“You’re destroying the ozone layer.”
I was 24 and had just moved to Salt Lake to work in a chaplaincy program at a hospital. I met a woman with whom I had been having a half-hearted relationship just after lunch. We were standing in the hospital parking lot.
“What? Who? Me?” I asked. “Your styrofoam cup,” she replied. “But just I threw it away. Into a garbage can.” I was thinking, “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.”* “Yeah,” she said, “but you crushed it up.” “So?” She looked slightly amused and annoyed at once. “Even just crushing one cup like that releases things into the air that harm the ozone layer.” So, if your ozone is a little light some days, it’s probably due to me and that styrofoam cup from 31 years ago. Sorry.
You see, young people, years before we had climate change, we had the ozone layer as one of the prime drivers of environmental fear and panic. Back in college, I had received a firm dressing down from a girl about how styrofoam was not the environmental bugbear people were making it out to be.
I had forgotten all about that and was now contemplating what it would be like to walk through the streets of Salt Lake with a “Scarlet S” on my chest. The truth is that the Left has been using the environment to clout opponents upside the noggin for years. At this point, it’s darn near as American as apple pie.
Of course, one of the great things about being a progressive is that you have a certain amount of immunity to the responsibility you demand from others. But there is a correlation between the amount of immunity you enjoy and your place in the progressive hierarchy. And apparently, running for governor does not grant complete immunity.
Democrat Brandon Presley, who is the man who would be governor of Mississippi, recently commented that politicians who use private planes are “not on the side of the people.” Fair enough. If you are concerned about the environment and economic disparity, great. Fly coach with the rest of us plebes.
But Presley did not walk the walk or fly it. On Tuesday, he posted a photo on Facebook showing him and his wife sitting in a private plane with the caption, “Wheels up!” The Washington Free Beacon notes that the flight was for a campaign junket that took the Presleys from Tupelo to Greenville and then to Jackson. According to the outlet, that is about a two-hour trip by car, even an electric one.
Presley hopes to unseat current GOP governor Tate Reeves. The Free Beacon found this video of Presley talking about Republicans and their excesses.
So it was “Wheels Up!” followed by “Post deleted.” And so far, “No comment.”
To be fair, Presley and his wife were not in a luxury private jet with recliners and a wet bar, but they did fly private. Of course, like Al Gore, whose carbon footprint could rival that of some of the smaller states on the Eastern Seaboard, I am sure that Presley felt that the nobility and urgency of his mission gave him the pass he needed to throw some carbon around. After all, it isn’t like he is a “jacuzzi, penny loafer-wearing” Republican.
*Kids, you’ll have to Google “Woodsy Owl” to get that reference.
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