Then: Let Them Eat Cake! Now: Let Them Drive Hybrids!

Gotta love Google’s left coast environmental hypocrisy. Kevin J. Delaney of The Wall Street Journal writes:

Google Inc.’s two billionaire founders, both 32 years old, will soon be cruising the skies in a Boeing 767 wide-body airliner. They bought the used plane earlier this year, Mr. Page says.

The 767-200, typically an airline workhorse, is an unusual executive jet. It commonly carries about 180 passengers. Delta Air Lines operates over one hundred 767s. The Italian Air Force has ordered a modified 767 as an airborne tanker for refueling military jets. The 767-200 is almost 70% longer and more than three times as heavy as a conventional executive jet, such as a high-end Gulfstream.

Mr. Page says his plane will hold about 50 passengers when its refurbishment is complete. A top Gulfstream business jet typically carries 15 or fewer. He declines to give other details. People in the aviation industry familiar with the planned interior say it will have a sitting area, two staterooms with adjoining lavatories and a shower. Farther aft will be a large sitting-and-dining area. At the rear will be 12 to 16 first-class seats for guests or employees and a large galley.

Tech moguls delight in public one-upmanship and the Google founders’ 767 raises the bar. Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen owns a fleet of aircraft, but his flagships — two Boeing 757s — are smaller than Messrs. Brin and Page’s 767. It also marks a new level of consumption by the Google executives, who have shunned most trappings of the super-rich despite a combined net worth estimated at more than $20 billion.

Delaney adds:

The purchase of a wide-body jet for personal use might seem at odds with the Google founders’ support for environmental causes. The company gives employees $5,000 if they buy hybrid gas-electric cars, for example.

Back in September, Michelle Malkin looked what she dubbed “The HuffMobile“, Arianna Huffington and the Sierra Club’s oversize SUV wheels of choice, and as I wrote a couple of years ago about the ABC TV network’s fall season launch party at Disneyland:

In order to ferry the celebrities from L.A. to Anaheim, ABC employed an enormous fleet of stretch limos. I don’t think I had ever seen more black automobiles this side of Don Corleone’s funeral.

Lots of those limos were actually luxury black SUVs — and not an electric hybrid in sight! (Imagine that!) Next time a celebrity starts complaining about your Chevy Suburban or Toyota Land Cruiser, just remember how this person probably gets around–and smile at his Disneyland-sized hypocrisy.

I don’t begrudge anyone his choice of car, SUV, or heck, even jet. (We’re planning on the Pajamas-767, right guys…?). Just don’t lecture me about, or try to take away my choices.

That seems fair, doesn’t it?