By Their Deeds…

There was a very strange article in The Sunday Times about eco-hypocrisy. It starts well by citing cases of the actual behaviour of the great and the good who lecture us upon the need to live like peasants whilst enjoying lifestyles I can’t even imagine.

It ends-up going off the rails and justifying the “excess” of or tin-pot secular gods and that is dissapointing but there is much to mine before that…

There was Sheryl Crow, who had called upon the public to refrain from using more than one square of toilet paper per visit (“except on those pesky occasions when two or three are required”) and who was leading a Stop Global Warming concert tour across America. It was revealed that while Crow travelled in a biodiesel tour bus, her 30-person entourage followed in a fleet of 13 gas-guzzling vehicles.

Beyond parody.

John Travolta notoriously encouraged the British public to do its bit to fight global warming — after flying into London on one of his five, yes, five private jets (one of which is a Boeing 707). In 2006 his piloting hobby produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions, more than a hundred times the output of the average Briton, according to the Carbon Trust.

Travolta’s ‘planes only emit good Scientological CO2.

Harrison Ford, who is vice-chairman on the board of Conservation International, voices public-service messages for an environmental federation called EarthShare, and once shaved his chest hair to illustrate the effects of deforestation, is another hobby pilot. He once owned a Gulfstream but now makes do with a smaller Cessna Citation Sovereign eight-seater jet, four propeller planes and a helicopter.

So, if I shave my chest I can own the equivalent of Sierra Leone’s Airforce?

Oprah Winfrey, who preaches eco-virtue from her TV pulpit, travelled in a 13-seat Gulfstream IV private jet for years — the preferred model for celebrities and the super-rich. (She has replaced it with a faster Bombardier Global Express.) The public first became aware of her private-jet habit when her plane had to make a forced landing in California in 2005; it was reminded of it this year after one of her stewardesses was fired for allegedly having sex with the pilot while Oprah and other passengers were asleep.

Talk about the “mile-high club” Oprah!

Jennifer Aniston told reporters that to save the Earth’s precious water resources she brushes her teeth while in the shower. But she also flew a hairdresser to Europe to accompany her on a recent publicity tour for the film Marley & Me.

I fail to see how brushing one’s teeth in the shower - presumably whilst her pal Sheryl is wiping with one sheet - helps anything. I do it (without Ms Crow upon the porcelain throne) to save time. And Of course nobody in Europe can cut hair.

Perhaps more egregious, because she is a much more in-your-face global-warming campaigner, is Dame Trudie Styler, film financier and wife of Sting. Not only do she and her husband run seven homes and travel between them in private jets and a fleet of cars, but in 2007 an employment tribunal revealed Styler was furious when her pregnant chef refused to travel 100 miles to prepare some soup and salad.

And these are the same people who think it immoral for the likes of me to take a cheap flight? Who the fucking hell does Trudie Styler actually think she is? As far as I can tell her one singular achievement was introducing Madonna to Guy Ritchie.

This spring Styler was accused of hiring a private jet to take her and an eight-person entourage from New York to Washington, DC, for the White House correspondents’ dinner, even though there are dozens of scheduled shuttle flights she could have taken, not to mention fast trains. Strangely, Sting flew commercial to the same dinner. When challenged, Styler reportedly defended herself by saying: “Yes, I do take planes. My life is to travel and to speak out about the horrors of an environment that is being abused at the hands of oil companies.”

Dame Trudie’s ‘plane runs on sustainable chakra power from her and Sting’s tantric sex you see. Nothing to do with those evil oil companies.

U2’s latest world tour features three stages and a giant claw that ensures as many spectators as possible get a decent view. Alas, transporting the whole shebang around the world is estimated by carbonfootprint.com to produce the carbon equivalent of the annual emissions of 6,500 British homes — or a rocket trip to Mars and back.

A rocket trip to Mars you say? Could that get Bono’s off-key caterwauling permanently put off-planet?

Coldplay’s Chris Martin has been fingered as one of music’s biggest eco-hypocrites. George Monbiot, a writer and environmental campaigner, noted on his blog that Martin flew thousands of miles on his private jet, including brief trips between LA and nearby Palm Springs. Monbiot calculated that Martin’s trips back and forth to see his family produced 250 times the carbon emissions of an average Briton.

Even Monbiot thinks him a twat! I guess none of these trips occurred at The Speed of Sound which is a shame… Think about it - I’m not talking concorde here. Of the possibility of his daughter skipping school in the future to see him and the rest of Blandplay he had this to say:

‘I’m not coming in today — I’m off to Costa Rica to see my dad play.’ I do think that wins you a few points.” Martin replied to criticism by pointing out that he paid for the planting of mango trees to offset the carbon emissions of his tours and flights home.

Mango trees? Oh, my giddy aunt we is saved by Chris Martin’s soft fruit!

The supposedly green Barack Obama had a St Louis chef flown 850 miles just to make pizza at the White House.

It’s true! I’ve been to DC and you can’t get a pizza at all. Well apart from the rather nice one I had.

At the end of the film An Inconvenient Truth, the unbearably earnest former presidential candidate Al Gore asked his audience: “Are you ready to change the way you live?” His own huge Nashville mansion consumed over 20 times the electricity of an average American home.

Words fail.

Gore gave the usual response of the green celebrity caught not practising what they preach. He said he made up for his consumption of electricity and production of carbon dioxide by buying carbon offsets — some from his own offset company.

His own company? Well, we all knew that one.Is anyone suing him yet?

These are the sort of people who shall be at the Copenhagen summit…

The Copenhagen summit next week will generate vast quantities of hot air. It will see 16,500 people coming in from 192 countries. That amounts to 41,000 tons of carbon dioxide, roughly the same as the carbon emissions of Morocco in 2006. Also, the organisers will lay 900 kilometres of computer cable and 50,000 square metres of carpet. More than 200,000 meals will be served and visitors will drink 200,000 cups of coffee — at least that will be organic.

At least it will be organic. Isn’t that more energy intensive to produce? Ah, screw the science. Just feel how deep and plush the seats on the Gulfstream are…

Cunts the lot of them.

Do read the whole thing though because it is very odd starting as it does as a round-up of star hypocrisy and ending-up defending it. It’s a horrible article.