Climate change is a global societal problem - any one persons carbon footprint doesn't really matter. Living the life of a carbon saint does very little to solve the problem, it just eases the individual's conscience in a misguided way.
Sure, it would be nice if the UN staff lived low carbon lifestyles, but if by some miracle they managed to actually do something about the problem, it would be more than worth their unavoidable hypocrisy.
The vast majority of our leaders are scum, and we don't seem to care to elect better ones...
Climate change is a global societal problem - any one persons carbon footprint doesn't really matter. Living the life of a carbon saint does very little to solve the problem, it just eases the individual's conscience in a misguided way.
I've heard this rebuttal many times, but that's not what anybody means when pointing out the hypocrisy. We're not talking about Joe Smith off the street. Obviously Al Gore's heated swimming pool or Obama's beachfront vacation mansion or some celebrity ski weekends to Switzerland have near zero global-scale environmental damage. That's not the point. We're not talking about the physical things or the physical result of the things but the public's psychological response of these people's actions and how other's perceive it. That matters perhaps millions of times more than the physical and chemical interactions of these people moving atoms around physically during their lives. That kind of behavior sure doesn't seem congruous with an individual who holds true conviction and lectures the rest of us about the massive dangerous of our wasteful lifestyles. Instead, they look like the behavior of an opportunist who is using the cause du jour to increase personal power.
Tons of people will notice this and conclude it is a giant crock of shit. And they would be correct that the facts and behaviors are not congruous here with the claimed conviction about the severity of the "crisis" these people claim. When the stated program requires coordinated behavior changes from all over but the leaders who actually have a leveraged ability to both impact policy and public relations through absolutely minimal and trivial self sacrifice of not buying a mansion show total disregard in their personal actions, it becomes pretty clear they just don't care and are more interested in power.
Humans don't like unfairness, and they don't like hypocrisy in their leaders. These are actually pretty good heuristics because if leaders can't sense this and formulate a plan without those problems, they're probably pretty shitty leaders because those traits don't tend to go along with leaders who get results.
Sure, it would be nice if the UN staff lived low carbon lifestyles, but if by some miracle they managed to actually do something about the problem, it would be more than worth their unavoidable hypocrisy.
See my point above. It's not like these people are getting results despite their hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, nonexistent principles, greed, etc and shitty results tend to be correlated. And we as "commoners" shouldn't defend out team's bad behavior just because we believe in the cause. Ultimately we pay a bigger long-term cost by alienating others from the cause by showing that we ourselves don't really believe in integrity and truth. The same applies to failing to call out shitty "science" and fear mongering journalism too, but this comment has already gotten long enough.
We're not talking about the physical things or the physical result of the things but the public's psychological response of these people's actions and how other's perceive it.
These are actually pretty good heuristics because if leaders can't sense this and formulate a plan without those problems, they're probably pretty shitty leaders because those traits don't tend to go along with leaders who get results.
That sounds nice, but I think our leaders are corrupt hypocritical scum - it doesn't stop them getting stuff done when those who matter want it. We end up following orders regardless of the hypocrisy, their moral standing, and whether the particular laws are popular or not. People mostly do what their told (often via ideas they're fed by the media), and that includes being offended by whatever hypocrisy we're supposed to be offended by.
If we had hypocrites who somehow wished to do the right thing about climate change, I think they technically could get stuff done. Leaders with integrity would of course be leagues better, but they don't seem to be on the menu - we have been lost for a long time.
More people would believe this if these phukers weren't flying every weekend on their private jets to their third vacation homes in Jackson Hole or to smooze with other globalists in Davos while lecturing the rest of us about how we need to eat bugs to save the earth. Lead by example.