Green Celebs in Private Jets and Other Hypocrisies
Nobody’s perfect – and people who dedicate a portion of their time to environmental causes hardly need to be all-around green saints. But if you’re going to preach green values, you’d better be practicing them – at least when you’re in the public eye. But so-called ‘green celebrities’ – whether they want the label or not – keep getting caught in cringeworthy eco-sins.
From The Times Online, via Ecorazzi:
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.
It is less well known that Tom Cruise — who has campaigned for the LA-based environmental group Earth Communications Office — also has an air fleet and a licence to pilot his five planes, including a top-of-the-line customised Gulfstream jet he bought for his wife, Katie Holmes.
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.
Well, Tom Cruise and John Travolta are Scientologists. Enough said. But the rest of these people are certainly making themselves look bad with all of this “do as I say, not as I do” stuff. The Times Online continues to detail the egregiously non-green activities of such ‘green celebs’ as Harrison Ford, Jennifer Aniston and Dame Trudie Styler (whose antics are well known around here).
But we have a bone to pick with the Al Gore comments. The Time Online writes of his home, “Indeed, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, it burnt twice as much power in the month of August 2006 than most American homes do in an entire year.” Too bad the Tennessee Center for Policy Research isn’t a legitimate organization – it won’t even disclose where it gets its funding. Check out our smackdown of their claims.
Link Times Online
Photo credit: Times Online
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- Green College Spotlight: Arizona State University at Tempe
- Green College Students Descend Upon Copenhagen
- New Zealand Prime Minister to Green Actress: Don’t Quit Your Day Job
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 11:00 am and is filed under Consciousness, Green Living, Health, Science, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
