Give the devil his due: Senator Bernie Sanders never misses an opportunity to remind Americans about our planet’s supposed peril. In a 2023 MSNBC op-ed, he whined: “The climate crisis is not just an environmental issue. It is a matter of justice, of health, of economics, and of national security.” According to Sanders, climate change is a moral and existential threat demanding sweeping government intervention and dramatic changes in personal behavior.
Except, of course, when it comes to how he lives his own life.
Sanders’ recent “Fighting Oligarchy” tour paints a very different picture. While crisscrossing the country decrying the evils of capitalism, Sanders traveled by—you guessed it—private jet. According to a new analysis from Power The Future, the senator’s 16-stop tour spewed an estimated 62.15 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
To put in context, that’s more than the average American produces in five years.
In fact, Sanders’ emissions from just one tour equal the annual emissions from 15 gasoline-powered cars. It’s the carbon equivalent to driving a gas-powered SUV 150,000 miles, or more than 6 times around the Earth at the equator. And this from a man who wants to regulate what kind of stove you use in your kitchen.
When questioned about the blatant hypocrisy, Sanders didn’t offer contrition. He doubled down. “You think I’m gonna be sitting on a waiting line at United… while 30,000 people are waiting?” he snapped at Bret Baier.
This isn’t the first time Sanders’ climate preaching has clashed with his jet-setting lifestyle. During the 2020 Democratic primary, his campaign shelled out over $1.2 million on private jet travel. Then, as now, the justification was the same: it’s okay when Bernie does it because his cause is righteous.
Let’s call this what it is: Mile High Marxism. Sanders flies high above the rest of us, belching carbon into the atmosphere while demanding working families pay more for energy and drive electric vehicles. He insists there’s a climate emergency but behaves like there’s no emergency at all.
The green movement is filled with elites just like Sanders—people who use the language of crisis to amass power while living above the consequences of their policies. They want to ban gas cars, restrict domestic energy production, and ration electricity, but they’ll never give up their jets, SUVs, or lakefront mansions. It’s not about saving the planet. It’s about control.
Consider this: if the planet were truly teetering on the edge of climate catastrophe, would the loudest alarmists be the least willing to change their own behavior? If climate change were the existential threat they claim, wouldn’t they at least attempt to lead by example? Instead, we get moral lectures from the tarmac.
In Bernie Sanders’ perfect world, Americans brace for rising utility bills, submit to EV mandates, and prepare for lifestyle sacrifices in the name of “climate justice.” But the hypocrisy is impossible to ignore. Jet fuel for Bernie. Unreliable solar panels for you. We get limits, they get luxury.
Perhaps the clearest signal of the climate emergency’s last gasps is how those who scream the loudest behave when the cameras are off. Sanders and his ilk want us to panic, comply, and pay up. But their actions—lavish travel, carbon excess, and indulgent living—reveal that even they don’t believe their own doomsday rhetoric.
When Bernie Sanders burns more fuel in one tour than a family does in half a decade, he’s not just undermining his credibility—he’s exposing the entire charade. It’s almost as amusing as a multimillionaire “socialist.”
So, the next time you hear Sanders railing about climate justice, remember this: the Mile High Marxist says the world is ending, but he’s still flying first class into the apocalypse. And that tells you everything you need to know.
Larry Behrens is an energy expert and the Communications Director for Power The Future. He has appeared on Fox News, ZeroHedge, and NewsMax speaking in defense of American energy workers. You can follow him on X/Twitter @larrybehrens
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
This is a great video to debunk this CO2 nonsense. AI takes on Global Warming. Be sure to share this one.
https://app.screencast.com/DFd1viHxsRjq7
Thanks for that. The back radiation from CO2 is the same as radiation from a brick of dry ice.
Proving once again that it’s not about science, it’s about control.
Source(s) behind this statement?
What is the temperature of a black body that emits predominantly at 15 microns
LINK 193.2K
what is the temperature of dry ice kelvin
LINK ~195K
Great, but you missed the point, which was to compare the emission spectrums of dry ice and gaseous CO2.
Here’s the emission spectrum for CO2 gas:
…and here’s the Planck curve for ‘dry ice’, presuming that it acts like a black body at 195K:
…note that there are no similarities between the two.
Specifically, dry ice (aka CO2 in solid form) is an example of ‘condensed matter’, i.e. an object with surface(s). It therefore absorbs and emits thermal radiation at all frequencies and exhibits other properties of a black body, including Planck’s and Wiens’s displacement laws.
Conversely, CO2 gas is NOT an example of condensed matter, but as an IR-active gas, absorbs and emits IR radiation only at specific frequencies, i.e., it exhibits the characteristic line spectrum (not a Planck curve) for CO2 gas. And as far as I can tell, the CO2 in the room around me is in thermal equilibrium with the other gases there at a temperature of about 68F.
All of this is to simply point out that saying CO2 can’t warm the Earth’s atmosphere after absorbing 15 micron radiation from the surface, because dry ice is really cold, is a very bad argument. In fact, it’s a very similar argument to that which alarmists use when they conflate the radiative properties of the Earth’s surface, which acts as a black body, with those of it’s atmosphere, which is definitely not a black body.
Having said all that, you are absolutely correct that our CO2 emissions can’t cause CAGW, because IR-active gases excited by thermal radiation from the surface can not spontaneously emit photons in the lower troposphere, but are instead thermalized by collisions with non-IR active gas species.
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Shula_Ott_Collaboration_Rev_5_Multipart_For_Wuwt_16jul2024.pdf
All of this is to simply point out that saying CO2 can’t warm the Earth’s atmosphere after absorbing 15 micron radiation from the surface, because dry ice is really cold, is a very bad argument.
__________________________________________________________
Here’s a well written argument, agreeing with you, that says among other things:
If a material is capable of absorbing electromagnetic radiation
of a particular wavelength, then that wavelength is capable of
heating the material, without any temperature limit.
LINK
So I will cease with the dry ice 15µ angle. But I don’t understand the argument. Not saying it ain’t so, just not understanding.
Steve, thanks for the link – it looks like a very interesting site. Also, my apologies for being a bit pedantic.
I think ‘understanding the argument’ just comes down to realizing that it’s a coincidence that one of (gaseous) CO2’s main absorbtion peaks at 15 mu corresponds to the highest point on the Planck curve of ANY black body of any material radiating at a temperature of about 195K, which, as many have noted, also happens to be the critical temperature of dry ice. As an aside, if one were to cool down the dry ice to, say, 185K, the peak of the Planck curve would no longer be at 15 mu and the coincidence would disappear, along with the argument that ‘CO2 can’t cause warming because dry ice is really cold’.
Admittedly, I don’t have any background in radiative physics, but what I’ve been able to figure out is that there is a great deal of misinformation out there about the properties of thermal radiation. Specifically, in older texts, these properties were only considered applicable to ‘objects’ and ‘surfaces’, which are examples of ‘condensed matter’, but not to gases.
My opinion is that ever since ‘climate change’ became a big deal, there has been a tendency to obscure this distinction and to confer some of the properties of thermal radiation onto gases in order to support the narrative of climate alarmism. If you have the time, I’d highly recommend reviewing the Shula-Ott link I provided, above.
She’s pretty good!
For a sequel, she could incorporate the calculated infrared spectral comparison (atmospheric transmission) for a further doubling (2X) of atmospheric CO2, as Happer et al. like to show in their lectures. It makes the stale word ‘saturation’ come back to life.
A clip from Weekend at Bernie’s could round out the show.
Urban Dictionary:
Bernie has always been a fraud
Marxism is an easy sell to the peasantry in order to get yourself elected, then have the state operate a big dachau for you somewhere you are protected from the same peasantry….Then you can eliminate or rig elections to become permanent leader…a very common narcissistic trait of dictators. Bernie is only part way up the ladder….
Dachau is famous for being Germany’s first concentration camp. I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant
The annoying spell corrector probably added a vowel to “dacha,” the Russian word for rustic getaway home.
It is not hypocrisy.Sanders just believes that “climate change” restrictions only apply to peasants. And he is one of the ruling class.
No ruling class in a utopia. Its the nomenklatura of self selecting elites over the professional apparatchiks and then the cadres and finally the ‘people’
You were not supposed to take 1984 as a a style manual.
There is always a ruling class, nomenklatura, or oligarchy. They are different words for the hierarchy in which humans have always lived. Bernie’s shtick is pretending he’s a humble tribune of the people while he badmouths other members of the oligarchy, and consolidates his own power.
The entitled class. In Tina;s words – Better than all the rest Maybe she had Bernie in mind when she sang this:
That’s because “Colonel” Sanders is quite a few ranks above us privates.
How is believing this make it less hypocrisy?
hypocrisy
https://ssl.gstatic.com/dictionary/static/promos/20181204/pronunciation.svg
noun
What is an example of a hypocrisy?
Hypocrisy is acting in a way that contradicts what one claims to believe. A classic example is someone who tells others not to eat candy but then eats licorice all day. Another example is someone who says they hate cars but constantly begs for rides. Essentially, hypocrisy is the practice of pretending to have certain beliefs, morals, or feelings, but behaving in a way that contradicts those.
Sanders believes the hoi polloi should follow green ascetic standards, not that the elites like himself should. You are assuming he has the same standards for all social classes. Evidently, he does not.
His barefaced contempt for hoi polloi and moral superiority complex do no make it less of hypocrisy.
I am not assuming he has the same standards for all social classes. It is clear that he is a snob with different standards for different social classes. And having different standards is perfectly in line with definition of hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is more of the Al Gore actions, of proclaiming an imminent ecological disaster, and actually behaving as if there was no problem.
Sanders is an unashamed elitist, and has never preached the elites should follow the asceticism the peons should.
Has AG ever preached the elites should follow the asceticism the peons should? I do not see any difference between AG and BS in this regard. To me they are the sort of shit, the same BS if you will.
Bernie *also* proclaims “climate change (TM)” as an “existential threat” – at every “stop” of the private jet he flies from one of his idiot fests to the next. So yes, hypocritical.
It’s both hierarchy and hypocrisy.
But that would seem to be…hypocritical. 😁
For some time now I’ve been wondering if these politicians, billionaires and celebrities who preach the anti-carbon agenda but continue to live conspicuous 1%-er lifestyles are really running a massive gaslight operation to purposely sabotage the climate change agenda they otherwise zealously promote. Of course, any genuinely serious effort at eliminating CO2 from the economy would be decimating to their wealth, political power and lifestyles which they obviously would not want to sacrifice. So they transparently participate in this hypocritical behavior that makes it difficult to impossible for any thinking individual to take them and their rhetoric the least bit seriously.
Why? It’s win-win for them. They know that the controversy that they themselves generate with this transparently hypocritical behavior sabotages the agenda so that they won’t ever have to sacrifice their wealth, influence or lifestyles. But they will get to keep their virtue signaling points with their hip peers and the useful idiots who do continue to take them seriously. It’s even better for those who get to profit from the agenda through political power, subsidies or enforced monopolies.
As long as “climate change” remains a religion to a gullible critical mass, the scam will continue and they will continue to be rich, hip & popular without meaningful consequence.
And for what it’s worth, he owns three homes. One is in Burlington Vermont, one is in Washington, and one is a summer home on Lake Champlain. He states that he paid for them with two best-selling books he wrote.
according to the Babylon Bee he bought them so rich people wouldn’t buy them
I suspect they’re just a bit dim, they’ve learned to recite whatever’s fashionable in their social circles, but they’re not able to think through the consequences of their policy demands, i.e. everybody will be much, much poorer.
Nah. The rich and wealthy simply have enough money to insulate themselves from the horrors their policies will inflict on those without their means.
Do you really think multiplying electric bills, gasoline prices, and heating fuel by a factor of three will mean anything to people that own multiple mansions?
Plus, they (those in political power, and those “in the know” about what new regulations, mandates, subsidies, etc. will be advanced) get to “inside trade” on the dumb ideas that they push to further transfer wealth to themselves at the country’s expense, which will more than make up for the increases in costs.
Love the Mile High Marxists meme.
The reality is private jets fly even higher than airliners where the the ATC congestion largely disappears – still join the queues for coming to land, but a private terminal and smaller airport – think Santa Monica rather than LAX- ease the delays there too.
Time for Bernie to feel some ‘burn back’
I have no respect for Sanders he doesn’t believe in our Constitutional Republic. He doesn’t know squat about climate science. He is only interested in what he has always been interested in. Power and control. He thinks government is superior to the people, he believes the government should tell us what to do when to do it and how to do it. Only brain dead numbskulls think like that.
He doesn’t know squat about economics technology, or anything else for that matter.
He wants government to run everything, and he wants to one of the ones who gets to run government.
Bernie, himself, is fairly clever, as are his supporters who rely on him to provide them with stolen loot. The ‘brain dead numbskulls’ are the mostly suburban women and college kids who believe there is no downside to his socialist / social justice shtick.
I can’t argue with that, I have relatives who are Bernie supporters.
Bernie has always been out of step with the proletariat. He talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.
there’s a term for that:
I like “caviar Communist” myself.
Carbon dioxide, not carbon.
Sorry, I have to cut Bernie some slack here. He and AOC likely fly with several staff each, cutting their footprint. Also, a private jet allows in-flight meetings between stops that would not be possible or desirable in a public setting like a commercial airline cabin. He’s still a hypocrite.
If that had been the reason, he could have said so. He didn’t. He went with “You expect me to wait with the peasants?”
He can use zoom or teams
Yes. 1000%.
Any of these idiots that want to put on their clown shows can do it “remotely” thereby reducing their Godzilla-sized “carbon footprints.”
(It’s not like internet presentations would be “free” of any “carbon footprint,” but it must pale in comparison with physically taking the “clown show” on the road.)
You’re rationalizing.
Heck, if I had a private jet, I’d be flying it everywhere all the time. 😁
And it not’s possible to have staff and staff meetings on a chartered bus or on a train “between stops”? Either would involve, oh, about 1% to 10% of the carbon emissions per person than is emitted by a private jet able to carry 8-10 passengers.
Nice try, but there are excuses . . . and then there is reality.
How does dragging “staff” (or Occasional Cortex) along *reduce* one’s “carbon footprint?!” (Not that it matters.)
You seem to forget the hordes of limos and/or SUVs that will be required to move that whole clown show from their “offices” to the airport, and from each airport to the “presentations” of BS (double meaning intended) and back at each stop.
The Bern getting burned. Love it. And the use of their own word “spewed” is a nice touch. Use their own weapons against them.
Bernie has a climate crisis alright … it’s the political climate of hot air and hypocrisy!
” … flying first class into the apocalypse.”
Phrase of the week … maybe phrase of the decade.
The collective ignorance of the masses is always inferior to the considered opinion of the educated class. That is the foundation all Marxists like Sanders fall back on.
When the quality of the communicator’s knowledge and opinion is not deniable, then the fall back dismissal is vested interests clouding the purity of considered correct thought.
!984 is a perfect overview of the left side of the political spectrum. The ministry of truth is always right, do not ever question the ministry of truth…..always love big brother.
Karl Marx himself spent his entire life in libraries researching the “working class”. He should have gone out and worked with them for a while. He called for revolution but he didn’t risk his own life or wealth to overthrow the capitalists.
I believe Sanders owns multiple homes.
Why can’t we deport Bernie to Cuba? That’s his utopia.
Why doesn’t he just go there, or to Venezuela, so he can “live the dream” before he kicks the bucket (which will hopefully be soon, so he can stop polluting our ears).
This is not Marxism, it is just hypocrisy.
Lets face facts. Marxism has been tried and failed.
So the entire concept of Marxism resulting in a workers paradise is hypocrisy.
A lot things have been tried and failed. Marxism has made wrong predictions. It is a failed socio-economic model. But this is not definition of hypocrisy.
Well, the “green” agenda is but Marxism in disguise, and this clown show tour was about “fighting the (imaginary) oligarchy,” which is pure, unadulterated Marxism.
“You think I’m gonna be sitting on a waiting line at United… while 30,000 people are waiting?”
Translation: “I’m more important than those 30,000 people”
FIFY. The 30,000 refers to the number of idiots supposedly waiting to hear Bernie spew his nonsense.
Ah, I thought he was referring to the people in the airport.
Either way, it’s clear that he feels he’s more important than the others.
Bernie, his stupid ideas, and his stupid ideology, are all long overdue for retirement.
Bernie who?
/sarc
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”
― P.J. O’Rourke,
Could be worse. He could have suggested he accepted a $400,000,000 jet as a gift from a government that has supported terrorist groups (Trumps own words). Now that isn’t just hypocritical it is Olympic level corrupt.
Have you found the pee pee tape?
How about the pangolin that started Covid?
Do you still think Biden doesn’t have dementia?
Do you still think men can have babies?
Stop us when we land on one of your conspiracies
And now I see Trump has accepted this bribe from Qatar. Sad.I wonder what they expect in return?
Sanders consistently reminds us that he’s a member of the David Suzuki Club; i.e. don’t do as I do; just do as I say. That’s why he and all the other individual and media alarmists get promptly ignored after generating a few snorts of derision.
Ah yes, Marie Antoinette Sanders sneering at the peasants over their poor choice of pastries.
American pundit H.L. Mencken a century ago was wise to the Sanders’ shtick. “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false front for the urge to rule it.”