When the pandemic began in early 2020, I thought it likely to become an historic event and I began taking notes of what was happening. I had no idea where my note taking might lead. Unfortunately, many of the “experts” telling us to prevent Covid ignored their own guidance, rules, orders and regulations. They were Covid hypocrites who issued orders that they, themselves, apparently did not believe in. My list reached over 120 single spaced pages as of 2023 in Parts 1 and 2.
Then I noticed the same behavior in the climate community – many prominent “climate crisis” advocates do not follow their own guidance. This is especially obvious from those like international climate crisis promoter Sophia Kianni, who by the age of 20 has traveled throughout the world on vacation trips, yet then co-chairs a climate youth group in Spain demanding an end to easy air travel. And then proceeds to fly all around the world even more.
We have groups like “Extinction Rebellion” and “Scientists Rebellion” which openly advocate for the end of democracy (and even say that is their goal). Rather than use facts and logic to persuade, their goal is for the world to be ruled by a tiny technocratic elite who are obviously smarter than the rest of us (see below for details).
Many elite have carbon foot prints the size of planetary systems – but assuage their guilt by purchasing carbon indulgences from the climate church. And telling the rest of us to stay at home, ride a bike, and be vegetarian.
They are the climate hypocrites who do not seriously believe in what they advocate.
A favorite target of their directives is travel.
Air travel is a tiny sliver of carbon emissions – 2% – (even cars produce less than most people understand and switching to EVs has a smaller reduction than most expect). We fixate on these because we can see cars and jets – but most of us never see huge industrial plants burning fuel to forge steel or the insides of fossil fueled electrical generation plants. The consequence is transportation is the “bogey man” of climate change because it is visible while big producers are hidden.
Many climate activists tell us to stop flying on airlines but have extensive global travel histories. They lack self-awareness of how hypocritical they look. Air travel is fine for them but if you do it, you are a climate denier and probably a Nazi too.
Oddly, this “bogey man poster child” provides an easy way to identify climate hypocrites who preach that we should not travel while they travel the globe, many by private jet.
Carbon Indulgences
The elite assuage their guilt and promote their virtue by saying “It’s okay for us because we buy carbon credits”.
Carbon credits have become notorious for scams and virtue signaling. “Credits” are sold on forest tracts whose owners agree not to cut them down – but many tracts were never going to be cut anyway, sometimes due to inaccessibility or limited timber production. In other examples, credits on the same plot of forest have been sold multiple times. As the WSJ reported, much of the world’s carbon offset credits do little or nothing to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, pointing to wind farms in China that are not even connected to the grid, or which fail to produce much power. But the elite purchase credits to justify their private jet flights to their multiple mansions located throughout the world. Carbon credits are a scam enabling the elite to tell us how to live our lives while they continue to emit enormous amounts of carbon.
With the boom in renewable energy, many of the credits that trade hands are nothing more than a transfer of money from one profitable enterprise to another, critics say:
The end result is companies looking to offset their emissions are buying credits in vast numbers that do little to help neutralize their carbon output.
WSJ: Companies are buying large numbers of carbon credits that don’t cut emissions
Bloomberg: Climate: Bloomberg reports that “Carbon offsets” are still a big scam
The global elite set the agenda – “Do as I say but not as I do“. By their actions, they do not believe in what they are saying. Academic research finds the “economic elite” run the world – and “average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence” – we will, in fact, do as they say, but not as they do.
These are climate hypocrites whose self-centered behaviors discourage action and lead to distrust in authority figures and institutions.
Indeed, as I compiled this list, my encounter of Sophia Kianni and her hypocritical behavior, followed by reading that Extinction Rebellion’s goal is the end of democracy caused me to go from embracing climate change by massively curtailing my own carbon footprint, to no longer giving a damn – all because the spokespeople for the “climate crisis” don’t give a damn themselves. The hypocrisy, as you will see, below, is off scale.
Davos, Switzerland – Spring 2022
An estimated 1,500 private jet flights were made by global elite to attend the conference, plus private helicopter shuttles from the airports to the venues. As one pundit put it, they flew in on private jets, to dine on luxury foods while agreeing to tell the rest of us to ride bicycles.
The top 1% are estimated to have more than 2x the climate impact of the bottom 50% of the world’s population.
Climate hypocrites: The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
Individuals
Private jets and global travel in general are today positioned as wrong. We are no longer supposed to travel by air – even though air travel is a small component of climate change models. Jet travel becomes a visible, but mostly unimportant, component – but it is that visibility that has turned it into a poster child for evilness.
Many young people who advocate curtailing or ending air travel are themselves among the most prolific of global travelers. Some, despite personal travel footprints that are massive, participate in programs to discourage or eliminate air travel for most. Now that they have traveled the world – by their early 20s! – they wish to deny such opportunities to everyone else.
This enables them to enjoy the benefits of global knowledge and experience while ensuring that others will not have similar experiences and develop similar skills and knowledge. And this, despite the fact that the 21st century will be far more “global” than any previous century, particularly due to the declining fertility rate and the desire by dozens of countries to import skilled workers from other countries. In this new world, workers with global skills (and this means “soft” skills like how to travel, speaking additional languages, how to interact with diverse peoples) – which come from direct international experience – are the key to success.
But they don’t want you to have these experiences. Only the elite, like themselves, are deserving of global travel, as you will soon see.
Hannah Hunt
Hannah Hunt is 23 years old, an activist with Extinction Rebellion, and founder of an anti-fossil fuels activist group. According to the British press, from age 18 to age 23 she traveled by airline to exotic vacation destinations around the world, which she features on her Instagram influencer page. She says the rest of us should not travel – but her travels are more important than your travels.
By age 23, climate/fossil fuels protester has spent 5 years traveling the world to exotic locations
We can see these travels because these influencers are narcissists who promote their global travels on their own Instagram pages. They do not even attempt to hide their hypocritical behavior.
Izzy Cook
Speaking at School Strike 4 Climate – New Zealander Izzy Cook voices opposition to people flying in aircraft and proposes that people must be given permission from the government to fly and only for approved reasons.
She is then asked, suggesting an example, “Would flying to Fiji be wrong?” Yes, she says.
The interviewer then asked her, “When was the last time you flew on an aircraft and where did you go?“
Answer: “A few months ago. To Fiji.“
Says she was not embarrassed that she flew to Fiji, she says – She lacks self-awareness and appears foolish, which is the definition of idiot.
Let’s take our climate change advice from 16-year-old hypocrites, shall we? More here.
Izzy’s Mom attacks the interviewer accusing her of “bullying my daughter” for pointing out the hypocrisy. Her Mom’s argument is that since Izzy works on climate advocacy it’s okay for her to be a hypocrite: “She also lives a low carbon lifestyle: she’s vegetarian, uses public transport, and buys second-hand.” – which justifies Izzy’s flying around the world while telling others not to fly.
Thus: as long as you are a climate advocate, vegetarian and use public transport occasionally, feel free to fly around the world while telling others not to! It’s logic! Indeed, as we shall see, there are many that travel extensively – but as long as they are documenting the “climate crisis”, their travels are fine!
Ketti Wilhelm
She is about 30 years old, a travel blogger who has traveled to over 40 countries, has lived and worked in France, China, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Guadeloupe, Nicaragua (and the Caribbean), and has traveled in Chile and Argentina to research “sustainable tourism”. Her own business focuses on travel, and now sustainability. She met her husband, who is from Italy, while traveling in China. She says on her blog that Italy is her 2nd home (they presumably sail a boat across the Atlantic?)
A graduate of the University of Montana, where she grew up, she went on to earn a Master’s degree in “Green Management” at a university in Italy and an undergraduate study abroad in Granada (Spain).
She is as global and privileged as any 30-year-old can be.
She has declared a travel Climate Emergency and signed on to a group promoting a global tax on aviation to discourage air travel, which favors taking buses and trains (such as the high-speed rail service from Los Angeles to Honolulu...), avoidance of eating meat, only staying at places that practice sustainability (e.g. solar powered, local food sources only), and we should fly less and stay longer (because everyone can do that on 2 weeks of vacation per year!)
The above is common among the well-traveled elite – now that they’ve traveled the world, they seek to make it more expensive and difficult for others to do so – which makes themselves even more elite as they will be the ones with global skills that others will have difficulty obtaining. There is hypocrisy in having gallivanted about the globe, and now advocating others curtail such experiences.
Advocates like Hunt, Cook and Wilhelm have a lack of awareness of how this propaganda messaging looks to others – it looks like hypocritical, privileged elite-ness – excuse me, global eliteness.
Sophia Kianni, Youth UN Climate Ambassador and Activist
As of this writing in early 2023, she is a climate activist, studying environmental science and public policy (in other words, activism) at Stanford University. She was selected as the youngest UN Ambassador on climate.
From the Washington Post:
I try to make choices to lessen my impact on the planet and reduce my carbon footprint, but it’s also important to know that the very concept of the carbon footprint was invented by an ad agency hired by fossil fuel companies to distract people from the huge amounts of pollution that Big Oil and gas companies produce. So while it’s important for everyone to do their part, those who pollute the most have an obligation to reduce the most.
Climate Diaries: How Sophia Kianni tries to live sustainably – The Washington Post
Translation: Since the concept of a carbon footprint “was invented by an ad agency”, her own personal carbon footprint is not relevant.
The article reads like a parody – a commenter notes the WaPo has turned into The Onion! Air travel is okay for her to visit family – see the WaPo article – just like Deborah Birx’s sob story and that of other public health officials, who ignored their own Covid rules because they hadn’t seen their family in 6 months! Rules they could break, but not you!
Kianni goes on to say:
It would have been impossible for me to get home for this [spring] break without choosing to fly: Taking buses across the country would have taken 3-4 days of nonstop travel and cost several hundred dollars more.
Yet she co-chaired a manifesto (written on one of her trips, to Spain) calling for financial disincentives to fly – she is said to be wealthy so that wouldn’t matter to her, but would to you, of course.
Kianni is a Global Traveler
Note – this section was going to be a short item – but geesh, she is a global elitist dripping with self-centered, narcissistic behaviors as she travels the world telling the rest of to get our act together.
Obviously, she is more important than you or I, so she can travel about the world while telling us to cut our climate impact. From her Instagram page, she has made numerous trips to Europe. She has participated in Extinction Rebellion events (ER advocates flight shaming and the end of air travel):
- XR and Scientist Rebellion block Farnborough Airport entrance – BBC News
- Extinction Rebellion Occupy Airport Runway, Call to Ban Domestic Flights
- Extinction Rebellion protests unnecessary airplane travel outside Victoria International Airport – Vancouver Island Free Daily,
She is famous for having organized an international group to translate climate literature into other languages; the average age of her translators is 16 years old (what could possibly go wrong with that?) She regularly attends meetings with the UN Secretary General. She has done extensive global travel – and is a global elitist, reportedly having a high net worth.
Some of her global travels:
Amsterdam, 4 years ago
Italy
Bermuda
Edinburgh, Scotland
France
In September 2021, she was in Madrid, Spain to tell us about climate change.
She was co-chair of the Youth 4 Change Climate manifesto which states “Incentivizing low emission options such as bikes and public transport and financial disincentives for air travel“.
She is currently in Egypt at COP27. Her participation seems to have a lot of self-promotion:
Endless self-promotion
The narcissistic self-promotion is off scale:
Are 20-year-old college students qualified to advise the UN and the WEF and the NY Times on global policy issues that affect humanity for eternity? Do they know as much as they think they know (many of us have learned, through experience, that things are more complex and nuanced than they seemed at age 20).
The comments to her post were not positive:
From the above, her posts suggest she was focused on self-promotion rather than saving the planet.
This might be related to the above comments – with wish that people “stop lying and greenwashing” (She needs to look in the mirror):
She has visited her family in Iran (presumably by air, and multiple times).
She is an elitist. She can travel about the world and tell the rest of us how to live our lives – but we can’t travel because air travel is evil.
She is an elitist, world trotting hypocrite telling the rest of us not to fly.
She needs to think about how this looks to the average person out in the world, living real lives not having her privilege and wealth. But she seems incapable of self-reflection and self-awareness.
Update March 15, 2023
Sophia Kianni continues her crusade to travel the world, telling everyone else how to live their lives – and telling you not to travel – while continuing her narcissistic tirade of self-promotion. Good grief. Kianni’s behavior led me to no longer care about “climate action” – combined with the actions of other climate hypocrites on this page, this issue no longer has anything to do with climate.
Update March 28, 2023
Now she favors “climate lock downs” for you but not for her. Why are people listening to this hypocrite?
She lacks even a smidgen of self awareness. Sophia Kianni is the definition of climate hypocrite.
Eirik Lindebjerg
This could become a lengthy list as there are so many young elite sending mixed messages.
Lindebjerg is the 24-year-old Global Plastics Policy Lead at the World Wildlife Federation. Plastic is a new evil and we need to curtail its production and improve recycling programs for plastics (plastics, in the form of polyester and related fibers, as in most of the world’s clothing, and almost none is recycled). There are also serious issues with single use plastics that are tossed. I agree with this concern about disposal of plastics and the lack of recycling.
Lindebjerg is also concerned about climate change – but he’s also a global traveler. From Norway, he’s attended COP27 in Egypt, worked at the UNEP in Geneva, Switzerland, volunteered in Madagascar, did a study abroad in France, a Master’s degree in Geneva, and was a delegate to the UN plastics treaty conference in late 2022 in Uruguay, and probably more travel than that too (and he’s just 24!). That’s just from online posts and LinkedIn.
Young people travel all around the world, many times, and then participate in activities urging the rest of us to not travel. This is inconsistent messaging. It’s okay for the self-defined elite but not ok for us plebeians. They are oblivious to how this looks to others.
Aileen Getty – Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion
Just Stop Oil is a group of anxiety ridden folks who believe we will all die within years due to climate change, and we can stop the climate from changing by whining about it, disrupting society, damaging historic venues and art works, and blocking ambulances and fire trucks carrying ill patients to hospitals. (“Their behaviour is fundamentally immature and destructive.“).
Aileen Getty, raised in Italy, and wealthy from her Getty Oil inheritance is a major funding source for the Climate Emergency Fund, which funds Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. The extended Getty family lives on nearly all continents.
She is the founding donor of the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF).
In 2017, Getty sold her modest 5,255 sq foot Malibu mansion for $14 million, just a year after buying it. The same year she bought a NYC mansion for $19 million. (She rode her bicycle between Los Angeles and New York City, of course?) Three years later, she put that up for sale for $25 million.
She grew up in Italy, her husband is from Italy and she has traveled the world extensively in support of her causes. Undoubtedly, they sail a boat to cross the Atlantic.
Gail Bradbrook, Ph.D.
ER was founded by Gail Bradbrook, who spent two weeks in Costa Rica consuming psychedelic drugs (yes, really) – she flew there on a jet plane consuming oil – and under the influence of psychedelics she was inspired to found ER. A drugged out global elite traveler, she did her PhD post-doc work in India and France (she rode her bike to both places – haha, just kidding – she drives a diesel fueled car and does, in fact, fly on jet planes.)
They lack expertise in useful fields, where talent might invent solutions. Instead, they whine and disrupt the lives of others who are working to solve problems. They can’t even agree on what they are protesting:
Just Stop Oil has been protesting in London for the past two weeks, and the group said in a press release that its actions were “in response to the government’s inaction on both the cost-of-living crisis and the climate crisis.”
Oil protesters appear in court after throwing soup at Van Gogh painting (cnbc.com) Similarly, in terms of lacking clarity on the target, Greta Thunberg says the real goal is to destroy capitalism – see below. Climate is now an afterthought.
Their childish behavior persuades many to ignore environmental activism and issues.
VW climate protesters demand bowl to ‘urinate and defecate’ | news.com.au – When activists glue themselves to walls and floors, they are asking to be stuck there, right? VW provided them with food and water but did not bring them portable toilets – the activists then complained that the company they are vandalizing did not treat them as invited guests! They say they will glue themselves to the floor until “their demands to decarbonize” the entire German transport sector are met – because they can easily decarbonize the entire transport sector in a few hours? VW has already committed to converting to all electric vehicles.
Sir Chris Hohn
Hohn is a UK-based billionaire hedge-fund manager who claims to live a “simple lifestyle” and make donations to worthy causes. He is the largest single source of funding for Extinction Rebellion, which aims to shut down air travel – yet:
The son of a Jamaican immigrant to Britain, Sir Christopher grew up in Surrey and is known for his simple lifestyle. He reportedly lives in a rented house, drives a Toyota Prius and wears a black Swatch watch he has had for years. The couple met as students at Harvard University and married in 1985. They have four children – triplets aged 12 and an older child aged 15.
They have homes in London, the US and the West Indies. Because everyone with a “simple life” lives like that.
Ex-wife of Sir Christopher Hohn claims he’s hiding millions to minimise divorce settlement | Daily Mail Online
Undoubtedly, he rows a boat between the UK, the US and the West Indies – or drives his Prius across the Atlantic. He attended universities in the UK and the U.S. and previously worked in the Philippines, Singapore, the U.S., and London, per news reports. His charity, Children’s Investment Fund has offices in Nairobi and New Delhi.
As a person who benefited immensely from global travel he supports groups that want to deny travel opportunities to others.
How much of Hohn’s donations are caused-based marketing, such as the faux “effective altruism” of Sam Bankman-Fired? Hohn has said his life’s mission is to give money away: “My life is actually about charity“. He has fashioned his public persona around this image – much like Bankman-Fried. How much of it is for marketing purposes?
(Note – Hohn does actually contribute large sums of money from his earnings, to charity but so did Bankman-Fried.)
The Anti-Democracy Movement
The activists’ real goal, they say, is to get 3.5% of the population behind them, because research says tiny minorities who engage in civil disobedience can take control over the other 96.5%. The goal is rule by a tiny minority – in other words, they are anti-democracy.
They believe a small group can force change through society disruption (others words for this are civil disruption or “extortion“). The concept is based on a political scientist’s claim that change occurred in the past when a tiny minority of the population (3.5%) engaged in civil disruption. Extinction Rebellion refers to 3.5% as the “magic number.” See –> Extinction Rebellion Summer Uprising: The Group That Brought London To A Standstill Is Now In 50 Counties (buzzfeednews.com)
Rule by a tiny minority – just 3.5% of the population – in other words. They are labeling themselves as anti-democracy.
Rather than study engineering and science to develop solutions, they are children throwing temper tantrums, asserting they have right to authoritarianism rule by a tiny elite minority through extorting the population. Their own words:
The good news, the members say, is that they have extensively studied the history of social change and believe they have a scientifically tested approach that enables just a small minority to bring the political system to its knees.
Extinction Rebellion Summer Uprising: The Group That Brought London To A Standstill Is Now In 50 Counties (buzzfeednews.com)
In other words, rule by authoritarianism and the elite – not by using logic and facts to persuade a majority to support climate control. The goal is to end democracy – and turn over rule to a technocratic elite, the central idea of governance by bureaucratic Central Committees.
More on how today’s climate activists act like spoiled, self-centered, narcissistic children, rather than adults seeking to solve problems: Infantilization Of The Apocalypse (substack.com).
Extinction Rebellion Children
These children in Norway live in one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, having a sovereign wealth fund of $1.4 trillion (as of spring of 2023), the largest such fund in the world. The funds come from Norwegian oil fields and income from the fund provides free university education, funds public schools, libraries, services, transportation, and other infrastructure for these children to live an exclusive, globally elite lifestyle. But these children don’t know that.
Since its inception in the 1990s, Norway’s wealth fund has invested the country’s enormous oil and gas revenue widely across the world and across economic sectors. Today, the fund holds nearly 1.5% of all shares within listed companies globally.
Climate activists throw black, oily liquid at Klimt painting in Vienna (cnbc.com)
These endeavors have nothing to do with climate and everything to do with using extortion to end democracy. They are deadbeat fascists. The more they do this, the greater the turn off to doing anything about climate.
Update: Throwing food at artwork tactics are not effective at convincing non-believers. It’s pointless and childish behavior that causes harm to their desired message.
Update: After 4 years of childish, immature disruptive pranks, Extinction Rebellion acknowledges its tactics have turned people off to climate enthusiasm and says it will stop disrupting civil society, including the lives of those who are working to solve genuine problems (except not long after, these groups were back doing the same stupid things again). Their idiocy, as well as the hypocritical activists (this page) have gradually converted me from someone who re-insulated my home to R-60, installed solar PV, installed a 220v line for EV charging in prepping for a future EV – to someone who no longer cares.
There actions are a turn-off.
Update May 2023: But the six year olds keep doing these things: Climate activists dump charcoal into Italy’s Trevi Fountain, turning water black – UPI.com
Roger Hallam, the founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion called the Nazi era Holocaust a “normal event”. After the German subgroup said they would split from ER over his comments, he attempted an apology saying climate change will be worse than “the slaughter” of Jews. His public messaging is not good. To say the least.
In April 2023, another group, The Tyre Extinguishers, slashed tires on what they defined as SUVs, eliminating mobility options for elderly owners in the neighborhood. The Tyre Extinguishers children said the elderly should walk or ride a bike. Because none of the elderly have osteoarthritis or other physical limitations, so let’s fuck the elderly. The children claim that slashing tires improves the environment (and claim that globally, they have slashed tires on over 11,000 vehicles)- even though it means taking a tow truck to a car dealer for new tires, which are made of rubber, which is from petroleum. The idiocy of these self-centered children is amazing.
These are not professional propagandists – these people are childish idiots with the intellectual firepower of six year olds. They would be wise to hire professional public relations counsel if they wish to avoid being called immature children.
“Last Generation” – Adults Who Act like Children
They dangerously forced the shutdown of the Berlin, Germany airport by blocking runways. Because screaming children should rule the world, not democracies. The concept of a democracy that is based on education, information, evidence and facts and individuals choosing policies is so 20th century. Climate enthusiasts believe that in a true democracy, a tiny sliver of technocratic elite and screaming activists that act like six year olds should lead us as it is the only way forward!
Related: January 6 2020 and Trump
Trump and the January 6 rioters that stormed the U.S. Capitol believed they were in command and asserted a non-existent right to overthrow an election. They too were anti-democracy, just as much as the climate activists are anti-democracy with their “just 3.5% to take control”.
You either believe in democracy or you do not. The goal does not justify the means.
Climate enthusiasts who profess a desire to end democracy are doing their cause massive harm, just as Trump and his henchmen did to his political fortunes. Climate “activists'” goal – in their own words – is for a technocratic elite to form a single global government that ignores the democratic majority will of the people. Because they believe their cause is righteous and pure, it is necessary to end democracy and suspend human rights. They have made this clear, stating that per their theories, if just 3.5% of the population engages in civil disobedience, then they will win control – and we will then be ruled by utopian technocratic elite superiors.
They, like Trump’s January 6th supporters, are fascists.
These actions by climate activists – engaged in activities that have nothing to do with climate – and often impede the work of those developing real solutions – are a turn off to others taking action.
Prince Charles
Prince Charles (now King Charles III) tells us we should live within 5 to 10 minutes of our workplace. No more long commutes.
- He says we should walk or ride a bike to get around.
- Cheaper neighborhoods should be abolished, and cheap and expensive housing should be combined side by side.
- We should stop eating meat and dairy.
- He did not say anything about air travel.
In 2020, over 11 days he traveled 16,000 miles with 3 private jets and one helicopter – to pose with climate enthusiast Greta Thunberg.
Also in 2020, he flew 125 miles by private jet – to attend a presentation on the effect of aircraft emissions on climate. Face plant. One cannot make up things that absurd!
Prince Harry
Like father, like son: In August 2021, son, Prince Harry, flew a private jet from Aspen, Colorado to California, after attending an equestrian event. Harry tells us climate change is the world’s most pressing problem and you, dear peon, should do something about it, so he can continue to fly around the world by private jet.
Hypocrite: Prince Charles warns Glasgow summit is last chance to save planet
Prince William
Climate activists Prince William and Kate travel between their multiple homes via helicopter. Don’t we all!
See also Prince William as climate change influencer (hah hah). Hypocrites.
Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder FTX
Commitment to Mitigating Climate Impacts.
FTX is very serious about minimizing our impact on the global environment where we live and work, and as a company we have taken several important steps to ensure this. Here, I would like to share several key points to explain why FTX’s environmental impact is de minimis, but nonetheless explain the additional steps the company has taken to reduce even further this impact. First, FTX has no factories or physical products and therefore does not leverage global shipment networks, a substantial source of energy consumption. FTX has a small workforce with a small physical-office footprint, renting only a few small offices spread out around the world, and operates online. FTX corporate operations, therefore, do not have direct impacts on climate change at a globally relevant scale.
12-7-21 FINAL – Written Testimony of Sam Bankman-Fried for HFSC Hearing (house.gov)
Let’s ignore that cryptocurrency mining is an extraordinary consumer of electricity.
SBF’s public persona was fake – cause-based marketing that everyone fell for:
Bankman-Fried had become a legend by pushing an image of monkish aloofness, vowing to forsake the allures of his extraordinary wealth – sleeping on beanbag chairs, driving a Toyota Corolla – and to give away his fortune for the greater good.
Yet in April, when Avedisian was hired as a master of ceremonies for a conference in the Bahamas sponsored by FTX, Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange, she saw how the 30-year-old billionaire really lived: in a guarded island compound, every need closely catered to, the world’s elite at his beck and call.
FTX’s Bahamas crypto empire: Stimulants, subterfuge and a spectacular collapse (sfgate.com)
SBF has since admitted that his altruistic image was purely for marketing purposes. Because people fall for it.
Of course, his private jet:
Canada: Deputy Finance Minister Michael Sabia
Deputy Finance Minister Michael Sabia, who called climate change “a massive change to humanity,” spent nearly $11,000 in first-class airfare, according to Blacklock’s Reporter .
Minister spent $11,000 in airfare for climate change conference | Toronto Sun
Read the whole story. You and I will be prohibited from traveling while the elite go about their lives with carbon footprints the size of planets.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan)
September 2020:
“The science is clear — climate change is directly impacting our public health, environment, our economy, and our families,” Whitmer said in a statement. Discussing her plan in a virtual event with other governors, she added: “There’s no time to waste when it comes to fighting climate change. We’ve got to act now.”
Gov. Whitmer Offers ‘Carbon-Neutral’ Climate Plan For Michigan – CBS Detroit (cbsnews.com)
April 2021:
After issuing a Covid travel caution to residents of Michigan, Gov. Whitmer flew to Florida and then lied about her travels saying she had been “in town the whole time“. She had, in fact, visited her Dad in Florida, while prohibiting similar visits in Michigan by Michigan residents. She said she went for just 2 days (it was actually 4 days). She blamed “spring break” travel to Florida for the upsurge in daily cases occurring in Michigan – while she traveled to Florida and lied about it. She traveled on a private jet that was operated as a charter flight in violation of FAA regulations. She refuses to say who paid for the private jet – with indications it may have come from a private business group in Michigan. And she had not yet been vaccinated either.
So of course, she flies by an illegally operated private charter jet. Because she cares and you do not.
NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ahern and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau
Jet pools on Canadian PM’s private 200 passenger VIP jet flight – after earlier making a big deal about taking a bus because she’s climate aware. The climate preachers intend to stop you from traveling – but they will not make changes to their own lifestyles. It’s as if they don’t believe in climate change.
August 5th, 2022:
Mark Zuckerburg
Mark Zuckerburg’s private organization is donating $44 million for climate change research initiatives. In 2021, Facebook’s parent Meta spent $1.6 million on his private jet travel for the company. He likely spends personal funds on his private jet travel too. He commutes between his homes in Hawaii and Palo Alto, CA.
Many of the elite have carbon foot prints the size of small planetary systems – but assuage their guilt by purchasing carbon indulgences from the climate church. And suggesting the rest of us should stay at home.
“Climate offsets” are well known as scams, particularly those involving selling forest rights. In many cases, “carbon offsets” are sold on forests that no one had any intention of cutting down, often because they are in geography that makes logging difficult or impossible. Worse, some of these offsets are sold multiple times as there is no way to track offset ownership.
Bill Gates
- He buys “green aviation fuel” for his fleet of private jets, plus a helicopter, and a seaplane
- Uses solar panels on his homes (FIVE MANSIONS)
- One of which is 66,000 square feet in size, and all are very large
- He does not own a yacht but charters super yachts
- He eats “synthetic meats”, as he made large investments in a leading synthetic meat manufacturer
- He has bought hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland to produce the input ingredients for synthesized, manufactured fake meat.
… and he stresses the importance of consuming less. Seriously.
He flew to the 2015 Climate Change Summit in Paris, France – by private jet. Of course.
His carbon footprint may be up to 6+ orders of magnitude greater than mine. At least.
January 2023: Gates is flying all around Australia – in his $70 million private jet – to give talks on climate change: Bill Gates $70 million Gulfstream N887WM at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith on Australia visit | Daily Mail Online
May 2023: Gates has other affairs too – Jeffrey Epstein Appeared to Threaten Bill Gates Over Microsoft Co-Founder’s Affair With Russian Bridge Player – WSJ
Billionaires
The investments of 125 billionaires produce 393 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year, according to a report by Oxfam. (FYI am guessing this is an error prone estimate as it is doubtful Oxfam has access to their investment details.)
That’s the equivalent CO2 output to the whole of France and makes the average billionaire’s annual emissions a million times higher than a person in the poorest 90% of the world’s population, the global poverty charity says.
Billionaires emit a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person: Oxfam (cnbc.com) (That’s sourced to Oxfam which tends to cherry pick their way to conclusions.)
But it’s okay – they talk the talk about everyone else lowering their carbon footprint and they buy scammy carbon offsets to not cut forests that no one was planning to cut anyway. And they use biofuels in their private jets so all is good!
Hollywood Celebrities
Leonardo DiCaprio is well known for his climate change activism. But the lifestyle changes he demands of others to mitigate climate change do not apply to him.
In 2016, he was in Europe at the Cannes film festival, and flew back to the U.S. on a private jet to receive an environmental award (yes, really), and then flew back to Cannes the next day (saying he rode along, on the return flight, with someone else who was headed to Cannes – he jet pooled!)
Shirtless Leonardo DiCaprio yachts in Saint-Tropez and more star snaps | Page Six –> Leonardo DiCaprio funneled grants through dark money group to fund climate nuisance lawsuits, emails show | Fox News
Lots of celebrities enjoy the high life while telling us how to live ours. “We” (meaning you but not him) must act immediately:
Dr. Lise Van Susteren
Dr. Van Susteren is a psychiatrist who has a specialty in the mental health impacts of climate change.
She travels the world lecturing on climate change: “In September 2006, she was chosen as one of the first fifty persons to be trained in Nashville by Al Gore to give her version of his global warming slide show, the basis of the documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” She returned several times to Nashville as a Senior Trainer and was subsequently named to the Board of Directors of The Climate Project. She has presented her slide show to over 100 educational, religious, political, environmental and business audiences in the United States and abroad. She has traveled to the Arctic to lecture on the impact of global warming there and frequently lectures on the health effects of climate change“
Dr. Van Susteren, a global traveler, appears in this article about “flight shaming” and is quoted in the context of discouraging air travel. The elite do what they want, and after spending a lifetime of air travel, turn around and tell us to be ashamed of traveling by air. She says climate change advocates must “lead by example“. But what is their example? That it’s okay for elite to do as they damn please while telling us useless peons to walk everywhere?
From Wisconsin in the U.S., she traveled to France and attended medical school in Paris in the 1970s, did an internship in Togo in West Africa, and then a residency in the U.S. Am guessing she traveled to France prior to deciding to attend med school in Paris, on family trips, or study abroad or for recreation, or all of those.
She is the sister of elite Greta Van Susteren who has traveled extensively all over the world. Greta has 3 homes and an 80-foot yacht. Climate change is following the Covid public health playbook – rule by technocratic elite who ignore their own guidance because they are more important than us worthless peons.
Al Gore
Former VP and Inconvenient Truth documentary producer, Al Gore reportedly engaged in hypocritical activities and worked to clean up his behavior after being caught at it.
In 2007, his 4,000 square foot Tennessee mansion consumed more energy per month than the typical American home in a year. Snopes and FactCheck.org say this was true in 2007, but Gore eventually added solar PV, reduced lighting demand, improved insulation and became LEED certified. (It will likely take up to 20 years for these changes to pay back the carbon produced during the manufacturing and retrofit work during the remodel.)
He also owns or owned a 6,500 sq ft ocean front home in California. He has traveled all over the world, extensively, giving lectures and presentations on climate change, and specifically, climate change related investment opportunities in which the very wealthy may participate. He was formerly Chair of Generation Investment Management – a way for the wealthy to invest in climate profits.
He also owns or previously owned a 100-foot-long houseboat whose engine runs on bio-diesel and which had solar PV on its roof.
He admits to occasionally using private jets and says he also travels on commercial airline flights. He says he purchases carbon “scam” offsets to ameliorate carbon produced.
He justifies his massive homes, boats, and travel by saying he now uses alternative energy or carbon offsets – because he can afford to, and you can’t. He could live a scaled back lifestyle AND buy carbon offsets – but none of the elite do that. Instead, they purchase their carbon indulgences to pretend they are justifying their outrageous carbon emissions.
Many of the wealthy (Al Gore is worth hundreds of millions of $s) spend much on multiple, large homes, travel on private jets, own yachts, and other vehicles – but assuage their guilt at using orders of magnitude more energy than you or I, by purchasing carbon indulgences to support their efforts at doing God’s work to save the world.
The National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society has numerous web pages and programs devoted to climate change education and that climate change threatens everything in existence.
Meanwhile, the National Geographic Society does this:
The NGS also owns an enormous Arctic capable ship, the Endurance, providing extreme luxury to the extraordinarily wealthy virtue signaling global travelers who have already seen everything in the entire world. In fact, the NGS has a fleet of 16 luxury ships – so the elite can travel the world – while the NGS runs propaganda about the ClimateCrisis(tm).
(Reminder – the National Geographic Society admitted in 2018 that for decades the NGS engaged in intense and long standing racism, cherry picked topics and sources, and presented people of color as savages, and “sexed” up stories to make them appear more exotic. The NGS is a rotten organization – and today continues that history with their climate hypocrisy. Read the above link for details. What NGS did is appalling and I no longer consume any NGS authored content.)
John Kerry, Biden Administration “Climate Czar”
John Kerry’s private family jet took 16 trips this year alone (nypost.com) (up to August 2021). However, those flights were not for him – he flies in large government private jets, as required for his job. Of course. He flies dozens of times per year to climate meetings, via large government private jets. Because he can and he’s important – and you are not.
In 2019, he flew by private jet to Iceland to receive a climate leadership award. He also lives part time in Idaho – and commutes by bicycle – oh wait, actually by jet from the east coast.
Michael Bloomberg
The Bloomberg news service is owned by Michael Bloomberg. Every day, this news service runs stories on climate change – to the extent that Bloomberg news is a climate activist group and promoter of “climate action”.
Yet Michael Bloomberg’s private jet was flown about 400 times from mid-2016 to mid-2020, and most of those flights likely had him on board.
Like so many of the climate elite, he travels in luxury, on board private jets – while using his news service to tell the rest of us to fuck off and stop living immoral lives of carbon emissions. We get it: Flying must only be permitted for the elite climate masters.
In fact, in early 2023, The C40 Group issued a proclamation that people should not be allowed to fly more than once every two years. Seriously. Except you know that won’t apply to climate hypocrite virtual signalers like Bloomberg, Gates, etc.
World Climate Leaders Fly Private Jets to Scotland Climate Meeting COP26
More than 400 private jets, many of which were airliner class jets, not small biz jets, flew to Scotland to attend the COP26 climate meeting.
There were so many private jets that some were relocated to airports as far south as London (meaning a flight to Glasgow to drop off the elite, then a flight to southern England to park, and then a return flight at the end of the conference, before heading off to their home country).
This hypocrisy will be repeated at COP27 in November 2022 in Egypt (Update – again over 400 private jets to Egypt). Conference success will be determined by how many rules, restrictions, and expenses the elite foist on the people while continuing to jet about the globe, exempt from their restrictions.
30,000 (or more likely 40,000 as that is how many attended COP26) delegates have flown to Egypt from about 200 countries to attend COP27. Presumably, like COP26, hundreds of private jets will have made the trip to Egypt.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and COP27
Shortly after that, he flew to COP27 in Egypt to lecture on climate change initiatives.
COP27 40,000 delegates in Egypt
I do not know where this cartoon came from – was shared on social media.
Cop27 in Egypt: Activists hit out at VIP menu featuring beef, chicken, fish and dairy products | Daily Mail Online – climate activists tell us to stop eating meat and eat vegetarian – while they feed on meat products. The salmon was flown in from the North Atlantic. Because. Climate.
The menu:
And like COP26: FOUR HUNDRED private jets arrived in Egypt during COP27 as climate delegates accused of ‘hypocrisy’ | Daily Mail Online
Of course. Because they are more important than you. Shut up peons.
Greta Thunberg
A few years back, she got tons of publicity about taking a sailboat from the U.S. to Europe – because climate. But at least two sailing crew members flew across the Atlantic to crew the boat – negating Greta’s carbon savings. But it was a much publicized and successful PR stunt. The meeting she was to attend in South America was canceled and relocated to Spain – she had to sail back again, traveling extensively in the America’s by both car and train. The hypocrisy was large. Of course, those of us in the real world are unable to spend weeks sailing back and forth across the oceans on privately owned $1.5 million yachts- but privileged elite like Greta have lots of time available. (The luxury yacht crossing was donated by an Australian Youtube sailing couple as publicity for their Youtube channel.)
In 2022, Thunberg says we must destroy capitalism and all existing government systems, and apparently put her and friends in charge of a new global order (we really need to destroy capitalism, she says). Thunberg acknowledged on Nov 2, 2022 that other systems, including communism, also failed. Thus, she has no solution after we destroy capitalism: Greta Thunberg: It’s time to transform the West’s oppressive and racist capitalist system (telegraph.co.uk)
The “solution” to climate change is to destroy capitalism and institute global communism-and that seems to be the whole point of climate change fear. (And too funny, she was granted an honorary doctorate(!) in theology – sounds right).
Having Children is an “act of cruelty and barbarism”
Throughout history, the lives of nearly everyone have improved over time. Take a look at global poverty and literacy rates, life spans, and other metrics, over time. Everywhere we look, life is getting better, over time. And not just a little bit but by huge amounts. (See the book SuperAbundance.)
The global fertility rate is about 2.3 and dropping rapidly. It’s been dropping since about 1960. The U.S. dropped below 2.1 in 1972/73. But you didn’t know that. See the Demographics series on this web site or read the book “Empty Planet”.
The brain of @Ecowarriorss (if even has a brain) is stuck in 1970 – the baby boom was a bizarre anomaly since reversed – but many of us did not know this because of experts preaching disinformation that was swallowed hook, line and sinker by the non-skeptical media:
US Fertility Rate
The global fertility rate will soon cross below 2.1. 75% of the world’s population now lives in countries with negative population growth rate below the 2.1 value.
Dozens and dozens of countries have been in decline for decades. Read the Demographics posts on this web site or read the book “Empty Planet” (or other books on this topic) to understand why and what this means.
Global Travel is Fine If You Document How Bad Everything Is
There is a gaggle of writers, journalists, artists, environmentalists, photographers who extensively travel the world to document “environmental catastrophe”. If you are documenting a “catastrophe”, you can fly as much as you want and have a carbon foot print the size of the moon!
For example, from the author bio of Planet Ice: A Climate of Change, we read this modest travel itinerary (multiple times to the same areas, as this was over a 15-year period).
A trip leader for Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris, JAMES MARTIN has contributed to Outdoor Photographer magazine and has seventeen books to his credit. For the Planet Ice project, he has ventured to Antarctica, Greenland, Baffin Island, the Alaska Range, Mount Everest, Patagonia, Central Africa’s Ruwenzori Mountains, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Alps, the Canadian Rockies, Glacier National Park in Montana, Ecuador’s volcanoes, Washington State’s Cascade Mountains, Alaska’s North Slope, the Three Gorges in China’s Yunnan Province, and Shishapangma, also in China.
Amazon.com: Planet Ice: A Climate for Change: 9781594850851: Martin, James: Books
The author’s past work was leading “photo tours” all over the world. But if it’s for a worthy cause, no problem!
Of course, as you may know, those who have traveled all over the world extensively now tell us only the elite who are documenting problems are acceptable people.
Peter Kalmus, NASA (He is not a hypocrite)
Peter Kalmus is a NASA scientist who enjoyed the privilege of studying at elite Harvard and Columbia University and now works for NASA. As an affluent coddled government employee, he has chosen to not fly on airplanes since 2012 due to climate fears; his carbon footprint is 1/10th that of average American (Mine is 1/4th and we plan to hit 1/8th). He is a scientist working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration yet founded an organization to discourage air travel. Seems a conflict that would get the rest of us fired if we opposed our own employer and refused our employer’s request to travel. Weird.
Did he do his global travel earlier in life and can now be virtuous in saying he will no longer fly? Those of us that have not traveled will be forced into travel lock downs and denied the experience and knowledge the elite previously obtained. They really do not want the rest of us to fly: We should be taking the high-speed rail service from Los Angeles to Honolulu… and Iceland.
He has engaged in childish pranks like chaining himself to the doors of a bank and encourages kids to go on school strikes (a strike is when people withhold labor from a job, a school strike is when kids cut class – and no one cares because they produce nothing).
Update: December 2022. Peter Kalmus kicked out of American Geophysical Union climate conference and threatened with arrest. Kalmus is based out of Los Angeles but refuses to fly, which means he drove or took a train to Chicago:
As you can see, he could have attended the conference online – but he chose to travel there so he could do a protesting stunt that got him kicked out of the conference.
Since he does not fly, he may have taken up to 4 days of paid time from NASA to drive there, and a similar amount afterwards. Because NASA has loads of money to waste on inefficiencies like this. Further, since he was kicked out of the conference, his attendance provides no benefits to NASA or taxpayers who funded his trip.
The other scientist evicted is Rose Abramoff; she has worked all over the world and now works for the government in Oak Ridge, TN. She studied abroad in England, has worked in Japan and France and undoubtedly has been to conferences all over the planet. Jet travel for her is fine, but not for you, you stupid peon – know your place plebeian! She is part of Scientist Rebellion – which along with Extinction Rebellion are anti-democracy groups that want to end democracy by disrupting civil society and putting the technocratic elite in charge. These are authoritarians – they are smarter than everyone else, and us brain injured peons should fuck off. We are idiots, they are Gods – know our place! Everything will be fine once they are in charge of the world – they know everything so shut up.
They do not believe we can use facts and logic to persuade a population with a democratic government – we must overthrow the government by acting like six-year-olds because this is how smart scientists get things done! Gosh you people are stupid – how dare you question your betters?
Not a Hypocrite – Yvon Chouinard
Patagonia’s founder transfers ownership into two entities to help fight the climate crisis – CNN
His company, Patagonia, was long known for its unique open workspaces, a good place to work, with childcare and other benefits, and advocacy of environmental issues, including direct financial support. However, when younger, he extensively traveled the world, including Europe and parts of Asia, in search of climbing challenges.
In 2022, he donated the entire company to a trust, so that future profits would be used to address climate change. He does have a conflict with his past global travels but he has and is putting forth what appear to be legitimate efforts to promote changes.
Neil Oliver’s Comments on the Hypocrisy of the Elite (NOT a hypocrite)
Neil Oliver is an archaeologist, historian, and television documentary presenter. In this video talk, he cites the hypocrisy of the elite who tell us how to live our lives while they go about spewing tons of carbon emissions and buying indulgences from the carbon church. Says it all much better than I can.
Neil Oliver points to the elite that tell us how to live their lives, but continue living their lives as usual, with carbon footprints the size of countries.
Summary
- Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased. Ice packs in many areas have retreated. This is thought to be caused by human-induced climate change, primarily from burning fuels that emit carbon.
- Climate activists believe we can organize a highly complex sequence of decades long activities to control the climate.
- If we don’t act some say humanity will be extinct by 2030. Seriously.
- Global elite want us to change our ways – but as shown, above, they will not change their own ways and continue to lead a globalist lifestyle of luxury. Their emissions of greenhouse gases are more important than your emissions.
- Many climate activists, including youth activists, have lived a life of global luxury but say the rest of us should revert to lock downs, without future travel. Even though travel has minor impacts on carbon emissions compared to almost everything else.
- Elite activists tell us their goal is to end capitalism and democracy and establish a new global world order, with the global elite in charge. Extinction Rebellion says their goal is that support of 3.5% of the population will enable them to rule the world – thus not only the end of capitalism but the end of democracy itself. Thunberg tells us we must destroy capitalism but offers no alternative – but the destination is obvious -> the end of democracy, freedom and rule by technocratic elite who are smarter than us inferior peons.
- Next up – wealth redistribution, but call it “reparations”, for future climate disaster costs that exist in climate model scenarios (note that recent disease models were so poor that in October 2022, the CDC said they discontinued publishing model outputs because they had “low reliability”). We now blame routine and common weather events on “climate”. It’s a shake down operation. With reparations, wealthier nations will send $2 trillion (by 2030) to countries where citizens openly discuss their government corruption – much of this money will line the pockets of government ministers.
- If climate change is real, the elite are not acting like it is a real issue.
WHAT WE HAVE DONE
We have cut our overall carbon output to about 1/4th that of the average American household and have a goal to reach 1/8th of the average home soon’ish:
- My home has six-inch walls with genuine R-19 (or better) insulation, plus triple pane windows
- We upgraded the attic insulation to R-60 (it’s actually more than R-60 since the insulation installer had excess material to blow in, so they did).
- Solar PV powers our home.
- We donate 1.5 megawatt hours of clean, solar produced electrical generation to our local utility grid, for free, every year. Our utility donates that excess to charitable organizations.
- We installed a 60-amp 220v 14-50 NEMA outlet in the garage and another 220v outlet outside, for future EV charging, which will come from the excess production of our home’s solar PV.
- I continue driving my older car which averages 42 mpg. Based on overall life cycle energy costs, this is more carbon efficient than replacing with an EV. Indeed, one analysis finds that at 200,000 miles of EV driving, an EV reduces carbon emissions by a mere -28% versus a similar sized gas car when considering total lifecycle energy costs. Personal EVs have almost no impact on global carbon emissions (see more on that topic, below).
- We air dry laundry on a clothes rack, seasonally outside, or inside during the winter months.
- Our house is lit with LED lighting, and we rarely have multiple lights on.
- The home is heated by locally sourced wood products made from wood waste; the UN says wood is carbon neutral (since there is energy to collect, process and transport I disagree that it is entirely carbon neutral – but those energy costs occur for all forms of energy too).
- Our central furnace is an electric heat pump, twice as efficient as an electric furnace.
- The house has AC but we manage the house temperature by opening windows at night and cooling down the home’s thermal mass, which remains cool – usually below 77 degrees, all day, without using AC.
- The water heater is electric; we turn it to “Off” or “Vacation” mode when we leave. This is the largest single consumer of electricity in our home.
- We compost all “green stuff” including kitchen scraps.
- We eat little meat (but I am not vegan). If you live in a northern climate, eating “vegan” means huge energy usage to transport fresh fruit and vegetables, year-round, so you can enjoy eating vegan in the wintertime. Think about that when feeling virtuous.
- There is not much we can do, personally, in terms of energy used in food growing, production and distribution, or other products and services, including health care. We have done what we can do directly. Many do not understand that even if you reduce your personal footprint, energy is still used to produce and deliver food, products, and services that make your life possible. All transportation produces an estimated 28% of US carbon emissions – that’s about 10% for ships, large trucks, aircraft and railroads – and 18% for personal vehicles and small business vehicles (pickup trucks, vans, etc). The rest (72% or so) comes from (mostly) electricity generation and industrial processes. Driving an EV only impacts your minor component of greenhouse gases – but only if your electricity is cleanly sourced. If we switched all light vehicles used by consumers and businesses to EV, tomorrow, we might reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as little as 5%. Yet EVs are the major item everyone is pursuing yet their overall greenhouse gas reduction is near meaningless.
- Choices you make influence carbon usage, but sometimes, in ways you did not intend. If you live where 100% of your electricity comes from coal and other fossil generation plants, then buying an EV might make things worse! Conversely, if you live in a place with nearly 100% of your utility power from solar, wind and hydro, investing in solar PV may have no impact on carbon reduction! In the latter case, you’d do better by purchasing an EV! I have an essay on that topic here.
- I had not traveled to Europe until age 63, in 2022. I have now visited one country in Europe. Any additional travel will be under the umbrella of public humiliation “Flight shaming”, of course. The global elite don’t want competition from others having global experiences and knowledge like theirs. I must point out that having international experience is a mandate in many professional fields today and will be extraordinarily important in the 21st century – the most globalized yet in world history. 93% of those with a 4-year degree (U.S.) have traveled internationally, and 70% have been to 3 or more countries. Essentially 100% of upper management has international experience – typically born abroad, lived abroad, worked abroad, or studied abroad and did an internship abroad. 71% of Silicon Valley’s tech workforce was born abroad; 40% of all tech sector employees in the Seattle area were born abroad and 51% of software engineers there were born abroad. Almost 1 in 4 Seattle area workers were born abroad (these data come from The Seattle Times). Even if you do not move abroad, you will be working side by side with globally experienced co-workers, and will be managed by or will manage international workers. Career success will continue to go to those with global experience. If you lack that experience, your career will plateau, stagnate and likely end early.
- The 21st century will be far more global – due to the fertility rate and labor shortage issue, dozens of countries insist they will address this with more immigration. The U.S. plans to import more highly skilled workers, who, are global – and these will be the future leaders in our businesses and organizations. Those who have global experience will thrive. Thus, denying global travel is a way of making the current elite more elite. Americans lacking in global experience will be cut off from future leadership roles.
Public Health’s Covid Response Impacted Trust in Climate Science Too
From 2020 to 2023, the public health/epidemiology/pharmaceutical industry and social media celebrity scientists led to a loss of trust and confidence not only in public health but to all science.
We were pummeled with two and half years of public health inconsistencies, contradictions, incoherent, illogical and often irrational messaging, outright lies and daily “dueling experts” contradicting each other, and calling each other names. Most pandemics last 1-3 years and expire on their own, just like Covid did – in spite of, not because, all the nonsense thrown at Covid. (The WHO, in 2019, pointed out that almost everything that ended up being done for Covid – was known not to work, or would only work briefly – but everyone ignored that.)
Many of us lost trust in “experts” including in climate science – which has numerous similarities and large uncertainties.
We know enormous numbers of public health experts violated their own mandates and directives – and above, we see climate enthusiasts doing the same. Climate activists are as hypocritical as the public health hypocrites who ignored their own rules.
Carbon dioxide increases are concerning – but the technocratic elite are telling us how to live our lives, while they spew vast planet-sized clouds of carbon. Their direct message is they do not believe what they are preaching. Much of what the media tells us about climate is completely false (see the book Unsettled, by Stephen Koonin, PhD, physicist and President Obama’s undersecretary for Science in the DoE).
Climate has become Covid pandemic 2.0 where the experts ignored their own rules: Speaker of British House of Commons suggests Covid lock downs were a dry run for climate lock downs
Yes – really, The Speaker of the British House of Commons said that – the goal is “climate lock downs”.
The effect of the last three years is to have lost trust in all institutions, science and scientists. Public health burned up its entire reputation, and did massive collateral damage to science itself. Celebrity epidemiologists on media and social media, spouting dueling inconsistent nonsense made it even worse.
UPDATE: Oxfordshire County Council (Oxford, UK) has voted to split the city into six “15 minute” regions for the purposes of intracity transportation. Residents may apply to the government for a permit to leave their neighborhood, by car, for up to 100 days during the year (or 2 days per week) (Alternatively, residents may leave their neighborhood to exit the city in an outward direction only). While sold as a way to reduce traffic in areas of the city, this is also seen as a way to reduce carbon emissions. Canterbury is planning to do the same but to limit travel to specific roadways, with violators caught by automated camera systems. It sounds as if the British House Speaker was correct, doesn’t it?
I have no confidence government efforts to control climate will produce more benefits than harms.
We saw this with Covid – most government programs run by elites were ineffective at best and incompetent at worst – and had little to no impact on Covid.
Their “Solutions” were potentially effective for weeks but were non-sustainable and they knew that or should have known that.
As of Sep 2021, per WHO, 60% of the world’s population had had Covid. A pre-print study available in November 2022 estimates that 94% of the U.S. population has had Covid. It’s as if none of what they had us go through made a difference – and certainly little of what they promised us was true. It’s now about day 1,200 of 15 days to flatten the curve ….
At best, their rules yield “winners” and “losers”, where the winners were the globalized, technocratic elite in charge while the rest of us were the losers.
My confidence in government control of climate is the same as confidence in public health: which is none.
Sorry if that viewpoint disappoints you. The elite and the hypocrites have destroyed our ability to trust them.
That said, it makes sense to continually seek efficiency improvements and effective energy reductions – regardless of whether climate change science is real, or less than estimated, or just messed up. You do not need to “believe” in climate change to adopt that approach. Therefore, I will continue to cut our own greenhouse gas footprint and continue to seek improvements in efficiency and effectiveness with our next target being 1/8 the carbon footprint of a typical American home.
I, however, will not spend everyday spewing fear and hysteria, and engaged in self-flagellation over not being “pure enough” but will focus on solutions – not virtue signaling – and will not tell everyone else how to live their lives.
Afterward
Sophia Kianni’s behavior, documented above, and that of the other young climate activists, really, really rubbed me the wrong way – a global elite, global traveler who co-chaired a manifesto saying we should not travel – but not only is it okay for her to travel the world, everything is about her – look at those posts of hers from around the world and at COP27 – it’s all about self-promotion that she is better than the rest of us peons. At 20 years old, she confuses her wealth, youth, and pretty privilege for intellectual fire power. In 2022, I visited Europe for the first time – and I’m 3x her age. But since I was born at the peak of the baby boom (a fact over which I had no control), I am the one at fault for theoretical catastrophic climate change.
These self-centered, narcissistic, wealthy kids tell the rest of us how to live our lives while they go about their elite lifestyle, preaching how virtuous they are. Almost none of them participate in developing solutions – that requires study and work in science and engineering. Instead, they study public policy and political science, learn to how milk a career as professional whiners, and jet about telling the rest of us to fix things because we are horrible people.
These behaviors of climate activists are an absolute turnoff.
Continue on to Part 2:
