A headline at The Washington Post. I started read it out loud before seeing the second half, so when I finished, I laughed out loud. I laughed because: Don't take the plane!!
The writer, Natalie B. Compton, knows this:
After the pandemic started and planes were grounded, I was wracked with guilt over my old frequent-flier lifestyle. Now travel is back, and I’m still feeling bad about flying.
Still? Why would you expect it to go away? Because you were deprived and you feel you deserve a treat now?
To be fair, she openly admits it:
Before you say it, I will say it for you: Biking to the airport does not offset a lick of damage compared to the environmental cost of taking a flight.As for toting your luggage while biking:
I went with my usual duffel bag that could be smashed into the bike’s front storage rack. Instead of my go-to leather travel purse, I fit my laptop into a borrowed backpack.And what about the helmet?! You're going to limit what you pack and take a helmet with you on your trip?
There was a major flaw in my plan: I didn’t have a helmet for the ride. I know you should always wear a bike helmet. There’s no doubt about the fact that helmets save cyclists’ lives, plus I’m clumsy.
Yeah, especially with a pack on your back and a duffel in the front basket.
Look, the solution is obvious, and you know it. If you are as concerned about climate change as your purported guilt suggests, then don't take any inessential plane trips.
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64 comments:
You can take the metro to the airport, or a bus. This biker is ridiculous.
What an idiot!
"There was a major flaw in my plan: I didn’t have a helmet for the ride."
No, that's a feature! If you fall and die, think about all the energy you won't be consuming over the course of the life you did not live.
What, you made it to the airport safely? Loser.
These people are nuts.
That particular airport is bikeable, don't try this in Denver. Though you could hav at th old airport.
So much angst when one is a liberal, progressive, Greenie (are any or all terms redundant?) Fly, drive, stay home, whatever.
Thank you for the use of "Inessential," Professor. I learned something.
As for the story, it's like our 2022 energy policy- keying your own car and slashing its tires, prior to getting a trade in estimate.
Climate change has nothing to do with saving hte planet.
The only goal of the Climate Change Cult is power of the laptop class over the working class.
"If you are as concerned about climate change as your purported guilt suggests, then don't take any inessential plane trips."
No, if you believe all this climate doom and gloom then DON"T TAKE ANY TRIPS PERIOD!
Stupid people are stupid.
But stupid people getting published means A LOT of people are stupid.
What she shows is an incredible lack of critical reasoning skills, even if she freely admits what she is did is silly, which it is.
no helmet? Look, the solution is obvious, and you know it.
take a car
This woman has enough guilt for all of us.
So we can use her 'I'm a good person' offsets.
Isn't this contemporary feel-good morality in a nutshell: Find useless ways to assuage wealth guilt and also signal virtue?
I'm waiting for the hard environmentalists to first stop flying, but also stop using smart phones, electric cars, and all sorts of things. They can choose to live a primal subsistence lifestyle any time they like. Or, they can get real and approach environmental discussions as adults.
To be fair, she openly admits it:
Because admitting it makes it ok.
If you are as concerned about climate change as your purported guilt suggests, then don't take any inessential plane trips.
Or, and hear me out, or...go ahead and take the flight and then write an article in the WaPo about how bad you feel because public handwringing is about a billion tons of carbon offsets.
Fly, or fly not. There is no try.
Or to put it another way, why does this virtue-signaling douche nozzle get space in the Washington post? Oh right, because he perfectly reflects the views of their douche nozzle readers.
Great, just what I need....sitting next to someone on a plane bathed in sweat from a one hour bike ride
Bless her heart. It's her actions and inactions --and those of millions of other self-pleasing morons who refuse to study even the rudiments of the science-- that are going to condemn us to Green Energy Hell.
Those of you who have fallen for the Climate Change hoax are welcome to freeze to death in the dark. Those of us who are a bit more math-literate intend to get on with our lives. BTW, a scheduled flight is going to go whether you’re on it or not. A single person, plus luggage, adds a negligible amount of weight to the aircraft.
Navel gazing while Kyiv burns!
John Kerry made the greatest admission against interest in the history of the world. He admitted that if the US went to net carbon zero tomorrow, it wouldn't make a difference. China and India are the source of "the problem."
And I have to laugh when the Green Zealots assert that carbon dioxide is "pollution." It's a naturally occurring trace amount gas that is necessary for life.
Going green and building renewable like Texas has done so well will take away $$$ from Tyrannical regimes like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Do the math!
Blogger minnesota farm guy said...
Navel gazing while Kyiv burns!
I bet you would have been stoked if former President LBJ talked about the brilliant and savvy Ho Chi Mien during Khe Sanh.
BUCK: Mr. President, in the last 24 hours we know Russia has said that they are recognizing two breakaway regions of Ukraine, and now this White House is stating that this is an “invasion.” That’s a strong word. What went wrong here? What has the current occupant of the Oval Office done that he could have done differently?
TRUMP: Well, what went wrong was a rigged election and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there and a man that has no concept of what he’s doing. I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.
So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.
By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened. But here’s a guy that says, you know, “I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,” he used the word “independent,” “and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.” You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.
Do you know how much CO2 is released when a Javelin meets up with a tank?
I hope the Ukrainians are taking bicycles to the front lines.
The most important thing here is that the author works for WaPo.
Nearly every American utility is pursuing net carbon zero. This will double or triple your electric rates. But the Fake News refuses to cover this. That's because so many of them are true believers in the global warming scam.
Omaha Public Power District has committed to spending $28b by 2050 on wind, solar and batteries. That means electric rates will skyrocket. The Omaha paper refuses to cover this issue. All libs at the OWH.
Do not crucify Americans on a cross of wind turbine blades!
As Mr. Glen Reynolds has said many times, "I'll take climate change seriously when you do".
Addendum. OPPD paid between $1m and $1.9m to E3 of San Franciso to come up with a deceptive report that OPPD can achieve net carbon zero by spending $28b and rates will rise by the maximum of 22% by 2050; less than 1% per year. Pure BS.
Big Mike...yes the scheduled flight will go anyway, but if there are not a bunch of climate change hypocrites flying on it, it won't fly.
I didn't even include the part where she gets to the airport and there are creepy, confusing tunnels to get to where you park the bike and then get into the terminal. Part of it included walking up a ramp that was designed for cars and had no sidewalk. And remember that she couldn't have the normal wheelie bag but had to carry everything.
Hey, it's clown world. They've been told to feel bad about ordinary things in order to advance a Luddite-Commie political agenda and they've fallen for the scam.
This is thoroughly irrational. The author knows it's thoroughly irrational. We should read about her confusion because ___.
Not only is she an idiot, IMO, she’s also an asshole who is dangerous to people in cars.
Nobody is going to read your idiocy, Nitschke Howard. Save yourself the strain on your grubby little fingers.
Howard:
The only reason Texas went whole hog on wind turbines was because of the federal tax credits. Because of that foolishness, many people died and billions in damages were caused.
Buffett's MidAmerican Energy made a proposal to build standby natgas plants to correct this problem. I don't know what happened. But that's billions in wasted capital that ratepayers will end up paying.
CAGW is the greatest scam in the history of the world.
Do not crucify Americans on a cross of wind turbine blades!!
"By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened."
He's not wrong.
Howard said...
I bet you would have been stoked if former President LBJ talked about the brilliant and savvy Ho Chi Mien during Khe Sanh.
This is followed by Howard's fever dream.
Because Howard cannot deal with reality
You are an evil piece of shit that made the Ukraine war happen Howard. You support other evil pieces of shit like Trudeau and Joe Biden who are indistinguishable from Vladimir Putin in any real way.
It is stupid laptop class fuckheads like this woman pushing Climate Change Cult garbage that are empowering the likes of Iran and Russia right now.
You are a terrible person Howard.
“That particular airport is bikeable, don't try this in Denver. Though you could hav at th old airport.”
Take the Light Rail. Bike to one of the stops, or maybe downtown by Union Station. My memory was that they had bike racks on the trains. I lived for a bit by the Golden end of the Light Rail, and would, on occasion, take it all the way to DIA, and back, switching trains downtown. Worked well. A bike might have been nice getting between trains downtown, but other than that, it worked great. Stupid investment, of course, but I did get some of my RTD taxes back that way.
It was stupid because Denver, as so many other more modern cities, grew fairly evenly in all directions, not constrained by existing rail lines, which was the case in older cities like NYC and Chicago. The further you get from the city centers, the further you are from a light rail, etc, stop. It’s mathematical- the area of a circle grows at a squared rate as the radius increases. Interestingly, Denver, at my birth there, did follow the rail model, with population growth following the trolley lines (for example, along Colfax Ave). I remember seeing the last trolley cars being hauled away in the 1950s, and after that, with the availability of cars, population grew to fill in between the trolley lines.
I’m beginning to see apocalypse as an upgrade.
The bike ride isn't supposed to actually make sense and offset anything. It's just the hair shirt that is the penance for her carbon sin.
Being virtuous and virtue signaling are not the same.
Obviously she is doing penance because air travel is a sin to which she confessed in the Washington Post. Ms. Compton may not have been attentive when she was a child in PSR, so mixed up the steps. In Sunday school, we learn that one sins first, then confesses to a priest who assigns penance.
I parked my bicycle by the long term parking toll booth for every second weekend for a couple of years, chained to the chain link fence. Nobody ever complained about this form of free parking.
I'll give her the merest of credit. Recognizing personal hypocrisy is the first step to being honest with yourself.
I'll give no credit to the WaPo. They still publish a print issue.
She could do better and ditch the laptop for a tablet, the ones with big blue horizontal lines on each page.
I once took a tuk-tuk from downtown Delhi to the airport - a big mistake!
Apophasis by Ann: "I won't tell you the part about the creepy confusing tunnels"!
The lady apparently earns her living flying around - Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Laos all within a month: https://natb.co/tag/bangkok/
If you really think you are doing terrible damage, don't take any essential trips either.
These people have broken brains.
Poor Howard. Wait until he finds out the Germans who are the biggest green energy fools on the planet just had an energy wake up call and are now reversing course 180 degrees back to natural gas, coal and nuclear.
I Self-Flagellate in the parking garage.
I clutch my carbon credit card and pray to Gaia, Rasta Dale, and The Collective.
She deserves all the guilt she feels, and more. It's displaced onto us anyway.
How much did her it cost to ship her that bullshit metal or bamboos straw so she could drink Mai Tais with ingredients shipped around the world, then washed in water that was sanitized with chemicals in sub-standard septic systems?
Stop traveling and get a houseplant to love.
She should have just sent the Pope a check for an indulgence -- has the same effect on both her emotional state and on the physical environment, and maybe he could have sent it to a useful charity.
In 2019 data centers produced as much carbon emissions as aviation. Turn off your computer, stop using the internet, eschew Amazon, repudiate streaming and save the planet.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3431148/why-data-centres-are-the-new-frontier-in-the-fight-against-climate-change.html
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf
It's not what you do, it's what you feel about it. Anything's OK as long as you feel badly about it.
The good news about this story is the bike will probably be stolen by the time he or she returns. Then they will get to walk home.
Natalie B. Compton. Hey, she's young, slender, long dark hair. Really quite attractive. Thirty years ago, I'd have hit that hard, for a month or so. But after the new wears off, you start noticing ...
Skipper said...
It's not what you do, it's what you feel about it. Anything's OK as long as you feel badly about it.
And in the end it is laptop class thugs that tell themselves they are righteous for smashing their working class enemies, stealing their bank accounts, getting them fired from their jobs and importing illegals to replace them, and destroying their lives.
I know one liberal who often flies NetJets, and another who bought his own jet.
They both earned it so what do I care?
How is it better that she openly admits it? She believes it's wrong, she chooses to do it anyway.
Howard said...
Going green and building renewable like Texas has done so well will take away $$$ from Tyrannical regimes like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Do the math!
No, Mr Putin ally, supporting the Keystone II pipeline, frack, and massive oil development in the3 US and Israel takes away $$$ from Tyrannical regimes like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
I did the math.
Only those who are pro-nuclear power are anti-Putin.
How many billions of dollars has Putin made during the Biden* Admin, thanks to the Democrats pro-Putin efforts to cut US gas production and increase oil prices?
Wher are you Democrats going to stop funding Putin?
AZ Bob said...
Being virtuous and virtue signaling are not the same.
AZ Bob wins the day
I once biked to Gatwick. Don't do it! I was young and in a jam. Only a crazy person would bike to a major airport.
I doubt her seat mates on the plane enjoyed smelling her virtue on the form of sweat on the flight.
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