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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| "Give up your SUV!" and other nauseating hypocrisy |
| 2007-09-03 |
| Arthur St. Antoine, Motor Trend . . . Our own senator Dianne Feinstein wants us Californians to carpool and only run our dishwashers when they're full (both reasonable suggestions). But her motivation for our frugality isn't saving the earth -- it's to offset her many trips on her husband's Gulfstream IV. Aviation experts say that just one cross-country round trip on a GIV churns out between 83,000 to 90,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. Meantime, while the eco-moralizing Kerrys and Feinsteins are choking the clouds with private coast-to-coast jaunts, the average earth-raping American, on a per-capita basis, produces just 50,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from all activities (including driving those shameful SUVs) in an entire year. Let them eat carbon cake, John. Indeed, the mere business of being green (or at least appearing to be) takes a nauseating toll. Of late, actor Leonardo DiCaprio has become a leading, high-profile spokesperson for the green movement because . . . well, he's pretty. Which is precisely why Vanity Fair, for its so-called "Green Issue" (printed on high-quality, non-recycled paper, by the way) flew Leo, photographer Annie Leibovtiz, and an untold number of assistants, makeup artists, and assorted hangers-on to Iceland to produce an earth-saving photograph of the Green Idol on a glacier alongside the polar bear cub Knut (who in fact was Photoshopped in from Berlin). Puffed VF: "Now three and a half months old, little Knut has become a powerful (if not controversial) symbol of what this planet has to lose to global warming. Such ecological concerns are familiar to actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio, so it seemed natural to pair these two handsome boys on Annie Leibovitz's cover for this year's Green Issue." You can almost hear the exchange at the Vanity Fair editorial meeting. Junior art director: "What if we really make a green statement, and just drive Leo and Annie down to the San Diego Zoo in a Prius and take a polar-bear shot there?" Editorial green director: "What? No way! We need to fly the entire crew halfway around the world and back and spend at least a few days hacking around on that precious ice to get the perfect green shot I want! Now, call my secretary and get a limo; I'm late for my lunch at the Four Seasons." I doubt the Vanity Fair team even realized the irony of photographing their handsome eco poster boy in front of a Cessna Citation private jet (but, hey, it is a great shot). . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #3 eLarson, of course saving lives is not on their agenda. Rather the opposite, they would love to see a reduction of entire earth population to 500 million based on their "sustainability" formulas--with a ratio of greens (the leading elite as they put it, replace "leading" with "ruling" to get the correct meaning) to non-greens about 1 to 20 (transl: 20 slaves toiling for each green). |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-09-03 15:55 |
| #2 A few strategic squirts of DDT, some smartly dispensed prophylactic medicines, and we could save the lives of more than one million people every single year almost overnight. I don't think saving lives is on the Green agenda, though. Green is the new Red. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2007-09-03 15:34 |
| #1 You missed the best part of the article (IMHO): Which finally gets around to my point: Our leaders and media pundits aren't panicking about global warming and touting the bliss of going green because they're actually worried about the future of the planet. They're making a fuss because they think global warming is going to affect them. Why, if New York City turns into Venice and LA dries up and Aspen melts, where are we going to host our gala save-the-earth benefit dinners? Why, I could even lose two or three of my six homes! How do I know this is true? Because, thus far at least, global warming is -- as Al Gore actually gets right -- inconvenient, not a true problem. Sure, it's been a hot summer. Maybe hotter than usual. It might get a little worse, or it might not. We live on a geologically and atmospherically active planet; temperature variations are the norm. Sorry, Boomers: It's not always going to be 75 and sunny the way it was that glorious day at Woodstock. Meantime, turn up the air con a bit, or go for a swim. You're not going to die. The thing is, while the hysterics are fretting about the "horrors" of global warming and the plight of poor little Knut, more than one million people (most of them women and children) are dying every single year -- today, right now -- of malaria. That's a problem we can fix, easily, inexpensively. A few strategic squirts of DDT, some smartly dispensed prophylactic medicines, and we could save the lives of more than one million people every single year almost overnight. Does anybody care? Are they making movies and books about the malaria crisis? No, malaria is over there, not here. Right now, we've all got to focus on getting green and making everybody give up their SUVs so we don't burn up our planet. After all, it's a pretty long walk from the bullet-proof Suburban to the GIV. And I hate to sweat. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2007-09-03 12:15 |