Rajendra Pachauri is the homeless guy Director General of the Energy and Resources Institute and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That’s the UN group that assesses information related to climate change. (Pachauri’s website argues that the IPCC is “one of the greatest global knowledge organisations.” Bitch, pleeeze…)
Pachauri and the IPCC shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore in 2007. So you know he cares a lot about the environment and climate change. It’s his job.
According to the London Observer, Pachauri’s opinions are as follows:
Among the proposals highlighted by Pachauri were the suggestion that hotel guests should be made responsible for their energy use. “I don’t see why you couldn’t have a meter in the room to register your energy consumption from air-conditioning or heating and you should be charged for that,” he said. “By bringing about changes of this kind, you could really ensure that people start becoming accountable for their actions.”
Pachauri also proposed that governments use taxes on aviation to provide heavy subsidies for other forms of transport. “We should make sure there is a huge difference between the cost of flying and taking the train,” he said. Despite the fact that there is often little benefit in time and convenience in short-haul flights, he said people were still making the “irrational” choice to fly. Taxation should be used to discourage them.
And yet as The Corner points out, Pachauri flies everywhere. Which is, by his own words, irrational.
That man’s crazy, I tell you! Crazy.
In a report from the IPCC titled “Outreach activities carried out by the IPCC chairman,” his constant travels are recorded for all to see. Nairobi, New Delhi, Morocco, Tokyo, Milan, Bangkok, Dublin, Beijing, Berlin — the list goes on and on. His passport from the past year alone would be enough to make a travel bug like me weak at the knees.
Someone took the time to calculate it all out, writes The Corner:
Rajendra Pachauri? Hey, if you’re manning the VIP lounge at Heathrow, that name may ring a bell:
Dr Rajendra Pachauri flew at least 443,243 miles on IPCC business in this 19 month period. This business included honorary degree ceremonies, a book launch and a Brookings Institute dinner, the latter involving a flight of 3,500 miles.
They also discovered some “irrational” trips he took—thanks to his love of cricket. As The Indian Express reports in an aptly named article entitled “Heat on cricket pitch warms this climate change Laureate”:
So strong is his love for cricket that his colleagues recall the time the Nobel winner took a break during a seminar in New York and flew in to Delhi over the weekend to attend a practice session for a match before flying back. Again, he flew in for a day, just to play that match.
Not exactly the best example to set for a world that Pachauri would rather see humanity never flying, permanently grounded, never grooming (okay, I’m just guessing that one based on the photo above…), being taxed for turning on a heater, or better yet, living in caves.
So, are we going to stop flying? Here’s a message for Pachauri: Bhaad mein jaao, mere dosti. (Good luck figuring that out in Hindi.)
Another quick jaunt to a trippy-haired Dr. Rajendra Pachauri’s homepage provides this little nugget of wisdom from the Nobel Laureate himself:
“I have done nothing outstanding. I have only done what I felt was very important.”
He just felt like going to those cricket matches, it seems, since it was important to him. And I am sure he feels like flying everywhere because his job is for the important betterment of humanity. Ever heard of a teleconference?
I suddenly feel like it’s important to write about this clown. I wouldn’t have minded if Pachauri was consistently, albeit pretentiously, a sensationalist. In fact, I just might be one myself.
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I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue to say it as long as these people keep pulling these stunts:
It’s okay for THEM because they’re speh-shul. Us peons? Not so much.
Doesn’t the IPCC get all of it’s climate data from the chaps at CRU? And wasn’t the data from the CRU fraudulent? So whatever the IPCC says is compromised right? Why is anyone still listening to them? And why does that guy look like the wolfman? And since when have I ever used the word chaps that didn’t involve Bucktown?
Suddenly, I understood the word “Hypocrisy in all it’s splendor.
I fly twice a year to go to Walt Disney World and back. If he can do it for cricket, I will do it for the Mouse.
It’s people like him that cause me to attach aerosol cans to my bicycle when I take it around to commute instead of my car.
Just a guess, Ms. Skepburn, but does that Hindi translate to “It undresses also fairly not often completely, God be thanked so awful?” Because that would rock SO. MUCH.
I vote that any CRU/IPCC/Gore-related climate comments be treated with all the respect shown Great-Aunt Buzzie at a christening, when she offers to store tomatoes in her Depends in case the Secret Service comes calling.
At first I thought that was one of those Geico cavemen.
Sweet monkey fritters! You DO pay for the AC and Heating in your hotel room! That’s why they charge you $60 a night! You also pay for the water, the maid service, the cable, the laundry, and the ‘free’ breakfast!
And if you raise air ticket prices more people are not going to take the train or the greyhound – they are going to drive their cars! So instead of 150 people “carpooling” to California in one plane, they are now driving 150 cars there instead!
I wonder if his organization has meters in all their offices and deducts the energy usage from the workers’ paychecks. Charge those scientists for all the joules wasted in altering the data! As for irrational decisions, allowing crackpots like this to have a bully pulpit is clearly irrational, yet he doesn’t seem to have a problem with that. Taking the boat to India would probably be better for the environment carbon wise, but I very much doubt he does that for cricket matches or to visit family.
You know, it’s clear the climate alarmists are in league with the terrorists, or at least share an agenda. They all want everyone to live impoverished lives in caves ruled by psychos with bad hygiene.
He does look like a homeless guy that was just given a suit to do a job interview like some outreach places provide
Separated at birth:
http://www.drivl.com/img/articles/Goat%20Black%20%28Beard%29.jpg
I explained to my 11 year old today just briefly what I would do my first day if I was President. Pulling out of the U.N. was on the list because of the idiots like this guy living the life because of our tax dollars funding like 40% of the total budget of the place.
It’s the extra ‘flaunting it’ that makes me want to smack them!
The UN is little more than a hopped-up version of the Mafia. We have no business being part of it, let alone hosting those thuggish douchebags.
When I found out UNICEF only uses 50 percent of donations for actual aid work, I stopped believing that the UN has any redeeming factors. Doctors Without Borders, a group of DOCTORS, uses something like 75-85 percent of their donations for aid work. Most charity “watchdogs” will tell you to look for a group that uses at least 75 percent of donations for aid work to ensure it is reputable and effective. Yes, there will be administrative costs, but in UNICEF’s case, I believe there are just a lot of adults getting rich. Most of the UN is corrupt and filled with beneficiaries of nepotism and cronyism. It was an open secret that the last secretary-general (Annan) had provided plenty of his relatives and “buddies” with UN jobs. Peacekeepers will only go where peace is already established, making them glorified beat cops at best (and that may be downplaying the dangers faced by beat cops). The countries that send troops for peacekeeping do so because they get large payments for every soldier, which is why so many smaller countries often have large representation within the ranks. The only other purpose the UN serves is to whine about the US and allow dictators/scumbag leaders to address the world with an aura of legitimacy. Great organization. NOT!
Yet another case of: nice idea in theory, bad execution in reality.
Let me be clear, I think this guy is off his rocker, and I echo others’ thoughts here. But he is implying that intl flights are ok, assuming I’ve assumed correctly, because he said “short-haul trips” were irrational, and US to India ain’t short-haul, nor are the other cities listed (depending on the origin cities). It sounds like some of his trips were frivolous (cricket), and unnecessary, at least in our eyes, but beyond a certain distance, a plane is the only way to go if you have a tight schedule.
Flying from Atlanta to Chattanooga doesn’t make sense, since you can drive there in 2 hrs; to Nashville, 3 hours, and if you need to make a one-day meeting, and need to come back the same day, driving is still a practical option. To St. Louis, well, that’s just not practical driving that long, unless you can take the next day off, so flying that far (if tele-conf is not an option) in my book would be rational.
THAT SAID, I’d like to know just what he defines of “short-haul.” If he thinks ATL to NYC is short, then I’m afraid I’ll have to take in the short amount of slack I was willing to give him.
Tom T., that was unfair … to the goat.
Irrational is in the eye of the beholder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch0EhSesu1o&feature=related
Ah-ha! It all makes sense now!
The call for subsidized train travel? He has no ulterior motives or anthing.
According to the wordiest CV in the entire history of bloviated bios, Nicknolte Pachauri isn’t a climatologist, meteorologist, or any form atmospheric scientist…
Wait for it, wait for it…
Ready?
He’s an industrial engineer specializing in railways!
(http://www.rkpachauri.org/bio.php)
And here we all underestimated the menacing political influence of Big Rail!
Ooooo! Interesting find, Minnow!
That was brilliant, Minnow, as per usual.
“The call for subsidized train travel? He has no ulterior motives or anthing.
…
He’s an industrial engineer specializing in railways!
(http://www.rkpachauri.org/bio.php)”
From reading through that bio, I see no mention of any job title that would imply he would stand to benefit financially from increased investment in rail transportation. From what I read, the “specialization” to which you referred is what he majored in and subsequently taught and researched. (Of course, it’s 2am, so I may have missed a job title or three. That thing was long.) Isn’t that the sort of expertise you would look for in someone in his position? I mean, I’ve never heard a reasonably educated person claim that rail transport was _less_ environmentally-friendly than flying (over the aforementioned short-haul anyway). I don’t see how this specialization makes his opinion on the matter less credible.
To put it another way: If someone were going to condemn coal-burning power plants, should that person be ignored because they specialized in photovoltaics?
As for the comment about energy costs being included in the price of a hotel stay, his point is that it should be assessed individually, so that people who use less energy will pay less than those who use more. It seems pretty straight-forward to me. I cringe every time I hear people complained about companies that “nickle and dime” their customers; I prefer that to paying for goods/services that other people use and I don’t. It’s the same reason I wouldn’t want to see cable companies switch to a model where everyone pays $250+ / month but gets every channel. If I’m not going to use it, I don’t want to pay for it.
Of course, if the $60/night hotel room took him up on his idea, they’d end up charging the same $60 plus an energy fee, so we’d still get screwed, but it’s a nice idea in theory at least.
The point, dear snowburn, isn’t that Pachuri is raking in big rupees from a secret railway cabal. I’m simply pointing out that Pachauri was a hired as a climate expert, despite having absolutely no background in anything climaty or ecocrapity.
This is a guy who looked into weather and came up with railroads.
Which isn’t suprising. Experts tend to stick with their areas of expertise.
I’m totally fine with that. I want my dentist to recommed a rootcanal, not a lube job. I want an urban planner to recommend a stoplight, not a triple coronary artery bypass. I want my waitress to recommend the meatloaf platter, not a bundling my cable bill with a Frederick’s of Hollywood charge account.
But in the interest of full disclosure, it’s important to know that Boxcar Willie’s answer to What would you like for breakfast today? is likely going to be Public rail!
Now ask yourself, honestly, without the aid of polarbear colored glasses: Would you trust an automotive engineer to wade through a mountain of climatological data, arrive at an accurate conclusion, properly predict future climate patterns, deduce the most efficient proactive measures, and then direct worldwide economic policy?
AN AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEER? Ack! Marlin Perkins just rolled over in his grave!
So why should we trust a railway engineer?
I thought at first that was a picture of Bigfoot about to attack.
It’s nice to know that apparently your choice of major in college DOESN’T limit your options in the workplace. Gives hope to English majors everywhere. Can’t find an editing/writing job? Go be a climate expert!
The guy in the EPA or DOE who got slammed for not being a real scientist because his Phd was in economics (his undergrad was hard science, but I can’t remember which one) should hold up Pachauri the next time the administration tries to discredit his opinions and analyses regarding AGW.
And this just in from the London Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1247376/Controversial-climate-change-boss-uses-car-AND-driver-travel-mile-office—says-YOU-use-public-transport.html
At least it’s a 1.8 litre Toyota.