The scolds who buy into the notion that we’re all killing dear old Mother Earth have a seemingly endless list of joys they want to remove from our lives, and have now set their sights on one of the greatest: your annual vacation.
The New York Times has an opinion piece this weekend titled “How Guilty Should You Feel About Your Vacation?” The article was written by a travel writer named Seth Kugel.
In a half-hearted attempt to seek absolution, Kugel immediately dons his journalistic hair shirt:
I’ve often wondered how it would feel to work in an industry blamed for its outsize impact on global warming — say, oil drilling or cattle ranching. But it recently struck me that the question is not hypothetical. I’m a travel writer.
Yes, I’ve long known that jet fuel emits a ghastly amount of greenhouse gases, but I pinned that on the fossil fuel and aviation industries. Now the flight shaming movement, which emerged recently in Sweden and spread into Europe, has attempted to shift blame onto travelers.
The “flight shaming movement” mentioned has been championed by that teenage brat who got a week’s worth of publicity by refusing to meet with President Trump, even though no such meeting was ever discussed.
Those of us not members of the climate hysteria cult have long marveled at the disconnect exhibited by those who are as they wag their fingers at us from private jets and commercial airliners. It’s nice to see that they are at least beginning to realize that they are full of it.
The problem, of course, is that they want everyone to feel bad about it. As I have written on many occasions, leftists are inherently miserable, and their mission is to make sure everyone joins in that misery.
I have been self-employed almost my entire adult life, so I barely know what a vacation is. I have, however, had the great fortune to fly all over the world doing stand-up, which wouldn’t have been possible without those glorious, greenhouse gas-belching jet engines getting me there.
No guilt here.
I have seen the vision of the future that the climate crazies have for us, and it mostly involves abandoning almost every modern convenience you love.
In 2010, Americans for Prosperity (ZOMG, THE KOCH BROTHERS!!!) sent me — via massive jet — to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico. I was there for five days mostly to tweet, mock, and hang out in the hotel bar on the beach.
We toured the conference’s expo one day and saw many examples of a low carbon footprint “future,” like doing your laundry by hand and using what is basically a low-water camping toilet as one’s home bathroom.
On it went. To be a guilt-free, climate-conscious person in the 21st century, they were suggesting we start living like poor people from 1870.
Yeah…no.
Their sales pitch is weak, to say the least. If the only way I can save the planet is to be miserable, I’m not really being sold on the effort.
They love their misery over on the left, though, and probably can’t fathom why others wouldn’t want a slice of it.
I’m going to let them keep wondering.
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Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.”
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