Taking the Private Jet to Copenhagen

[jus_the_facts]

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article6931572.ece


*snips*

Any celebrity flying the green flag needs glittering eco-credentials. But how do they justify the fleet of customised planes, the luxury homes and the posse of servants?

U2’s latest world tour features three stages and a giant claw that ensures as many spectators as possible get a decent view. Alas, transporting the whole shebang around the world is estimated by www.carbonfootprint.com to produce the carbon equivalent of the annual emissions of 6,500 British homes — or a rocket trip to Mars and back.

At the end of the film An Inconvenient Truth, the unbearably earnest former presidential candidate Al Gore asked his audience: “Are you ready to change the way you live?” His own huge Nashville mansion consumed over 20 times the electricity of an average American home. Indeed, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, it burnt twice as much power in the month of August 2006 than most American homes do in an entire year. Another inconvenient truth revealed that the former senator spent $500 a month just to heat the indoor swimming pool in his lavish domestic establishment. The 100ft houseboat he bought in 2008, on the other hand, was said to be powered by biodiesel.


The Copenhagen summit next week will generate vast quantities of hot air. It will see 16,500 people coming in from 192 countries. That amounts to 41,000 tons of carbon dioxide, roughly the same as the carbon emissions of Morocco in 2006. Also, the organisers will lay 900 kilometres of computer cable and 50,000 square miles of carpet. More than 200,000 meals will be served and visitors will drink 200,000 cups of coffee — at least that will be organic.

[cliffordu]

1. Here's a question:

How many miles did you drive last year??

[jus_the_facts]

3. Way less than a thousand ...my '89 Corsica finally died. n/t

[cliffordu]

4. Excellent.

I did almost 9 years without one...My wife inherited one this year and now I'm driving entirely too much, but if my luck holds, this car will self destruct after another month or two of my ownership.

Then I can go back to being a bicycle jerk.

[jus_the_facts]

6. Yep and being 20 yrs. old it has less than 65K miles too.

[jus_the_facts]

8. And for the record ...I've never ever been on an airplane either.

:)

[Sultana]

29. You should try, it's very fun

:D

[jus_the_facts]

30. I think I'd have to eat a bucket of anxiety meds to try it....

....but if I ever did...my destination would be the UK...there's this castle there that happens to bear my first name and ever since I discovered this fact...it's been my dream to visit it. :D


http://www.amberleycastle.co.uk/

[Sultana]

51. It's a breeze, I say go for it

Oooh, that castle is pretty.


The UK is nice, it's a shame I didn't go to see any castles in my 4 months there. But there is next, lol.

[jus_the_facts]

52. Havin' a really hard time keepin' a roof over my head these daze...

....too poor to entertain flights of fancy like that...unfortunately.

[Sultana]

53. True, things are so expensive these days

x(

The thing I hated most was converting my dollars into british pounds. Bring back the good ol' days. :cry:

[marmar]

2. A Rupert Murdoch-owned paper attacks Al Gore? .... I'm SHOCKED !!!

nt

[blogslut]

5. Hologram concerts and appearances, baby

I'm telling ya. They're coming.

PS: Thanks for yet another same-old-whine from the cheese factory.

[jus_the_facts]

11. Hypocrisy knows no bounds...

...stinky is as stinky does.

[blogslut]

22. Lookit

I understand the basic premise - Traveling produces excess carbon. Al Gore's house is large. U2 has a massive stage show and just might be in it for the money.

Here's the thing. This is the meat of the rebuttal from pro-climate destructionists. That's all they've got. The attack the messenger instead of defending their positions because their positions are indefensible.

Notice how the writer of the article neglects to mention that Mr. Gore completely upgraded his home so that it is now carbon neutral? Did you also see how the writer devoted all of one paragraph to the famous people that truly live a sustainable lifestyle? Are you aware that this was an opinion piece posing as the voice of the masses? So what if Sting's wife flies her pregnant chef to make soup? How does that justify the life-destroying practices of oil and coal producers and the corporations that love them?

[jus_the_facts]

31. I didn't take the article as a voice of the masses.....

....but as a veiw into the lives of a few people who don't practice what they preach.

[blogslut]

34. Then, answer me this

Do you make any personal effort to live a more sustainable lifestyle? Will you use the supposed hypocrisy of a few celebrities as an excuse to be ecologically irresponsible? Are you a person who does not believe that humans are destroying their own environment?

[jus_the_facts]

36. Other posts in this thread speak to my personal lifestyle if you care to read them...

....the celebrities have exposed themselves by their own hypocrisy and irresponsibility and I've ranted and railed about the environment for years around here.

[blogslut]

40. Then I don't see the problem

Why should the actions of others matter? How is pointing out the purported hypocrisy of celebrities going to change anything?

[jus_the_facts]

48. WTF? You've all ready tried to argue how my own actions matter....

....their actions are MUCH more damaging to the environment than poor people like me because they're the one's with the most means to make the most difference..yet the poor are going to be the ones to suffer and pay the price because the elite won't be inconvenienced much..if at all.

The actions of others is the entire point and problem and should be pointed out repeatedly and often... especially the rich and infamous *aka our RULERS* because they'll continue to think they deserve to live their gluttonous lives anyway they damn please...and the rest of us can eat cake.

I haven't had any kids to continue the carnage either btw...I realized a long time ago I couldn't afford any and neither can the planet.

[blogslut]

49. I'm glad for you

Good for you.

[Soylent Brice]

21. +1 holograms

they are coming. sooner than some would want to believe.

[AngryAmish]

37. It will never work

People go to concerts to feel somehow connected with the performer, to get the rub of fame off of them. Can't do that with a hologram.

[blogslut]

41. I disagree

I'm not saying that live appearances will end. I'm saying that hologram concerts will be born out of financial necessity. Touring is ridiculously expensive and draining to the artist, both emotionally and physically. While I concede that people attend concerts to see the artist live, they also attend for the shared experience - in the same vein that people go to the movie theater.

I predict that performing artists will produce one live show and that show will be converted into a holographic replica that will go on tour. Full-fledged concert replicas are a way off but they will happen.

[AngryAmish]

46. People will not pay a lot for a concert where the artist is not there

Concert films (excepting Jacko) do not do well. IF they did there would be a new Rattle and Hum every week.

People crave celebrity. We are social animals and want the reflected glory as being in the same room as someone with high status.

Until it gets good enough so you can someohow interact and be fooled that it is a real person, then I don't think it will be common. However, it may be more cost effective, so who knows.

No more concerts for me though. I ruined my hearing back in the 80s so anything louder than loud conversation sounds like static to me.

Cheers.

[blogslut]

47. We'll just have to let time tell the tale

I've been predicting hologram concerts since the late 80's. Could be that people will have home holographic projectors or whatever and won't need to go to a concert hall. There's also the possibility for singular holographic entertainment via some sort of headgear thingy. The leap from the wire-frame imagery of Nintendo Virtual Boy to a fully-fleshed, 3D visual/audio device is probably already in existence.

EDIT ADD: Coppolla was predicting computer entertainment chips implanted directly into user's brains in the early 90's.

[robinlynne]

7. simply not true. Al Gore made his home/life carbon neutral. he may use electricity

but he offsets it. So I call bullshit.

[cali]

9. he improved on the atrocious energy consumption of his house

but no, it's not "carbon neutral".

[Romulox]

12. I'm not sure I understand the logic of "offsets"--I may be a pig, but I'm RICH!

:shrug:

Also, Al Gore would have a hard time reconciling his advocacy for "free trade" with countries with poor environmental records, such as China, with his alleged "environmentalism", even if his massive overconsumption is not considered.

[Dreamer Tatum]

19. +1,000,000

If we have just HOURS left to save the environment, then don't take the private jet with the idea that you'll pay someone to plant a tree in Canada.

[robinlynne]

38. alleged? for every bit of carbon he emits he pays to have exactly that same amount removed from the

earth. That is what cap and trade is all about. if you create X amount of pollution you clean up, or pay someone to clean up the exact same amount of pollution. that is called carbon neutral. if everyone did what Gore does there would be NO pollution, NO greenhouse gas emission at all on this earth. That is the goal.

[Obamanaut]

42. The way you describe it there would be a constant supply of jobs

cleaning up the pollution tha people like Gore make. If you make X amount, and pay someone to clean it up, it isn't that there is NO pollution, it is simply cleaned up by the little worker bees.

[robinlynne]

43. There will be. of course. All of the small companies who are developing ways of removing carbon from

the atmosphere will get funding all of a sudden. that is the MAIN point of carbon trading.

[Deja Q]

18. Carbon credits are a credit card.

Carbon credits = bearing interest in an existing balance. If he believed in it, he'd lower it. Not play fuzzy math games.

[robinlynne]

39. not at all. You remove carbon from the earth. Or you can pay someone else to remove carbon from the

earth. The effect is identical. If my dog poops on the ground I can either clean it up or pay someone to clean it up. the important thing is that it is cleaned up. It is that simple. The whole point of this is to stimulate the creation of companies who will clean the carbon form the atmosphere and a way of paying for it. Instead of tax dollars paying for it, the polluting companies need to pay for it.

[kestrel91316]

10. You again. With the same old RW talking points......

[jus_the_facts]

13. LOL...nice try.

:eyes:

[Romulox]

14. "Inconvenient truths", eh?

What makes the above facts "RW"? :shrug:

[Deja Q]

17. Nothing RW about it at all. Unless you like double-standards and/or hypocrisy.

See #16 below for more information and comparison. The general rule is, if you're for something, you don't preach it while doing the exact opposite. (I cited an apropos example in #16 too.)

[Dreamer Tatum]

20. What does one do when a "RW Talking Point" ends up being, well, factual?

You run and hide, is my guess.

[BeFree]

15. Hurtling over the cliff

Full speed ahead!!

Just watch... we'll save the world by making as much pollution as we can as fast as we can.

Ya know, they probably are (the elites) gathering over there so they can put their heads together to figure out how they (the elites) can survive?

Nah, they wouldn't do that, eh?

[jus_the_facts]

23. Nothing would surprise me at this point...

....it's always "do as we say not as we do" and it always hurts us *little people* most of all.

[BeFree]

25. Some of us can see

And the rest? What is it that makes them blind?

[jus_the_facts]

26. Your guess is as good as mine....my cynicism is from accurate observation....

....there will never be any utopian society for all as politics would lead us to believe...but some seem to be unable to wrap their heads around the truth no matter how hard or how many times it bashes them in the face. :shrug:

[BeFree]

27. Yep

And the rich got rich because they are concerned about making a utopia, eh?

Some folks seem to think that the elites really do care about the rest of the world.

[Deja Q]

16. It's been a couple years, but as of 2007 he still used private jets and wasted electricity...

Plenty of literally wasteful uses of electricity all in that room. Yes, he was vying for a different reaction, but it didn't work.

The last I read, I think Gore did move to somewhere a bit more eco-friendly, but being hot-to-trot on ecological concerns and having such a hoggy mansion that even Snopes.com would smack him silly by comparing him to BUSH of all people - I recall bush left his ranch too, so a new comparison may as well be made, for what it's worth.)

Bono is another double-standard-on-legs when it comes to green talk.

Maybe not phonies, but enough to engender a lot of valid criticism.

And people wonder why the issue isn't taken seriously. Like Newt and "family values", you cannot have your spokesman preaching one thing while engaging in the exact opposite. That is a universal truism.

[Zywiec]

28. I love the three huge monitors and TV all going at the same time. n/t

[Thothmes]

35. Notice the window is open

[WhollyHeretic]

24. There is definitely plenty of hypocrisy but this article is a load of crap. 50,000 square miles

of carpet? That would be impossible even if you carpeted the entire fucking city. You would have to carpet the city 50 times over. 900 kilometers of computer cable? That's almost 200 feet per person. I'm guessing it's going to be mostly wireless. 200,000 meals? So the people wouldn't be eating those meals if they didn't come to the conference?

[Blue_In_AK]

32. My sister-in-law has been invited to Copenhagen

to participate in discussions about global warming and the Arctic. She's not going by private jet, though.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

33. Right-wing bullshit.

This stuff about Gore's house has been discredited many times over.

[csziggy]

44. Here is the link to the Snopes article

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/gorehome.asp

Some important points not covered in the report, however, was whether equating the Gores' home to the average American home was really a relevant comparison. A spokesperson for the Gore family responded by noting some mitigating factors, such as the fact that the Gores' Nashville residence isn't an "average" house - it's about four times larger than the average new American home built in 2006, and it essentially functions as both a residence and a business office since both Al and Tipper work out of their home. The Tennessean also noted that the Gores had been paying a $432 per month premium on their monthly electricity bills in order to obtain some of their electricity from "green" sources (i.e., solar or other renewable energy sources). Other factors (such as the climate in the area where the home is located and its size) make the Gore home's energy usage comparable to that of other homes in the same area.

The former vice-president maintained that comparing raw energy-usage figures is misleading and that he leads what he advocates, a "carbon-neutral lifestyle," by purchasing energy from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and methane gas to balance out the carbon emissions produced in generating the electricity his home uses:

Kalee Kreider, a spokesperson for the Gores, pointed out that both Al and Tipper Gore work out of their home and she argued that "the bottom line is that every family has a different carbon footprint. And what Vice President Gore has asked is for families to calculate that footprint and take steps to reduce and offset it."

The vice president has done that, Kreider argues, and the family tries to offset that carbon footprint by purchasing their power through the local Green Power Switch program - electricity generated through renewable resources such as solar, wind, and methane gas, which create less waste and pollution. "In addition, they are in the midst of installing solar panels on their home, which will enable them to use less power," Kreider added. "They also use compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy efficiency measures and then they purchase offsets for their carbon emissions to bring their carbon footprint down to zero."

The former vice president has installed solar panels, a rainwater-collection system and geothermal heating. He also replaced all incandescent lights with compact fluorescent or light-emitting diode bulbs. "Short of tearing it down and staring anew, I don't know how it could have been rated any higher," said Kim Shinn of the U.S. Green Building Council, which gave the house its second-highest rating for sustainable design. Gore's improvements cut the home's summer electrical consumption by 11 percent compared with a year ago, according to utility records reviewed by The Associated Press. Most Nashville homes used 20 percent to 30 percent more electricity during the same period because of a record heat wave.

Would it be more environmentally responsible if both Al and Tipper Gore commuted to offices outside the house?

[Romulox]

50. No matter how you try to justify or "offset" it, it would be better for the earth if Al Gore

it would be better for the earth if Al Gore consumed less. There is no "new math" argument against that, I'm afraid. Nor is "naturally they use more electricity; they live in a mansion!" a winning argument.

A lot of these justifications are just flat out illogical:

The former vice-president maintained that comparing raw energy-usage figures is misleading and that he leads what he advocates, a "carbon-neutral lifestyle," by purchasing energy from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and methane gas to balance out the carbon emissions produced in generating the electricity his home uses:

Huh? He "offsets" his production of CO2 by...using even more energy? Talk about self-serving! :eyes:

Bottom line: if Al Gore truly believes overconsumption is a threat to the species survival, it is incumbent upon him to consume less--he is an absolutely glutton compared to the average person. His actions speak much louder than his words.

[boppers]

45. "a rocket trip to Mars and back"??

Uhm, a rocket trip would *remove* earth carbon, and scatter the product in space, no?