Why eco-hypocrisy matters

MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio share some hearty self-congratulations

A few weeks ago, I wrote an item about Barbra Streisand, who was on tour in England. Though she's a big backer of environmental causes, and even offers tips for low-carbon living on her personal website, she was busted by the British press for touring in a private jet with a massive entourage that required 13 trucks and vast amounts of laundry—in other words, for sponsoring a traveling CO₂ extravaganza.

I e-mailed my item to an editor at Grist, a popular environmental website and blog. The editor promptly sent back a sarcastic reply accusing me of "trolling for links by carrying right wing water." In his view, only conservative blogs would be interested in a snarky item about a liberal totem like Streisand; left-leaning sites protect their own. And here I thought hypocrisy was a non-partisan punch line.

Why should anyone bother to carpool when Barbara Streisand requires her own convoy? Or forgo A/C for a fan when John Edwards is chilling in the largest house in his county?This was no isolated incident, but part of what's becoming a tediously familiar pattern. It starts when Celebrity X clambers up on a soapbox to tell the rest of us what we ought to be doing to Help Stop Global Warming. In short order, News Outlet Y reveals that Celebrity X is, in fact, a hypocrite, owing to her frequent private jet travel, energy-sucking McMansion, and generally outsize carbon footprint. Right on cue, supporters of Celebrity X counterattack, alleging that News Outlet Y is a tool of Right-Wing Corporate Interests, which merely want to obscure the debate over climate change with a lot of he-said-she-said crosstalk so they can continue with their nefarious, polluting ways. At the end of it all, Celebrity X, feeling vindicated, is free to carry on with her Earth-defiling behavior.

Over the past couple years, as global warming has become the fashionable cause among the bien-pensant class, this scenario has played out with increasing frequency on blogs, in gossip columns, and on cable TV shoutfests. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston, Barbra Streisand, John Edwards, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Laurie David, Jann Wenner, and even Al Gore himself have all taken turns being accused, with varying degrees of justification, of failing to match word to deed.

WOMAN ON EMISSIONS Barbara Streisand

That's not surprising; anyone's life, placed under a microscope, is bound to yield embarrassments. What is surprising is the way celebrities react to such charges: sometimes by ignoring them outright, sometimes by spouting lame self-justifications, but rarely, if ever, by acknowledging the disconnect and vowing to lead a humbler, cleaner, more sustainable existence. It's as though they believe their well-intentioned words are the equivalent of carbon offsets (though, to be sure, many of them are buying the real thing as well).

Take Laurie David, soon-to-be-ex-wife of Seinfeld co-creator Larry, and producer of An Inconvenient Truth and other save-the-earth extravaganzas. Though she boasts about using recycled toilet paper and compact fluorescent lightbulbs, David has been pilloried for, among other excesses, flying on private jets. Here's what she has said in defense of her travel habits: "I'm not perfect. This is not about perfection. I don't expect anybody else to be perfect either. That's what hurts the environmental movement—holding people to a standard they cannot meet."

Apparently, when you're worth a few hundred million dollars, being asked to refrain from the most carbon-intensive indulgence known to man qualifies as "holding people to a standard they cannot meet." Note, too, her use of emotional jujitsu: the ones who are really hurting the environment are the ones who are so impolite as to point out her bad behavior.

LEFTY BESTIES Laurie David and Bobby Kennedy at the 2006 Forces for Nature Gala

David's pal Bobby Kennedy, founder of the conservationist Waterkeeper Alliance and a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, was equally unconvincing when forced to explain why he opposed a windmill farm that would generate large amounts of clean energy while imposing ever-so-slightly on the view from his family's compound in Hyannis Port. So hollow were Kennedy's arguments that a slew of other environmental groups and leaders implored him to drop his opposition, which he has yet to do.

Even Leonardo DiCaprio, generally regarded as a serious sort not given to excessive grandstanding, came up short in May when quizzed about his travel habits: "I try as often as possible to fly commercially," he offered.

"As often as possible"—as though there are times it's simply impossible to avoid flying private. As though forces beyond his control occasionally abduct Leo, drug him, and drag his limp body onto an executive jet.

It's always galling to be exhorted to curb your consumption by people who are living the poshest lifestyle imaginable. But the problem here goes beyond aesthetics. Eco-hypocrites undercut the very message they're trying to peddle. How desperate could the planet's plight be if the people who present themselves as most concerned about it consider flying first-class commercial an unacceptable sacrifice? Why should anyone bother to carpool when Streisand requires her own convoy? Or forgo A/C for a fan when Edwards is chilling in the largest house in his county? The implication of the hypocrites' behavior is that we must take all measures to fight global warming short of those that would reduce our quality of life. But a reduction in quality of life—or at least a redefinition of it—is exactly what Americans are going to have to accept to make a meaningful dent in greenhouse gas levels.

MY OTHER JET IS A HYBRID John Edwards disembarks his plane, boards an SUV

Pressed to explain their lifestyles, celebrities sometimes fall back on the claim that the behavior of individuals is, essentially, irrelevant—that the reform that's needed is really at the industrial and national level. As DiCaprio put it, "In the long term it's about instilling [environmentally friendly principles] into governments and corporations so these things are part of our everyday lives." In other words, he's saying, conservation is less a moral imperative than a personal virtue. Who knew we'd ever see the day when Hollywood lefties would be echoing Dick Cheney?

Let me make it clear what it is I'm not saying. I'm not saying that entertainers should refrain from political advocacy. Bill O'Reilly can tell them to shut up; I don't think they should. And I'm not saying that you can't endorse green policies unless you lead a perfectly blameless, no-impact existence. Self-serving though her rhetoric may be, Laurie David's right: No one's perfect.

But what if the next time some actor who fancies himself Ed Begley Jr. gets nailed for owning a Hummer, instead of circling the wagons and impugning his critics' motives, he were to call a press conference to say, "You know what? You're absolutely right. I'm going to trade that Hummer in for a hybrid tomorrow." What if Leonardo DiCaprio, instead of hedging, had vowed never to fly private again, even if it meant he would face the occasional delay or detour, as the rest of us do? What if John Edwards agreed to dismantle the 15,600-square-foot recreation center that makes his $6 million home the biggest around? What if Bobby Kennedy declared clean power more beautiful than unfettered sightlines?

Celebrities who say they have the power to change people's minds are right. Laurie David and Al Gore are a big part of the reason global warming has become a daily part of the national discussion. But without real, visible commitment to back up all the talk, it's just a fashionable pose—and we all know what happens with those. (Remember all those supermodels in the '90s who swore they'd rather go naked than wear fur, only to turn up a few years later sporting pelts in Vogue?) People who try to use their fame for a good cause deserve to be applauded. But they also need to be reminded—by their allies as well as their adversaries—that actions still speak louder than words.