if an enviromentalist warns about global warming and uses more energy than you or I what message does it send?

Question

Is it hypocritical? Or should they be given more leeway because they are a politician or a movie star. Is there a double standard?

Answer 1

There's only one message they can send. They're hypocrites. They have no excuses.

Answer 2

Thats the single most absurd aspect of the entire Global Warming debate. It's biggest proponents continue to live lifestyles that either directly or indirectly put more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Take hybrid cars for example. At the end of the day, they still burn gasoline no matter how you drive them. They turn their thermostats down and release a little bit less CO2 either at home or the local power plant, but they're still emitting it. Their flourescent light bulbs still use electricity, just at a lower rate.

I read through the responses on this forum and all I see is people brag about how wonderful they are because they have taken temporary steps to make slight reductions in their net contribution to global warming. Or in the cases of VIPs their excessive lifestyles are excused by the GW masses because they "create awareness".

And there's the Carbon Credit Crowd: their bottom line is to keep using fossil fuel here but send money to the third world so they can advance economically without competing for limited supplies of fossil fuel on the world market. The result: GW continues!

Answer 3

At face value, it looks hypocritical, but you have to examine what they have to do in order to alert everyone else. As far as I know of, there are no planes that run on peanut oil, so that environmentalist will have to travel from country to country educating people using what means he or she has. What should he or she do? Nothing, or just podcast over the radio to a small audience, so that he or she doesn't look like a hypocrite?

At the end of the day you have to look at what is accomplished and if the means could have been done other ways, and in our world there are no other means to travel far distances, but to use what technology we have, but that person should encourage people who can come up with that new technology to do so.

Answer 4

The message was apparently turned into confusion for those of us that also obtain biased perspectives from talking heads paid by corporations and media power brokers. The message is profound; deny the facts and stagnate, or maybe adapt to the advice being offered on solution oriented efforts. Whose team are you on?

Answer 5

I looked up the word hypocrite in the dictonary and it says "See Al Gore" His movie has been proven to contain false information and staged visual effects that never happened. For him or anyone to think we can control nature and to waste time and money to persue that endevor is a person who is one taco short of a combination plate. Heck half the time we can't even predict right what the weather is going to be tomorrow let alone tell it what to do! Nothing is wrong with less polution and using alternative fuels if they work. It's just common sense and it helps us to be healthier not breathing pollution. But to say unless we stop driving our suv's and pickup trucks we are going to kill this planet in the next 100 years is so far out there it isn't funny. But he has made over 11 million in profits so far from his movie and book, I never said he wasn't cunning just hypicritical. Darn their goes a fleet of chevy suv limo's down my street I can see them clearly from my pc room window. Oh wait its ok its just Al Gore and Co.going to another meeting house so he can preach the gospel of global warming and the sins of regular people driving their ford pick ups.

Answer 6

You have to live your life based on the standards you believe are important and not based on the examples others set (or fail to set).
A similar example would be if people stopped following their faith every time a member of the clergy was caught behaving immorally.

Answer 7

If you are referring to Al Gore, he has begun renovating his house to meet green standards established by the US Green Building Council. One of the problems he had was that his neighborhood home owners association did not allow solar panels. Along with the solar panels he is installing geothermal heating systems for his swimming pool, updating his windows and duct work, installing more efficient light bulbs and creating a rainwater collection system for his irrigation needs.

It is a logical fallacy to shoot the messenger because you disagree with or don't want to here the message. It is better to argue with the message, to find its errors or weak points than to argue with the man who makes the argument. After all nobody is perfect and we are all hypocrites from time to time.

Answer 8

It would be hypocritical but some allowance can be given for the life style demands.

Answer 9

Yes there is a double standard. This green point nonsense is a way for wealthy politicians and celebrities to preach to us.
You are not doing enough!
Its like a fire and brimstone TV evangelist.

Answer 10

Environmentalists are political activists who pursue a political agenda. The people who study the natural environment and educate others about the facts they discover are ecologists and disseminate their findings in peer reviewed science journals. Since environmentalists are self serving political activists, dishonesty and hypocrisy are par for the course among them.