Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer has been a favorite of mine for several years now. Not only is he a fantastic orator and brilliant writer, Krauthammer also serves as an inspiration. Despite being paralyzed in 1972 due to a diving accident, he continued his studies in the medical field while going through rehabilitation. Krauthammer would earn his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1975.
In his latest offering for Time magazine, Krauthammer fires intellectual shots at the sanctimonious rhetoric offered up by your friendly neighborhood global warmists.
Goldman Sachs has been one of the most aggressive firms on Wall Street about taking action on climate change; the company sends its bankers home at night in hybrid limousines.
--The New York Times, Feb. 25
Written without a hint of irony--if only your neighborhood dry cleaner sent his employees home by hybrid limousine--this front-page dispatch captured perfectly the eco-pretensions of the rich and the stupefying gullibility with which they are received.
Remember the Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore global-warming pitch at the Academy Awards? Before they spoke, the screen at the back of the stage flashed not-so-subliminal messages about how to save the planet. My personal favorite was "Ride mass transit." This to a conclave of Hollywood plutocrats who have not seen the inside of a subway since the moon landing and for whom mass transit means a stretch limo seating no fewer than 10.
Leo and Al then portentously announced that for the first time ever, the Academy Awards ceremony had gone green. What did that mean? Solar panels in the designer gowns? It turns out that the Academy neutralized the evening's "carbon footprint" by buying carbon credits. That means it sent money to a "carbon broker," who promised, after taking his cut, to reduce carbon emissions somewhere on the planet equivalent to what the stars spewed into the atmosphere while flying in on their private planes.
In other words, the rich reduce their carbon output by not one ounce. But drawing on the hundreds of millions of net worth in the Kodak Theatre, they pull out lunch money to buy ecological indulgences. The last time the selling of pardons was prevalent--in a predecessor religion to environmentalism called Christianity--Martin Luther lost his temper and launched the Reformation.
The entire article is worth reading.
3 comments:
Love the article - thanks for the pointer. I personally think that tying environmental stewardship to global warming risks losing the audience because of this sort of hypocrisy. That's why I prefer just doing right by the ol' earth because it's the right thing to do, not because someone else shouts global warming (while paying someone else to burn fewer fossil fuels.)
Although...as I'm trying to cut back anyway, how do I get some of that credit money?
You sound like a good steward, Stewart! :-)
how do I get some of that credit money?
Good question. I drive a fuel efficient vehicle and have merely an average-sized house. I think I'm in line for those credit dollars, too.
Surprisingly (not!) that is the etymology of the name. Maybe that's where I get it:)
Post a Comment