That’s not coming from me. It’s coming from The Guardian:
People who believe they have the greenest lifestyles can be seen as some of the main culprits behind global warming, says a team of researchers, who claim that many ideas about sustainable living are a myth.
According to the researchers, people who regularly recycle rubbish and save energy at home are also the most likely to take frequent long-haul flights abroad. The carbon emissions from such flights can swamp the green savings made at home, the researchers claim.
Stewart Barr, of Exeter University, who led the research, said: “Green living is largely something of a myth. There is this middle class environmentalism where being green is part of the desired image. But another part of the desired image is to fly off skiing twice a year. And the carbon savings they make by not driving their kids to school will be obliterated by the pollution from their flights.”
So, just as a hypothetical, let’s say you’re an aging, multimillionaire pop star who babbles a lot about how WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM GLOBAL WARMING, but you can’t get enough of traveling in private jets to get to one of your many palatial homes after touring with the most pollutionistical band in the world. Great news: You’re just like the rest of us! Literally. Your wastefulness equals all the rest of us put together.
There are three parts to the whole conservation philosophy: reduce, reuse, recycle.
It seems to me is that no one (especially not the overfed illegitimates promoting this green business – oh look, a double entendre!) wants to ever really think about the first two parts of this equation.
Note, too, that there’s also a very good reason reducing and reusing come before recycling.
Shocking. People not living up to what they Preach? Say it ain’t so. Maybe people should stop being so preach-y…it reminds me of a song.
Millions of Preaches, Preaches for me
Millions of Preaches, Preaches for Free- LOOK OUT!
Sorry, really hungover today.
I think I’m pretty green, though I don’t over-do it. I’m a vegan so at least I don’t exploit animals. However, environmentally friendly, hmm, well, lots of my clothes are PVC so maybe I don’t help out much in that department.
Putting aside the issue of private jets… The more people on each commercial airline flight, the more efficient it is, right? So how is taking up airline seats that might otherwise go empty not green?
I always laugh when guys with a bin full of paper newspapers and empty Diet Coke cans try to tell me how green they are.
“I always laugh when guys with a bin full of paper newspapers and empty Diet Coke cans try to tell me how green they are.”
It takes way more energy to recycke something than it does to bury it.
Recyclers are energy wasting hypocrites.
My roommate claims to be going green but has no problem cheering for Palin supporting offshore drilling and cranking up the AC when opening a window does just enough good.
I understand recycling garbage, my point was simply remove the behaviors that produce the garbage.
There is no reason to subscribe to paper magazines anymore.
Every day the New York Times sends 1.2 million newspapers out (10M per week).
Thats 520 million newspapers per year being produced, that whether they go in recycling or landfills, don’t need to be produced.
News is fresher, more balnaced, and free when you pull it from a variety of legitimate sources online.
Likewise, instead of recycling your aluminum cans, just remove the behavior that produces all the aluminum cans to begin with. Water’s and a lot better for you than all that caffeine and sodium in Diet Coke, and there’s not 1820 empty aluminum cans (at five Diet Cokes per day) that need to be recycled or trashed.
GoMeg. You roomie is right, off shore drilling is more green than what we have now.
You those Billions of barrels of oil just teleport to our country?
I have personally found this to be true. I know someone who thinks he is very green but takes multiple trips overseas a year. There is so much bull about recycling out there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THuLYUEpcFg
This right wing nut leads a “greener” lifestyle than 100% of these entertainment/media blowhards by basically not doing anything differently.
I’ve stopped flushing toilets to save water. Now I just pee in the sink!
Whenever I hear about someone or something being green, it just makes me think they’re envious. Of what I’m not quite sure and really I couldn’t be bothered to find out what. But I love the Earth, I’m all for getting an electric Corvette. Or natural gas or whatever.
Well I applaude everyone for cutting back so that I can crank up my air conditioner and increase my carbon foot print!!
Wow…article that way overgeneralizes, doesn’t explain any of it’s resources or methods of research says that people who recycle are all so rich that they take trips all the time…imagine that! Gosh, I didn’t realize I had so much money!
Totally ignorant argument. It makes it seem like people are skiing INSTEAD of driving the kids to school, and so are just moving the problem from one spot to another.
The REAL case it that the two are independent. These people are going to take the ski trip anyway.
So, since it’s generally not possible to WALK OR BIKE to your favorite ski destination, you pretty much HAVE TO FLY or DRIVE. But driving or not driving the kids to school is someplace where you can make a reasonable cut back, and by doing so, you ARE making a difference.
The point is to cut back where and how you can, not to become a hermit and completely freeze your life.
Eric, I think you missed the point of the post. The researchers aren’t saying, don’t take a ski vacation, they’re saying, your flight to that ski vacation may cancel out other environmentally conscious things you do at home.
And Simon is pointing out the hypocrisy of Hollywood stars (and English pop artists) who brag about how green they are and preach that others should be as virtuous, but who also take wasteful private flights all over the world.
No one’s telling anyone to become a hermit. But you could be one if you want.
What about the folks who still get newspapers for animals? Shelters line their cat and small dog cages with them, if folks transfered strictly to the internet, there would have to be a whole seperate industry for making papers for cats to sleep on.
I get old newpapers because my hedgehog likes to play in it.
I know folks who recycle glass they find on the road with a blowtorch into jewlery.
Plastic sacks into balls of plastic yarn (to make shopping bags out of).
There are so many ways to reduce reuse. You don’t have to put everything in blue bins.
Maybe I’m just speaking for the lower class though, we really can’t afford to do much else.
I don’t use plastic shopping bags if I can help it and I recycle them if I do get them…. but I use Ziplocks in the kitchen and throw them out. My computer’s also on 24/7. I have no room to judge.
It’s 57 degrees outside right now. I have the A/C CRANKIN’!!
Take that peta!
I agree with Eric and Peachfish. It’s a poorly written, poorly argued article. So everyone who recycles is crazy rich and flies a lot. And is British.
It’s all about doing what you can. Just because I want to recycle doesn’t mean I can’t travel. It just means I won’t charter a private jet for me and my cat.