange how once the “wrong owners” are driven out via blockade and political corruption and bought cheaply out by the “right owners” the whole media circus vanishes..
The name we can not mention (S0R0S) bought at least two coal mines when Obama gave the Coal industry the death sentence. Why?
Two things people with a lot of money and fame really hate:
1-losing money
2-looking stupid
If the sea level rises a lot, they will experience both. Obviously they are not worried about that, which tells you what they really about the risks of climate disaster.
It should be pointed out that Al Gore’s Montecito estate may have an ocean view but is actually inland and at an elevation high above sea level. He’s a hypocrite in so many ways but not about owning a beach home.
I understood that Gore bought waterfront in Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. I believe that was posted in WUWT some time back.
When California gets to serious shaking, Gore’s Montecito estate is likely to seek the sea. Especially, if the pineapple express has been lubricating the ground.
The Washington Examiner story missed Leonardo DiCaprio’s very low-lying private island he’s developing in the Caribbean. DiCaprio is “one of the most active celebrities in the climate change movement.” He “produced, hosted, and narrated the documentary Before the Flood about climate change.”
https://www.velvetropes.com/backstage/leonardo-dicaprio-house (see island pictures way down the page)
Most climate alarmists don’t believe what they are saying about the climate. They are just virtue signalling. If they actually believed their own propaganda, they would change their own lifestyles completely. They never do. Every climate alarmist who I know personally has a much bigger carbon footprint than I have.
from the head post –
“..There is a pretty obvious explanation for this hypocrisy – perhaps the green activists who purchase luxury beachside properties doubt their own public claims…”
Whilst it is undoubtedly true that many of those cynically lecturing us are not believing, let alone acting upon, their own words, it is fair to assume that many others do, in fact, believe that we face a climate crisis. But they still buy those beachfront properties and take their luxury vacations because they know that their own wealth will protect them from the worst consequences of their personal decisions, so why not enjoy it anyway?
The irony is that their proposed actions against fossil fuels will deny to the mass of the population the future wealth that would make those people also, far less vulnerable to any change in climate. And in the absence of a climate crisis, of course, that extra wealth is lost anyway. Rational decision making seems completely absent when climate is involved.
I almost wish that the sea level did suddenly rise, just to teach these people a lesson.
That can be arranged , the surge from a hurricane passing will do that,. Hurricanes aren’t becoming more frequent but it’s still the highest risk from seal level rise
The US native people were not as stupid as we are.
They did not build their wigwams in flood-prone areas, hence no property damage.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Cahokia-Mounds
Or if they did (as in your example), the elevated their structures so their homes would not flood. Common sense!
Native Americans followed and took advantage of foods seasonal abundance.
Consuming mollusca, crustacea and fish then discarding the wastes formed middens that then served as high ground.
Middens, that is piles of ‘shell refuse’ range America’s coast from Maine down around to Texas.
Many of America’s coastal towns used high ground formed by middens for building houses, markets, businesses and industry.
Wigwams, i.e. ‘house’ were semi-permanent to permanent dwellings used by some tribes.
Most tribes also built temporary dwellings, bark houses, grass houses, teepees, igloos, wattle and daub houses, wherever they relocated to take advantage of seasonal abundances.
Including flood plains.
Indians were not as attached to their temporary dwellings and freely left them when they moved to the next harvest area.
They surely will tax you, so THEY can take measures to protect their investments
They screw you either way.
That was the reason for the PRE-MEDITATED, LARGE-SCALE, ELECTION-OUTCOME-MANIPULATION to install a manipulated old man, effectively a Coup d’Etat, a Dem/Prog power grab, a la banana republic.
This is the very definition of an elite class of manipulators of public opinion to whom no law nor constraint applies, as it otherwise surely does to the rabble from whom they’ve fully separated themselves in mind and practice. DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO is the byword when the truth itself has no relation to a thoroughly contrived peril. And as a side benefit the pickings will involve less contesting with others interested in those otherwise desirable features.
Of course they may disingenuously argue that they risk a great sacrifice here that they’d never want imposed on others, but then when will they similarly be found on the crowded mass transit that they prescribe for many others?
The City of Port Phillip is a small but wealthy municipality in Melbourne, Australia.
They have flood mapped every street.
The impacts from floods and potential SLR is documented for every house.
The City includes the suburb of Elwood.
Elwood was built on a swamp with virtually every house subject to flooding.
Elwood is a poster child for alarmists whenever the is a large storm.
But every year the house prices in Elwood keep going up.
SLR alarmism is just a non issue.
Well, if it did flood, they would have the… ahem… Elwood Blues.
OK I’m running away now.
You couldn’t work Jake in there somewhere? LOL!!!
mea culpa
My son bought a large house on the Inland Waterway in Fl. a year and a half ago about a half mile from the ocean for around 650K. It needed a lot of work but he knows how to do it and has it done. While tons of people were claiming that no one was buying ocean front property anymore and the prices were dropping in Fl. due to CC and SLR, a lot, no house, a block from him sold this year for the same price he paid for his waterfront lot and house. The owner of a much smaller and older house next to him which was not even on the market turned down an offer for 1.1 million.
Meanwhile, while all this talk of doom and gloom was going on about waterfront Fl. property, the NE, esp. New Yorkers started moving to Fl. in droves.
Was there a connection to all the bad mouthing about Fl. waterfront property and folks planning on fleeing the New England Blue states? One does wonder. Because he lives in Fl., and deals in rental property, I know what homes and property is going for and it never matched the hysterics’ claims and is doing nothing but going up in value. It’s pretty clear from this article that the hysterics are not acting like they believe what they claim.
Take note of how many new resorts are being built, on those “Threatened” Pacific islands.
Pullman Nadi in Fiji.
Fiji’s newest luxury hotel opening this month – Pullman Nadi Bay Resort & Spa | The Hotel Conversation
Then there’s the Wyndham Fiji, a mere half a billion dollar investment, certain to be inundated in a matter of years?
New $500m Wyndham Fiji hotel to start construction in 2018 | The Hotel Conversation
John Kerry, the man who spends over $700 for a haircut- not the kind of person I’d trust.
$700 for a haircut is God’s way of telling you that you have too much money. Besides, its like putting lipstick on a pig.
Yes. Johnny K has quite the mug.
quelle surprise
Welp, my incredibly not-expensive house sits on the top of a very ancient dune west of the current shore of Lake Michi Gamu, and I do wonder sometimes (not very often) what might happen if that temperamental old puddle went on a bender, along with Lake Gichi Gami and the other inland water bodies.
We haven’t had a really vibrant, full-blown hurricane up the east coast in several years, have we?
Funny, land sales in these “endangered” regions are rising steadily, as are the prices. Almost like these lying liars are simply lying.
Scott Adams IIRC said if you are really rich you don’t worry about the little things like losing a multimillion dollar house to the ocean. I personally can’t think that way but then I’m not really rich.
(this is not to suggest I support the hypocrisy just a possible explanation)
One gains a perspective on such things when having been poor. I still will pick a penny off the sidewalk, and I don’t need the penny.
John Stossel has noted that these waterfront homes, since they can’t get insurance anywhere else, get insured through the government’s subsidized insurance. Even our government is not just condoning but encouraging this profligate lifestyle.
https://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=123653&page=1
The wisdom of markets says ocean waterfront property is the most valuable property on the planet … obviously the anti-wisdom of the warmists has not trickled down to masses yet.
This BS should make my place so much more valuable. Its about 1km back from the Coral Sea and 15-20m above sea level. I can’t wait to make my fortune based on the predictions of this group of highly acclaimed climate nongs.
I live on Whidbey Island, WA, which has several very low-lying areas. If sea levels had actually been rising catastrophically this century, Whidbey would be more like three islands instead of one.
But, looking at some aerial photos from the 50s and 60s, compared with Google Earth Images today, the high water mark is roughly the same. The houses are still there.
The real problem is with erosion on many of the high bluffs, where the most expensive houses are. The erosion has nothing to do with human activity, however much they try to make it so.
As some wag once said; Why should I believe in Global Warming, when those who preach it don’t act as if they do?
I can only think of one “climate activist” who I’ve ever seen actually living what he preached. All the rest are “too important” to bother.
Kerry has also said that individual action doesn’t do enough, it’s government action that is enough: the ending of coal power plants, mpg minimums, solar and wind power as possible. Without those things, CO2 will be greater than required to keep the atmospheric CO2 below 500 ppm, the target I think for <1.5C rise.
The incremental reduction by Joe Schmoe being Green isn't enough, the incremental INCREASE by the elite lifestyle doesn't change the outcome unless World Government edicts are followed.
But definitely no leadership by example. But they may claim that NO individual suffering is required with the right rules and technology. Except that of Black and Brown people …. of which their huge numbers cause incremental increases to make the planet burn ..
I can’t take “the climate crisis” any more seriously than these people obviously do.
These are liars making money off the climate change scam. They don’t believe a word of it, but they want YOU to believe it.