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Green FakersWhy eco-hypocrisy matters
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. 
Who cares? Does anyone really hold Streisand and DiCaprio to these high standards? Does anyone really think they're doing any more than drawing attention to a WORTHY CAUSE by using their celebrity in a positive way? It does not bother me that Streisand tours in a jet. I'm sure she conserves in other ways. The same way I do. I may drink bottled water, but I make an attempt to recycle them. I cannot sing like Barbra Streisand, therefore I do not have a "jet issue". But I do not expect Streisand to go on tour in a hybrid car either. It's a silly argument that I see repeated over and over again by the right-wingers. I agree with the editor who said you're trolling. WHO CARES? Move on to more important issues like Bush, the Iraq war, Health Care, etc. Posted by: ustreetdude on August 6, 2007 3:58 PM ustreetdude on August 6, 2007 03:58 PM Of course you don't care! Standard hypocritical answer from a lefty. EVERYTHING'S acceptable for liberals. Just don't dare let you catch a conservative doing the same exact thing. When a lefty is caught doing something wrong ... it's okay because it was "for the right reasons." When a conservative is caught doing the exact thing same thing ... they're friggin Nazis. Posted by: Gregor on August 6, 2007 5:45 PM Great Argument "Who Cares" Laughable. IT IS VERY UNLIKELY that the LIKES of Streisand can reverse their lifetime of polluting. Sad thing is the Ustreetdudes KNOW IT ..yet don't care. Dude my boy you are just what the left loves... uneducated and nonsensical. Posted by: Jamson64 on August 7, 2007 7:11 PM Being irate and plain insulting fails to forward a point. The frustration for me is that the people in the best position to draw attention to this worthy cause are also in the best position to practice what they preach. They have the money to buy and invest in the more environmentally friendly option. Unlike most, they're not limited by their financial situation. To get biblical, it doesn't matter if Streisand buys the soymilk with the green energy credits. She can do a lot better. To the same effect, to the woman who's just trying to get by, I only have praise for when she'll find the extra cash to buy "green" products. It's exasperating to hear someone urge us to ration while they glut. I do care because I actually believe in the cause. The message being sent to me by the hypocritical action of a lot of these celebrities is that the cause isn't that big of a deal. Because if they genuinely thought it was a big deal, and if they genuinely thought an individual could make a difference, they'd be behaving a whole lot differently. Posted by: am.tran on August 8, 2007 4:34 AM Advertisement The picture of Edwards reminds me of a little parody I wrote a few months ago ... think Dire Straits ... ************** See that litigator with his perfect TV makeup We gotta sue everyone with deep pockets ( http://casebolt.blogspot.com/2007/03/money-for-nothing.html ) ************** ustreetdude -- the problem with these stars is that the "solutions" they support are too often derived from an anti-free-entrprise/pro-socialist bias that oversimplifies both the actual benefit of the solution, and the consequences of its implementation upon all social strata. Think the hysteric banning of DDT vs. the reality of malaria in many parts of the world, for one example. Those of us who dissent from the Green (party) Line don't want to see the nest fouled ... either by trashing the environment, or by trashing the economic health of millions in a vain quest to eliminate parts-per-billion probabilities of "threats". In fact, the latter can end up trashing the environment, in the end ... for it's kind of hard for people to concentrate on Saving the Planet when they are uncertain where their next rent check ... or meal ... is coming from. Posted by: Rich Casebolt on August 9, 2007 11:26 AM i salute your honesty in exposing the hypocrisy. it is becoming clear that global warming, excuse me, climate change is quickly becoming a class issue. a battle of the carbon haves and have nots. Posted by: ming666 on August 10, 2007 1:28 PM i salute your honesty in exposing the hypocrisy. it is becoming clear that global warming, excuse me, climate change is quickly becoming a class issue. a battle of the carbon haves and have nots. Posted by: ming666 on August 10, 2007 4:10 PM John Edwards 2004? Nice one Radar, nice one. Streisand is irrelevant, no one under the age of 36 attends her concerts in years, you're talking as if that is Radar's demographic. Why I do I give a damn about her? How about Why the Was the Most Banal Editorial I've Read in Recent Memory (I apologize for my verbosity). How about why we should not pay attention to celebrities? I'm not reading News Corp's People Magazine, am I? Posted by: ishallexact on August 19, 2007 11:09 PM Post a commentYour comment will not be visible for about a minute. If you don't see your comment when the page reloads, do not post it again. Reload the page in a minute, and you'll see it. < BACK TO Features |
    
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