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c9A couple recent items...
1. Dr David Suzuki is being skewered by right wing blogs and columnists in Canada. He's a huge environmental activist in Canada -- for like 40 years -- and he's on a big climate change tour across the country. His team is traveling in a specially-painted bus. To account for the greenhouse gas emissions of the bus, he is going to purchase carbon offsets for every bit or air, train, bus, and car travel. This is a way to essentially donate money to research into non-GHG power generation (among other things), offsetting the GHG emissions from the bus. It's a free-market, capitalist approach to the problem of excess GHG emissions and/or air pollution. It's actually part of the Kyoto Protocol's bag of tricks too: if Canada doesn't meet its Kyoto commitment, it can purchase carbon offsets (sometimes called credits) from other countries. While Dr Suzuki is promoting government regulation of GHG emissions, he's doing something about his own emissions now, with his own money.
2. Al Gore is being skewered by right wing blogs and columnists across North America. He comes from a rich Southern family, and they have a mansion. Apparently, big houses use more electricity than small houses, and therefore Gore must be a hypocrite. Despite the fact that he's also purchased carbon offsets for his energy usage (and all his plane travel and so forth). While Mr Gore is promoting government regulation of GHG emissions, he's doing something about his own emissions now, with his own money.
So let's review: individual makes major contribution to public discourse on environmental awareness and climate change. Individual happens to use gas or fly in a plane. Therefore everything else the individual does or says is irrelevant. Makes sense to me.
It's funny, and a bit sad. "Nobody should tell you how to live your life or how to use energy, and the free market should rule all" is a common (and overly simplistic, truth be told) way of describing right-wing views on climate change. Yet here's a great opportunity to complain about Al Gore and David Suzuki. Convenient how the only environmentalist that's OK by some people is a tree-hugging hemp-wearing cave-dwelling luddite, and that sort of individual has a hard time getting any press at all. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
1. Dr David Suzuki is being skewered by right wing blogs and columnists in Canada. He's a huge environmental activist in Canada -- for like 40 years -- and he's on a big climate change tour across the country. His team is traveling in a specially-painted bus. To account for the greenhouse gas emissions of the bus, he is going to purchase carbon offsets for every bit or air, train, bus, and car travel. This is a way to essentially donate money to research into non-GHG power generation (among other things), offsetting the GHG emissions from the bus. It's a free-market, capitalist approach to the problem of excess GHG emissions and/or air pollution. It's actually part of the Kyoto Protocol's bag of tricks too: if Canada doesn't meet its Kyoto commitment, it can purchase carbon offsets (sometimes called credits) from other countries. While Dr Suzuki is promoting government regulation of GHG emissions, he's doing something about his own emissions now, with his own money.
2. Al Gore is being skewered by right wing blogs and columnists across North America. He comes from a rich Southern family, and they have a mansion. Apparently, big houses use more electricity than small houses, and therefore Gore must be a hypocrite. Despite the fact that he's also purchased carbon offsets for his energy usage (and all his plane travel and so forth). While Mr Gore is promoting government regulation of GHG emissions, he's doing something about his own emissions now, with his own money.
So let's review: individual makes major contribution to public discourse on environmental awareness and climate change. Individual happens to use gas or fly in a plane. Therefore everything else the individual does or says is irrelevant. Makes sense to me.
It's funny, and a bit sad. "Nobody should tell you how to live your life or how to use energy, and the free market should rule all" is a common (and overly simplistic, truth be told) way of describing right-wing views on climate change. Yet here's a great opportunity to complain about Al Gore and David Suzuki. Convenient how the only environmentalist that's OK by some people is a tree-hugging hemp-wearing cave-dwelling luddite, and that sort of individual has a hard time getting any press at all. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-05 02:36 pm (UTC)And a criticism that I saw applied to Suzuki can also be applied to Gore - why must he travel? All that traveling is horrible for the environment, and in the Internet age, it is completely unnecessary. I expect that Gore knows enough about the Internet to know that.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-05 02:43 pm (UTC)It's true, they don't have to travel to be available to communicate. Suzuki is a great example of this, since he's been an activist without travel for 30-40 years -- TV shows, interviews, phone calls, letters, websites. But as you know being in the same room as someone has a much different impact than just being in a webcam window. They make a larger impact by traveling. That, combined with their promotion of conservation in others, and their actual conservation and purchase of offsets, makes for a much larger overall impact.