People rationalize their own behavior. This is why popular and easy get in the way of hard but productive solutions. And people will fight against the productive while paying lip service to the “mission” because they would have to examine their lives and change their lives. An indulgence is just too easy.

In his mind he will believe his speech will convince 100,000 of his fans to recycle or eat less meat. Making his speech responsible for saving 50,000 tons. Ignoring that they heard the same speech a hundred times and the recycling isn’t really helpful.
So the .5 ton “saved” by recycling will get counted toward 5 speeches, 3 politicians, 4 actors, 3 environmental groups and won’t have been a real .5 ton savings since most recycling isn’t real.

Not only are these "elites" just a bunch of hypocrites; but the crap in the following quote is very irksome to me:

"I suspect this issue dogs him internally, and he is torn between living the good life of a Hollywood movie star, and sacrificing in order to set a good example."

And just how does the author know that this "dogs him internally"? The truth is the author does NOT know and is in a sort of way making an excuse for the rich lecturing us while doing worse.

The same is true with guns. Many of the "elites" will talk about getting rid of guns while having armed body guards. The excuse is that they "need" protection. And the rest of us don't? The elderly woman living in the projects doesn't need a Saturday night special to protect herself from the gang bangers?

You've hit the nail of the head, Amy, with you're last sentence.

Private jet, no less. Not even first class commercial.

"I suspect this issue dogs him internally, and he is torn between living the good life of a Hollywood movie star, and sacrificing in order to set a good example."

Nah. His publicity team tells him that the media is buying it and it's all good, so he doesn't give it a second thought. After all, he's a Very Important Person, and it's not reasonable to apply the rules to him. He has Important Work to do!

"Many of the 'elites' will talk about getting rid of guns while having armed body guards. The excuse is that they 'need' protection. And the rest of us don't?"

No, we don't, because we are interchangeable parts. The deaths of a few hoi-polloi, or a few hundred, or a few thousand, or a few million, simply do not matter -- there will always be more where those came from. That's the standard they apply to personal defense -- wait until they apply that same standard to health care.

Some animals are more equal than others.

Environmentalism is a religion. In a speech to the Commonwealth Club, Michael Crichton laid it out:

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.

There is a Heaven and a Hell - the Heaven of a pollution-free paradise, this is if we're worthy, and the Hell of a flooded, over-warm planet, if we fail to be worthy, if we fail to abide by The Word.

And, like so much of organized religion, the elders live in comfort while the flock struggles to feed itself - ostensibly because the elders are doing "God's work" and they must be enabled to carry it on. Meanwhile, no one dare question why the bishop lives in a stone castle while the penitent lives in a mud hut. And, there's no shortage of missionaries willing to take a vow of poverty today for a shot at an eternal reward later.

Even the ambivalent of the flock go through the motions, separating the recyclables and putting the blue bin at the curb every Thursday, lest the faithful denounce them.

If you ever wondered how the medieval Catholic Church got so powerful, just watch the environmentalist movement today. Same game plan.

Harry tried to address the charge of royal hypocrisy in his Amsterdam press conference. 'We can all do better... no one is perfect', he said.

Maybe you should...stay home? how many castles, mansions, estates, etc does your family own? maybe you can stay in Balmoral and move from one wing to the other, and from one floor to another through out the year? you have...options.

Maybe you, your wife, Leo, AlGore and the boffins from Google can use this amazing new technology called "The Interwebs" and do something called "Skype" to hold your confabs from the comfort of your own homes? no having to pack your bags, multi hour flights, and passport control to worry about?

With that information in hand, they planted thousands of trees, creating The Leonardo DiCaprio Forest in Mexico, to offset his carbon dioxide emissions.

Let me guess, this is next to the Prince Harry Forest? or maybe it is the Prince Harry Forest. Without an independent audit, we have no idea if you are planting trees or not, or if you plant a set of trees and rent them as carbon offsets to multiple sucke...clients?

You know who plants forests? Georgia-Pacific and Weyerhaeuser.

As Instapundit is wont to say, I'll believe the problem is serious when the people who tell me it is a problem act like it is a problem. Also: not one damn word about my carbon footprint.

Nah. His publicity team tells him that the media is buying it and it's all good, so he doesn't give it a second thought.

Worse than that, all his friends applaud him for his progressive behaviour. Even tho he flew on private jet to the Cannes Film Festival, and then his girlfriend flew separately in another private jet to join him.

With that information in hand, they planted thousands of trees, creating The Leonardo DiCaprio Forest in Mexico, to offset his carbon dioxide emissions.

So, his indulgences are thus transformed into monuments to his own ego, St. Leo of the Church of Environmentalism. I'll bet there's no mention on the plaque about how this "generous gift" was planted in order to pay for the benefactor's global jet-setting.

As Instapundit is wont to say, I'll believe the problem is serious when the people who tell me it is a problem act like it is a problem. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at September 5, 2019 7:41 AM

The Obamas buy a multi-million dollar beachfront house on an island while warning us that the ocean levels are in danger of rising precipitously and wiping out coastal communities, and islands.

The DiCaprios and Windsors fly private jets to their various retreats and houses all over the world; all while telling "the Great Unwashed" to give up a reliable power supply in favor of windmills and solar panels, take crowded and unreliable public transit everywhere, and use clothes lines.

Al Gore lives in a 28,000 square foot mansion that uses 21 times more power than the average US house (even with the Gores purchasing solar and wind energy), but he wins an Oscar for a "documentary" warning us that heavy energy use is destroying the planet and killing polar bears.

In 1517, a young German priest, Martin Luther, nailed 99 Theses to the doors of the cathedral in Wittenburg to highlight and protest hypocrisy and corruption in the Catholic Church. Luther's protest set off the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps we need a modern-day Martin Luther.

1) You will use the misbehavior of this man to excuse your own.

2) In that process, you will fail to note that even as priests molest children, millions of religious people behave morally with their religion as a guide.

The point is that the behavior of the ruling class - which we put there - shouldn't have been your guide at all.

PS: if you really cared about the total environmental impact of your car, you'd have a secondhand Buick LeSabre - especially since the fuel savings of a hybrid depends on continuous city driving, not sitting in its parking space.

In that process, you will fail to note that even as priests molest children, millions of religious people behave morally with their religion as a guide. ~ Radwaste at September 5, 2019 10:31 AM

And you will note that misbehavior by a small percentage of ordained priests and the subsequent cover-up by those in power is driving people away from the Catholic Church and staining the Church's reputation and credibility - this despite many Catholics living moral and upstanding lives. The behavior of those preaching to others matters.

You will use the misbehavior of this man to excuse your own.

I try to be a good steward. What I don't want is to be preached at by a man who sees a splinter in my eye whilst ignoring the 8'x4"x4" hanging out of his own. Physician, heal thyself.

Meanwhile:

https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0

A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.

He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.

In case you glanced over it, I'll highlight the relevant portion: if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

Theory is supposed to be able to predict. A good theory predicts accurately. Wither the refugees?