This is an issue so many people — people who love to think of themselves as hawkish on climate-change — desperately seek to avoid. The letter writer has gone very far into vigilance. He's not flying at all anymore, AND he wants to pressure others to adopt his form of austerity.
Of course the NYT adviser is going to try to wriggle out of it. He can't deny that "we face a climate crisis," but he says it's "blinkered" to "focus only on commercial air travel — without considering any other element of our carbon footprints." Though the letter-writer never said he was only focusing on air travel, he was advised to "keep quiet about camp" and not spoil the (highly privileged) kid's summer camp trip. Just "try to engage your cousin in the larger climate project, instead."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is why nothing ever gets done. Everyone returns to the general abstract level of Many Expansive Things Will Need to Be Done to avoid taking responsibility for the specific thing they happen to want to do right now.
By the way, why does a little kid need to go to summer camp in Paris?! Isn't this more of a stroking of the mother's ego than it is any real benefit to the boy?
Posts
151 comments:
"Having witnessed undeniable climate change..." I call BULLSHIT. You would have to be 10's of thousands of years old to witness true climate change.
I haven't noticed any climate change. In particular it hasn't been hotter in the summer than I remember long ago.
The climate scam rolls on with the left pushing it.
It's a fucking cult.
It was 78 degrees here yesterday...absolutely perfect, glorious weather.
When I opened the weather app on my iPhone the graphical depiction of the area was rendered in bright orange and yellow, as if the region were engulfed in flames.
It's propaganda, and everyone from Apple to the news stations that report the weather are all pulling the same trick.
Still waiting on comments from Al Gore, John Kerry, and Leo DiCaprio on them announcing that they are ditching air travel on their private jets and instead will travel to their destination via solar powered vehicles in the United States and to foreign countries via a Windjammer cruise ship…
Why send the boy to a summer camp in Paris? Perhaps he reads the NYTimes travel section and wanted to "Admire the Trees of Paris". If the NYTimes wanted to do its part to end the climate crisis, they could start with laying off their Trsvel section. Food and Sports should be next.
If you find yourself writing to a newspaper advice columnist...just don't do it.
Can you imagine being the d'bag that emails the column to the cousin - "Hey, did you happen to see this in the NYT? Looks like I was right, you're a selfish jerk who's going to destroy the planet for that precious child you want to send to Camp Français!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is why nothing ever gets done."
Have you read anything about the price of electricity in Great Britain and Germany these days? Things are getting done.
Let's stick to the issues in the post and not repeat the generic stuff about how you may think climate change is a hoax. That's been done. Please address the specific issues.
Good. More seats will be available.
People, plants, and animals all do better when glaciers aren’t covering the Earth.
Retreating glaciers in Alaska are uncovering ancient forests. Betcha a lot more animals lived in that forest than on the glacier.
And the question with no answer- What is the ideal temperature of our planet?
If you have to assume man-made climate change is real in order to get to these issues, please do that. Otherwise this thread won't be new but just a repetition other comment threads.
Wow. And I only got to go to Big Bear Lake for a week!
I'd call out her White Privilege on this one.
'By the way, why does a little kid need to go to summer camp in Paris?'
Maybe it's French camp.
If it was Spanish camp the kid could just take the 4 subway to the Bronx (or any restaurant/construction site/landscaper)...
Perhaps he reads the NYTimes travel section and wanted to "Admire the Trees of Paris".
Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees?
So German troops can always march in the shade...
If I believed in global warming I would behave like the letter writer.
On topic: This is an updated version of phony Christian deathbed confessions to get into heaven. Quoting St. Augustine:
"Lord, let me be pure but not yet."
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/saint_augustine_130906
The Catholic Church also sold indulgences as free passes to sin. More than anything it confirms that climate change has clear religious undertones. Expect similar behaviors from fundamentalists, and schisms, and sects, and Holy Wars. We might be in the first inning of a 300 year climate change conflict. Over the decades there will be more evidence one way or another, but the true believers won't change before that. And there will be a lot of doubletalk and selfish bargaining like this example.
Ann Althouse said...
If you have to assume man-made climate change is real in order to get to these issues, please do that. Otherwise this thread won't be new but just a repetition other comment threads.
**************
But the real "issue" here is delusion and virtue-signaling on a massive scale.
I sat next to "Nick" on a flight last year before his decision. It was all 'What're we doing to Gaia' and 'Can you believe how much plastic's around this food plate?' He said this was definitely the last time he'd fly to Reykjavík to buy Christmas tree ornaments.
So the person submitting the question is 45 years old and has done his share of air travel. I'm just going to assume that his previous excursions included Paris and other overseas cultural Meccas. Now that he has decided he's through with air travel, he thinks it's appropriate to demand that his young cousin forget about ever seeing Europe? How is that equitable? If he wants to preach giving up air travel to anyone, he should limit it middle age and older folks who, like him, have already seen the world. Mind you, they should tell him to fuck off; but at least he'd be in a stronger position to make his argument.
247 GW of coal-fired power plants planned in China.
81 GW of coal-fired power plants under construction right now in China.
Flying a jet to Paris won't make any difference.
Libs are rich and ignorant.
Perhaps the letter writer could buy some carbon offsets on behalf of his cousin's son and gently present the act as an early Christmas present.
The Busybody KARENs will be with us always…
Okay, the specific issue is that these libs are all fabulously wealthy? Summer camp in France? Heck, I attended a day camp at a City of Omaha park. The last day the teenage counselors put on a show and dressed like Indians. That has stopped.
Because these libs are all wealthy and are mostly agnostic, they have to believe in something. And that something is saving the planet despite that costs to us serfs.
White liberal guilt is real and is extremely dangerous.
These White libs need to just STFU and leave us alone.
Here is where the AGCC religion fails. Like with Jim Jones, a little charisma will delude some into drinking thr kool-aid; most won't. At some point, specific activities will have to be restricted - no luxury travel to Paris, no A/Cfor Washington. At that point, most will fade away from the current fad like the Cheshire cat.
But there will be no learning. A new savior, one tht also requires top-down control and sacrifices from others, will replace the savior they are vacating.
"If I believed in global warming I would behave like the letter writer."
That's how you can tell how many people actually believe.
Do you believe in heaven and hell?
Ann Althouse said...
If you have to assume man-made climate change is real in order to get to these issues, please do that. Otherwise this thread won't be new but just a repetition other comment threads.
That is the problem.
You are according idiots and liars deference they do not deserve.
All to discuss what? Have fun with this thread. You are succumbing to the Orwellian use of authority.
BTW, about a decade ago, a family member of mine who was and remains thoroughly invested in climate change radicalism flew all around the continental U.S. in late December for the sole, stated purpose of posting enough frequent flyer miles to qualify for entry into the airport lounge for the following year. I'm not talking about merely treating herself to an impromptu getaway to the West Coast or anything like that. I'm saying she planned and made a multi-leg journey where she never stepped foot outside an airport terminal other than the time she spent on the plane itself, all simply to maintain her eligibility for the airline lounge. She supposedly felt guilty and shameful about this. She made a point of asking me not to mention it around other people.
"Okay, the specific issue is that these libs are all fabulously wealthy? Summer camp in France? Heck, I attended a day camp at a City of Omaha park. The last day the teenage counselors put on a show and dressed like Indians. That has stopped."
I didn't even have the chance to go to any camp. I thought "sleep-away" camp was for people who were richer than us. I'm not suggesting we were poor or even lower middle class. We were middle middle class and we were not sent to camp in the summer.
Not a single unoccupied seat on a recent transatlantic flight. They gave out individual plastic Chenin blanc bottles and single use wooden utensils, said it requires less fuel because plastic weighs less, they said they recycle. They were European and nice, and maintained clean bathrooms throughout the flight, looking at you, Delta.
If she is serious, then I suggest running the HVAC with the doors and windows open. That would be “fighting “ global warming for real.
I have a problem with individuals who say, "I lived it up in my youth, but now I'm older, so I live a more sedate life. And I want the young people of today to skip the living-it-up years and go directly to the prudish, priggish lifestyle I now find so rewarding."
Likewise I have a problem with countries that say, "Sure we raped the environment and killed all the buffalo when we were in the early stages of development and much poorer, but now I want poor countries to stop whining about poverty, and tighten their belts and start living an environmentally responsible lifestyle."
‘Having witnessed undeniable climate change…’
What the ever-livin’ fuck does that even mean?
Well, if you do believe in climate change (and who doesn't?), then there are a series of subsidiary questions that bear on whether the kid should fly to france.
1. Is climate change really not a good thing?
2. Is the climate change controllable by the efforts of human beings?
3. If so, how much?
4. What will be the price in terms of human comfort, costs of living, etc.
Now having answered those things, one can evaluate a trip to France for summer camp. A few questions.
1. What are the reasonable alternatives?
2. Etc., etc.
The author wants the editor to answer all these questions and that is a pretty stupid thing for someone who can afford a discretionary trip to France.
Of course the NYT adviser is going to try to wriggle out of it. He can't deny that "we face a climate crisis," but he says it's "blinkered" to "focus[e] only on commercial air travel — without considering any other element of our carbon footprints."
But if you really care about carbon emissions, it's not blinkered in the least. It's the single largest individual contribution most people who fly on planes will make, and the one where consumers have the most direct connection to the emissions. Sure, maybe if you opt not to use plastic bags, then somewhere down the supply chain, there might be a slight reduction in carbon emissions. Maybe if you buy local produce only, or stop eating beef, then at the far end of a long supply chain, there might be an incremental adjustment, assuming the beef and the fruit and the plastic bags don't just get shipped elsewhere at a slightly lower price, as is likely to happen, because plastic bags are useful and beef and fruit taste delicious.
But with air travel, especially after we just saw the massive reduction in flights that took place as a result of people in the developed work drastically reducing their own air travel, that reduction takes place at, like, one remove. Your individual decision won't stop any given plane, but if, collectively, all the people in the developed world who pretend to care about carbon emissions decided not to fly at all, that could have a significant and almost immediate effect on annual emissions, with comparatively little disruption to everyday life.
The other alternatives -- e.g. showering in cold water, moving to a tiny house, buying an expensive electric car, not running the air conditioning -- do involve significant disruption to everyday life (or are at least much more expensive) with, I think, a smaller impact to overall carbon emissions. I'm not going to look it up now, but I recall a chart from some years ago, where the per-passenger emissions from a single international flight exceeded the average middle-income household's annual carbon emissions.
This Puritan complaining about a child's trip to Paris has happened to hit on something that actually might make a difference for the thing he cares about. That doesn't make him any less irritating than the other breast-beating environmentalists in my eyes (if anything, it makes him slightly more irritating, because at least the others are only putting on an act), but it does make him less hypocritical.
As for the specific question that was posed, I think it's impolite to raise the topic with the cousin. They've already made a different value judgment. It's even possible, I suppose, that they bought carbon offsets to cover the trip.
"By the way, why does a little kid need to go to summer camp in Paris?! Isn't this more of a stroking of the mother's ego than it is any real benefit to the boy?"
The gospel of AGW is not my religion, but for those who bend the knee in that church, it's fine with me if they want to go full Cistercian, abstinence and mortification of the flesh and all that. And just as fine if they want to be the mendicant missionary out to convert the unbelievers -- you know, like the Witnesses who (used to) ring the doorbell and go into their spiel. Much more likely to backfire when they do, which is also fine with me. And guaranteed to backfire if they go full jihad on the unbelievers, which seems like the direction the true believers are taking.
But the question AA ends with (quoted above) is really over the top. Perhaps that is just more cruel vortex. But if the point is to indulge questions no one is asking (and no one should be asking), how about: why does a retired professor need to blog daily? Isn't this more ....
“We were middle middle class and we were not sent to camp in the summer.“
We were sent to the farm. There were a few days at church camp and 4-H camp, two stints camping on RAGBRAI, and a couple of weeks one August at the greatest camp of all, the Iowa State Fair.
What climate change? NYC isn’t underwater. It is still snowing. I was told there would be storm/hurricane after hurricane but pretty much nada. Falsified data, monitoring stations place in hot spots on purpose.
Bunch of hypocrites but mostly fascists.
"Please address the specific issues."
OK. Let's assume that climate change is not a hoax. Then it's way too late for anything you do or don't do to have any discernible effect. Except maybe if you could somehow precipitate a nuclear war, preferably with China. The claim is that the atmosphere is already poisoned with CO2 to the point that if we stopped burning shit altogether, it will still be a century or more before it gets back to "normal" levels. But a nuclear war might -- might -- introduce enough crap into the atmosphere to counteract the supposed CO2 effect, with the supposed "Nuclear Winter" effect. And nuking China into the stone age should shut down most of their coal-burning power plants, which are far and away the largest source of CO2 discharge. Plus we can assume they would nuke us back, and the Russians might get involved as well. A planet-wide nuclear war might well be exactly what The Climate needs.
So, if the kid is going to Paris to start a nuclear war with China, Hooray! We're saved! Otherwise, carry on.
From a climate change perspective, the difference between sending your kid from NYC to camp in Paris versus camp in New Hampshire is just one of degree.
Three grand plus airfare and incidentals will get your teenager two supervised weeks in a 4 person room at a boarding school in Paris.
If my boy had really wanted to go I would have considered it.
And if I had had the opportunity I would have jumped at it.
Some of you guys should get out of town a little more often.
Look, I'm sorry, Prof. Althouse: I have made this point before. But I still find it funny to read on the internet about people swearing off flying for the good of the planet, when the internet's carbon footprint is about that of commercial aviation. And unlike commercial aviation, internet activity is still on the rise.
We all make choices, right? A couple of months ago I visited friends – serious climate hawks, both scientists – at their lake house. Our kids had a wonderful time zooming around on their motorboat. It was a lovely day. And over chips and salsa afterward, the discussion turned to the climate, and one of my friends' kids said, "And that's why we shouldn't use fossil fuels!"
I love the kid, but the lack of self-awareness was amusing. I think we burned 30 gallons of fuel out on the water that day. That's – let's see – just about 240 kg of CO2 released because the kids clamored to go tubing.
I do believe burning hydrocarbons on the scale we do is a problem. I also think we're not going to move past them until there's an alternative people will freely choose, on very large scale. Most people's commitment to cutting back is pretty shallow. Ask them to restrict their fun, or their travel, and some of them will make some concessions, with questionable impact. Ask them to take a real hit – to be significantly poorer; to be actually uncomfortable or less secure in life – and a critical mass decide this is a luxury concern. See also Germany thinking about firing up coal plants because a lot less Russian natural gas is coming this winter.
On second thought, I appreciate this climate Karen forgoing air travel because at 1:02 pm on August 10th in Alabama it’s 78°. Science is best as a system of belief!!
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/
There's that.
'NYC isn’t underwater.'
I am kind of pissed about this.
When I first heard that NYC would be flooded, I started taking surfing lessons so I could hang ten on Fifth Avenue.
Now what the hell am I going to do with a surfboard, baggies, Huarache sandals, and a bushy bushy blonde hairdo?
Let me know when the climate change predictions start coming true. No hurricans yet this year and none forming at present.
Chicken Littles gets lots of grant money to study why the sky might fall though it never does, but everyone else doesn't get money and has to pay taxes money for Chicken Little's grant money.
I’m sure most readers know this already given that they are well educated for the most part, but nearly all of the “advice columns” are completely made up. This one doesn’t pass the smell test. The author wanted to write about climate change so made up a ludicrously bad virtue signaling letter.
Let's do some math. Gore's "Earth in Balance" was written in 1992 when the NYT writer was 15. Global warming was discussed widely earlier. Yet the writer did his "fair share" of air travel and NOW wants to pull up the ladder behind him. Just great. A rational 15 year old understands that non-renewable resources are non-renewable, pollution pollutes, and people impact the environment. Yet the writer wakes up after 30 years. Sorry. People will do what they want, as the writer did, and the trip to Paris should not be disallowed but a belated fundamentalist.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
If you have to assume man-made climate change is real in order to get to these issues, please do that. Otherwise this thread won't be new but just a repetition other comment threads.
What does that even mean? Someday, I would like to read a real explanation of how this obvious scam has gotten so powerful. I know that government funding of climate science is part of it. The "Military Industrial Complex" now includes government funded science of all types. The vaccine thing is part of that along with the whole Covid hysteria. So is the surrender of Medicine to Woke ideology. I filled out a survey for California physicians yesterday. I was asked my "birth gender" and "present gender."
If the letter writer is actually serious, he needs to contact the power company and shut off his electricity, stop travelling by car or train altogether, and probably give up food. Otherwise, it is all virtue signalling.
When your religion lacks a church or clergy, you have to invent it. It is unwise to seek counsel from the New York Times for any purpose, but if your standards are low enough then, sure, why not.
Apropos Althouse's "do you believe in Heaven and Hell?" this whole discussion reminded me of Mark Twain's aphorism: Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
Send your kid to Paris camp for a better class of global warming sufferers. "Tout le monde were there, mummy."
"My dear cousin plans to send her young son to Paris by plane to participate in a summer camp. May I encourage her not to?""
No. Mind yer own fuckin' business you prick. I don't care how "dear" your cousin is to you. Unless you are directly involved in the raising of that kid your job is to butt out. I don't care how much you love Gaia -- you're sticking your nose where it don't belong.
The Catholic Church also sold indulgences as free passes to sin.
No. No. No. No. No. That is not what happened. But of course that is how an anti-Catholic culture has falsely presented the situation (which did involve some abuses).
Even so, it is not that hard for people to rid themselves of their ignorance.
"Le réchauffement climatique, quelle dommage!" It all sounds so much more... endurable in French. Plus, Davos is a short getaway to escape the Parisian heat. Paris summer camp should like the perfect place to inculcate the AGW hypocrisy so necessary to socialize in the top universities and NGOs.
As long as the dirgibles are still making the crossing the boy will be alright.
Appropriate answer from the 'advisor' - "Well, President Biden flew on AF1 with only himself and a few advisors, with additional planes for the rest of the riff raff, for the sole purpose of begging the Saudis to increase oil output to improve Biden's approval ratings. I think the kid can go to summer camp, so long as they fly coach."
Summer camp in Paris sounds delightful. The letter writer is an annoying scold.
Sending the child to summer camp will have two benefits -- a splendid experience for the child, and perhaps the scold will refuse to associate with child, freeing the child of a tiresome nag.
I went to camp when I was 17. Camp Northland B'Nai B'rith. I was Catholic, and was hired as a "Kitchen Boy". Great people, learned alot about kosher. Great experience.
Althouse wrote:
This is an issue so many people — people who love to think of themselves as hawkish on climate-change — desperately seek to avoid.
It’s not just air travel restriction that “climate hawks” seek to avoid. It’s everything else too. Giving up meat, cars, refusing any products or services produced or delivered via fossil fuels. There is no matching the money with the mouth. It’s impossible. You’d go broke and starve.
Anyway, I remember at Elmhurst, IL City Council meetings (I lived there until 2014 until I moved back to WI) these annoying McMansion owning Karen’s always showed up touting their “green energy” ideas. Water retention barrels for gardens, planting a garden on your roof. Supporting ComEd increases for a pretend green energy supply to the grid. Worthless shit like that.
One time during open mic, after they gave their smarmy presentation, this old curmudgeon dude gets up to the mic and says, “Have you thought about turning off your second air conditioner, or selling your Hummer?”
The audience laughed, and of course the suburban environmental Karen’s were offended and appalled.
Worse than the Suburban Karens are the people who actually purchase make believe carbon credits so others can sacrifice, and they can jet travel guilt free. The deserve to get ripped of the Al Gore grifters that sell the credits.
I am doing my part. I quit riding my bicycle because I need to run my air compressor to fill the tires. Too old and feeble* to use a hand pump. I feel so good about myself.
* On the plus side, I can still put on suit jacket without assistance.
Misinforminimalism said... "If you find yourself writing to a newspaper advice columnist...just don't do it."
Sound advice, but our climate change warriors know that all their virtue isn't going to just signal itself. So they gotta go and get published in the NYT by any means available.
What's an affluent, credentialed, morally enlightened progressive to do: just let one's knuckle-dragging Philistine relatives go about living their lives as they want, or instead selflessly make the effort to rub their ignorant noses in the evil of their ways?
After all, what would Gaia do?
My parents sent me to a friend's in Wisconsin for two weeks one summer when I was 10. I left behind my chickens and ducks that I had gotten for Easter. By now they were laying eggs or crowing. When I got home two weeks later, I was told they had been sent to my grandparents' farm. We ate a lot of fried chicken that summer. That was my summer camp.
Ann Althouse said If you have to assume man-made climate change is real in order to get to these issues, please do that. Otherwise this thread won't be new but just a repetition other comment threads.
Reasonable request. I'll try. The reality is that even people who believe man-made climate change is real, the zero carbon goal is impossible to achieve. As I stated in my other comment, you'd go broke and starve.
Beyond that, how do you get yourself to sacrifice, when the climate change saints whom you admire and wish to emulate, are the biggest carbon abusers of all? Yachts, Mansions, Private jets...own your own fucking Island...
This is why Christianity is not actually filled with hypocrisy like Global Warming. We KNOW and EXPECT church leaders to be sinners. We expect their hypocrisy and sin. We do it too. We know the ones preaching self perfection are the most full of shit Christians around.
We'll except for the Jesuits of course. They trump everyone. They like alter boys AND believe in man made climate change.
Sort of like a guy who finishes his meal and as he walks out of the restaurant advises the people waiting in line to leave because the kitchen would be put to better use by feeding the homeless.
When smart people use the phrase virtue signaling, something like that letter is what they have in mind; it's a paradigm case.
And another thing, letters to advice columnists signed with drollish nom des plumes like "Cortney Curious" or just initials are usually the invention of the columnist herself that allowed her to hammer some pet peeve without risk of unpleasant blowback like lawsuits. Yes, such legal action is probably futile, but an idiot who would confess to murdering his wife in a letter to Ann Landers is liable to do anything, eg Michael Knowles v. Ann Landers, the Creators Syndicate, et al.
And now for some advice from a person with a good head on his shoulders and good antles on his head.
"But the real 'issue' here is delusion...."
Yeah, there's a lot of delusion, alright!
The man should encourage his nephew to go to France via transatlantic sea cruise.
Not only should the polluting little brat not be allowed to fly to Paris, but he should be made to make his fair contribution to beating the Climate Change menace: Take away his iPhone / Android. Ditto his computer. No designer sneakers. No car on his sixteenth birthday, etc.
Why send a kid to Paris? Just speculating (paywall prevents me from reading the full bit) the family has roots in France, as maybe the grandparents immigrated from France?
Can we address destination weddings next? After that, the tiresome whine that "young people can't afford to get married" when a marriage certificate costs under $100 most places.
a family member of mine who was and remains thoroughly invested in climate change radicalism flew all around the continental U.S. in late December for the sole, stated purpose of posting enough frequent flyer miles to qualify for entry into the airport lounge for the following year.
I had a college prof who was a vegetarian for philosophical reasons. A fellow student called him out for his (leather) Birkenstocks. His reply: "As long as castle are being slaughtered anyway, it is less immoral to use the products of their immorally slaughtered bodies than to let them go to waste."
And THAT is how you make a virtue out of the choices you make for your own comfort and happiness!
In this instance, the writer is trying to turn his (sounds like a man to me for some reason) virtue-signaling into yet another virtue: courtesy. He's failing miserably, of course. He comes across like the "etiqueteer" who publicly scolds a fellow dinner guest for use of the wrong fork.
“Do you believe in heaven and hell?”
Yes. And I’ve seen - and felt - paradise by the dashboard lights.
Mark said...
The Catholic Church also sold indulgences as free passes to sin.
***********
That makes me wonder how many of the gay Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who survived HIV now have monkeypox.
My siblings sent their children to each other for "camp". Once potty trained, they were eligible until they had to stay local for their own band and/or sports camps after 6th grade.
None of the siblings had them all at the same time but all of them got some time with none of the kids - even their own.
The story of the trip to Paris to attend a summer camp with a bunch of francophiles doesn't compute when Quebec province is no further than a bridge away in upstate NY, VT, ME, and NH, which perhaps will result in less carbon fuel burning, which by and large will be with us until the magic of nitrogen is technologically developed, and fully supported by fueling stations and repair shops. Then billions upon billions of dollars can be expended on new-design vehicles - whether we do the driving or rely on safe computer-driven vehicles.
The Ford Model T was the first automobile to be mass produced in 1908 and 125 years later we have adapted our lifestyle to the "car." No more sitting around the cracker barrel at the General Store "shooting the shit."
And huge investments are not the larger issue, since Americans have already adapted to our great comforts that permit air-conditioned living not available in Europe and grand vacation locations in our beautiful country that virtually everyone enjoys such as a gathering for a family reunion or a three-week stay on Mackinac Island. You have to get there and you have to get home.
Robert Cook
I wonder about the carbon footprint of the five day QE2 NY to Southampton vs a seven or eight hour JFK to LHR flight.
Robert Cook. Per a climate offset company. “According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight “. So way better jetting but not nearly as much fun or relaxing.
Gusty Winds said...
"The reality is that even people who believe man-made climate change is real, the zero carbon goal is impossible to achieve. As I stated in my other comment, you'd go broke and starve."
***********
Correct. Only when you die do you stop exhaling CO2, and only after your corpse has rotted away through the chemical process of putrefaction will it stop emitting it.
Of course, cremation is an option, but that just generates lots of CO2 all at once.
If they really want to be virtuous, Green Weenies ought to be volunteering to end their lives now by stepping into one of those extermination chambers used in sci-movies, where you simply vanish.
No untidy carbon mess!!
"The reality is that even people who believe man-made climate change is real, the zero carbon goal is impossible to achieve."
Well, it is true that people who believe that controlling their own use of energy resources will have an impact on climate are assuming that the Saudis and the Nigerians and the Venezuelans and the Americans and ... are all just going to leave all that oil and coal and natural gas in the ground. Because there will be no market for it. No one will want to buy it. No American Presidents will fly to SA and beg them to pump more of it out of the ground.
That doesn't sound likely. Of course there are people who will buy it if you won't, and those who have it are going to pump it and sell it if they can. The only way to get them not to is war. Preferably nuclear, since nuclear war has a rather small carbon footprint. A few ICBMs, pop, pop, pop -- no more CO2!
So, yeah, it seems fairly clear that if you seriously believe that CO2 threatens the future of the planet, your best bet is --- nuclear war! What can't it do?
Paging Dr. Kervorkian. You have a 45 y/o loser who needs your help.
The child can swim to Calais, then hike to Paris. Problem solved, planet saved.
I went to the UK for a couple weeks during high school. I was not privileged. We were lower middle class but, lo and behold, I had a fucking job. Washing dishes all night at a fancy restaurant. Not everyone who gets nice things gets them because of Mommy and Daddy's money. Myopic view, Professor.
I went to the UK for a couple weeks during high school. I was not privileged. We were lower middle class but, lo and behold, I had a fucking job. Washing dishes all night at a fancy restaurant. Not everyone who gets nice things gets them because of Mommy and Daddy's money. Myopic view, Professor.
So what does this expert have.
~20 years of WEATHER observing. Observing is a term used very loosely. Unless the weather directs you decisions on a day by day hour by hour basis, all you remember is how the weather made you feel.
Exactly the audience the climate hoaxers are appealing to.
I'll compare this to the common pro-choice retort "If you don't like abortions don't have one." Anti-abortion folks like myself see the issue as universally morally binding on all people. Similarly, those who are zealous about their climate change concerns, such as Greta Thunberg, would like to enforce a universal ban on most air travel and other agents of pollution. But so far, most of the climate change enthusiasts are not yet at the point where they seem willing to significantly change their lifestyles -- or impose lifestyle restrictions on others -- that line up with their stated beliefs. They are content to leave the problem in the hands of governing bodies, who are thus far adopting a slow and incremental approach that doesn't interfere with most people's personal lifestyles.
If you have to assume man-made climate change is real in order to get to these issues,
You know, this is still all just based on 'experts' models and projections. They've 'proven' nothing. More than 20 years ago, they also made predictions about what the climate would be like today. You can check it all out. They were wrong, and they can't even explain why and how they were wrong. And yet, they expect us to change our lives, to live smaller, harder lives with a lower standard of living, based on their 'projections'. I don't think they've made their case.
I will continue to fly, travel, eat meat, drive my car, use the AC, etc. The rest of you can make your lives smaller if you want. Whatever.
No matter what I personally think about climate change, is it really such a big deal for this guy to just speak to his cousin if he thinks the world is ending? Why does he need to trot around asking other people's opinions, if he really believes what he believes? Are any of these advice column letters even real? Heck, even the Times' real estate columnist just got busted for never paying her rent. I have a very hard time imagining this guy doesn't run around constantly bragging about his purported sacrifice.
And so I am racking up another climate activist as a fraud, and possibly a liar because his alleged situation seems too pat, even if we're supposed to stay on topic. We have been lied to so much. The Times lies all the time. The advice columnist attended two Ivy League schools but seems like a bad ideologue or a good confabulator. The letter writer, if he exists, sounds like a liar. Is it any wonder we are accumulating disbelief?
"Per a climate offset company. “According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight “. So way better jetting but not nearly as much fun or relaxing."
Thank you for the data. The uncle can nicely suggest to his cousin not to send her son to Paris, and explain his reasons. He should not insist on his point or make his cousin or nephew feel he is admonishing them. They have no obligation to behave according to his convictions.
Climate change is real, it's catastrophic, and it's forced by anthropogenic carbon. The solution is wicked, it's final: judge, label, abort, and sequester the bodies of evidence. #YouToo
Whether deliberate or unintentional, Americans have been sold the idea that the most important thing we can do to lower the earth’s temperature is to build windmills and solar farms. Lots of them, with huge government subsidies. If we do that, everything will turn out ok, probably. No individual sacrifice necessary.
"No more sitting around the cracker barrel at the General Store "shooting the shit." "
True. Now we sit around our homes or other places, commenting on blogs and retweeting twits.
Adhering to Ann's wishes, the letter-writer claims to be 45. Climate change has been a concern for all of that time -- and more. I am much older, and even in elementary school remember being fed a steady diet of alarmism on how fossil fuel consumption must be curtailed to avoid wreaking havoc on the Earth.
So the letter-writer knew his entire life of this concern, and yet still pursued a high-carbon-footprint lifestyle. Indeed, the letter writer still pursues a high-carbon-footprint lifestyle, with the exception of air travel. For now.
WWGD?
The kid must sail to France.
If it was Spanish camp the kid could just take the 4 subway to the Bronx (or any restaurant/construction site/landscaper)...
Thats not Spanish its Mexican
ESL teachers have to first teach the kids Spanish to they can communicate well enough to teach English.
"No. You're a jerk and shut up".
First, there is not "undeniable" evidence of human caused climate change, which is the only part we have any control over.
Second, as Jerry Pournelle used to say, it is not a great idea to run an uncontrolled experiment in how much CO2 we can pump into the atmosphere of the only planet we have before we do trigger something.
Third, if you are not a serious proponent of nuclear and hydro, you are not serious in any way about climate change.
The answer denies the cousin the entertainment of that phone call.
We must craft government policies that will impoverish the masses to the point where they can't afford a carbon footprint, that will free up the policy makers and their kith and kin to continue to live the lives they want and deserve.
The young swells can summer in Paris. The masses can send their kids to the Metaverse.
Assume the kid is being sent to learn French. The 45 year old should offer to drive the kid to Montreal for lessons.
"This is an issue so many people — people who love to think of themselves as hawkish on climate-change — desperately seek to avoid."
Haven't seen that desperation yet among the alarmists of my acquaintance.
"He can't deny that "we face a climate crisis," but he says it's "blinkered""
Funny stuff. And good of you to Fisk.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is why nothing ever gets done."
Well, one of the minor reasons. The others are that there is no crisis, that nothing makes any difference, that the next Chinese coal plant wipes out any emission reductions here, etc. etc.
"Everyone returns to the general abstract level of Many Expansive Things Will Need to Be Done to avoid taking responsibility for the specific thing they happen to want to do right now."
Actually, this is the point of alarmism: it's a money transfer scheme, and progs take full responsibility for it.
"By the way, why does a little kid need to go to summer camp in Paris?! Isn't this more of a stroking of the mother's ego than it is any real benefit to the boy?"
Well, it could just be a lot of fun, and a chance to practice French,
So all we have to do is declare our political opinions to be "undeniable" facts and we don't have to debate or defend them anymore? So easy! Why didn't I think of that?
If the f*cker wants to walk... he can...
I don't give a shit.
But his 'global warming' is BULL SHIT.
"I don't have any difficult choices in my life. So it is necessary for me to invent some."
Of course the NYT adviser is going to try to wriggle out of it. He can't deny that "we face a climate crisis," but he says it's "blinkered" to "focus[e] only on commercial air travel — without considering any other element of our carbon footprints."
Feel free to cut other things, too.
But no, planting trees or buying other "carbon indulgences" doesn't cut it.
You want to help the environment by planting more trees, etc? Great! Have at it.
But that doesn't get you permission to increase the CO2 in the atmosphere in other ways.
If it's an existential crisis, then treat it that way.
If it isn't, then STFU about it
The man should encourage his nephew to go to France via transatlantic sea cruise.
Only if he's got the boogie-woogie like a knife in the back.
This is self flagellation in a public way to score some points with his idiot friend group. I hope he learns the carbon footprint f online communities so he will stop annoying everyone with this officious, self congratulatory BS.
Let the kid live his life.
What is the carbon footprint of the new camper truck he probably just bought so he can drive great distances to annoy people with his tales of virtue?
Charlie said...
Similarly, those who are zealous about their climate change concerns, such as Greta Thunberg, would like to enforce a universal ban on most air travel and other agents of pollution. But so far, most of the climate change enthusiasts are not yet at the point where they seem willing to significantly change their lifestyles -- or impose lifestyle restrictions on others
Not so.
The whole point of "carbon taxes" is to force lifestyle changes on those lesser people who dont' have the money to afford to pay for them, AND the fun.
They're perfectly willing to screw up Deplorables lives, see the Biden gas price hikes (still, what, 80% above where we were when he took the office?).
It's just their own lives that can't be troubled
why send a kid to a camp in Paris?
Maybe to learn the language? Or the culture?
Or maybe just to brag to the neighbors?
Note: I had my son go to Madrid to learn Castillian Spanish and a bit about Spanish culture. He mainly learned how to drink wine and flirt with the girls at the discos. Oh well...
Accepting, as asked, the postulate that manmade global warming is indeed real, we are left to evaluate the imminence and magnitude of the warming, as well as the costs (both out of pocket costs and opportunity costs) and benefits of strategies aimed at the mitigation of the warming. One problem is that the anthropic engineering of climate is unprecedented. The second and third order consequences of some nifty solution (say, seeding the ionosphere with sulfur oxides that turn into aerosols, or launching giant space mirrors) are therefore unknown and unknowable. When catastrophe ensues, as I'm certain it will, the excuse that "we really meant well" should be inadmissible.
Our ultravirtuous non-flyer should concentrate his efforts on supporting research into solutions that don't involve wearing a hair shirt, like nuclear fusion and better fertilizers.
It is likely that , assuming AGW is real, the solutions have yet to be invented.
The class signaling is so strong in this that it is hard to focus on the faith aspect of it. It is noted and skipped.
In the language of my Baptist upbringing, the most devout believers in the AGW catechism as related in this example are pre-millennial in outlook. Jesus can show up any day, so be ready. This individual is as exacting a church lady as Myrna Tellingheusen.
Put the boy on the airplane. It's going whether or not he's on it.
Now, go buy a push mower, start bathing in cold water and get rid of the dog. Penance.
The Simpsons were middle class, and they sent Bart to France for a summer.
Nothing worse than a reformed smoker, hooker, climate abuser. I stopped and so should everyone else!
Let's graph his 45 years against the 20,000 years of temp history since the last ice age, much of it, thousands of years, that was much warmer than today, and talk about what's "undeniable."
Personally, I won't fly except for the occasional trip I consider highly important, family weddings or funerals pretty much. Only because I hate airports and I have the luxury of time to drive or take trains. So I am right with this guy not wanting to fly, himself. Not to mention that during my career I flew internationally enough to take the joy out of it. But lots of people have busy lives.
I agree about the class signaling though. "If my son doesn't attend a Swiss boarding school, how is he going to get a decent girl to marry him?"
Hello fellow climate kids.
Oh, no no no ... all you commenters are very, very wrong. There is very real undeniable climate change occurring. Are you a denier? I suppose you think the HOLOCOST DIDN'T HAPPEN EITHER, Mr. EICHMAN.
There are way, way too many people on the highways slowing down my commute. Way, way too many air travelers in the line ahead of me ... strike that ... destroying the planet with every flight congesting the airways ahead of my private jet.
All of you people need to forgo these things before the planet dies, and stuff. Do you really want the death of Gaia on your conscience? I should think not you bunch of climate deniers.
Get off my lane and out of my airport boarding line, Earth killers.
"Per a climate offset company. “According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight “. So way better jetting but not nearly as much fun or relaxing."
1: Traveling "coach" on the QM2 is a much nicer experience than traveling coach on a plane
2: The Cruise liner takes 7 days, NYC - Southhampton, the plane takes ~8 hours NYC - London. So you need to add in 6 days of "carbon expenditure" at your final destination in order to do a valid comparison
Fewer idiots flying on planes and having children whom they'll raise to be idiots is fine with me.
Tim said...
First, there is not "undeniable" evidence of human caused climate change, which is the only part we have any control over.
Second, as Jerry Pournelle used to say, it is not a great idea to run an uncontrolled experiment in how much CO2 we can pump into the atmosphere of the only planet we have before we do trigger something.
**************
There's no such thing as an uncontrolled experiment.
But OK, I'll bite: describe a **controlled** experiment that could detect how much humans contribute to increases in atmospheric CO2.
Give it a shot.
Then do that experiment again and again, to ensure that its results are consistent.
Then offer a controlled experiment that could falsify your hypothesis.
ONLY THEN will you be doing "science".
All else is simply theory, conjecture, and needless panic.
Blogger TestTube said...
Summer camp in Paris sounds delightful. The letter writer is an annoying scold.
Yes. I've taken my kids to England and Europe. Not summer camp but one of them went on that "If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium" school trip. The youngest of my kids has been all over including multiple times in France, which she loved so much she majored in French in College. She hoped to get a job in France. Nice was her favorite.
As a p.s. to my comment just made: computer models are NOT experiments, and their results are NOT real-world data.
There would not be 75+ models , all with different inputs, yielding different results, and being falsified by data gathered over the last 40 years, if they were.
I always guffaw when I hear green weenies pule and bleat about destruction of the Amazon rain forest, the so-called "lungs of the Earth", and at the same time saying we must all reduce our carbon footprint:
Just what the EFF do these idiots think those leafy lungs breathe IN to create the oxygen WE breathe in?
"By the way, why does a little kid need to go to summer camp in Paris?!"
To be honest, he probably doesn't need to any more than a grown woman needs to run a blog. And yet, here we are. Sometimes other people make choices you might not.
By the way, why does a little kid need to go to summer camp in Paris?! I'd have loved to go if I'd had the opportunity. So if I didn't "need" to I'd have to miss out?!
Isn't this more of a stroking of the mother's ego than it is any real benefit to the boy? Depends on the boy. Some will get no more out of Paris than the 11-year-old kvetcher hiking with dad in last night's tictacs. Others like me will benefit in ways we can't even imagine till we make the trip.
"Undeniable..."
Cue Mandy Patankin.
The only person I know who sent their kid to Europe every year for camp used it as an excuse to herself go over because she couldn't bear to be that far away from her child. She spent the whole month buying jewelry.
My summer camp was after Sunday dinner at the grandparents going home for a week with an aunt and uncle. Mom had 8 siblings so lots of fresh religions to explore and over the summer I learned to can a new fruit or veggie every week.
A core American value is to live and let live. The gentleman questioning his cousin's behavior is neither honorable or wise. He probably comes from a family who came over after they opened Ellis Island and should be sent back to where they like to tell people how to be./ rant
The uncle can nicely suggest to his cousin not to send her son to Paris, and explain his reasons. He should not insist on his point or make his cousin or nephew feel he is admonishing them.
How's that going to work? "Hey, cuz, just want to suggest that you rethink the Paris thing. Why? Well, you might have noticed what a hot summer we're having... You know I don't fly any more, right? I made that decision because, I mean, we all know catastrophic climate change is happening and I want to do what I can to stop it..."
Truly, that's about as "nice" as I can make it. And it still comes across as meddling. From the single and clearly childless cousin. Who has no experience as a parent and whose priorities are highly unlikely to be (maybe I should say "patently not") those of a parent.
How is the cousin, who has decided that this Paris camp is sufficiently important to her and her son to be planning on it, going to take it? She might be polite in her response - but having myself received this kind of well-meaning (giving the guy the benefit of the doubt) parenting advice even from other parents, I'm pretty darn sure what she'll be thinking is, "Get your twitching nose out of my business, cuz. Who died and made you parenting or climate god? If the plane going to fly anyway? Then get the hell back to your apartment and sit there is the dark if you want."
BTW, that famous study that purported to show that "ocean acidification" was going to wipeout fish in the oceans? You are not going to believe this, I know, but it was a fraud.
Science.org
One kid cancelling his trip to Paris will not stop the plane from flying. The NYT guy must convince all passengers to not get on the plane or else nothing changes. One phony will convince no one…not even. 10 yr old.
>>By the way, why does a little kid need to go to summer camp in Paris?!
Probably the same reason some people need to take pictures of the same old sunrise every day. They want to and It is nobody else's business
Didn't Bishop Gore say New York was calculated to be underwater twenty years ago?
--- Please address the specific issues.
Perhaps a post that includes a new thought would inspire comments with new thoughts.
Seems like we need to know what this kid would be doing if they weren't at Camp in Paris. Maybe they would have ended up polluting quite a bit anyway, as they ran about in the States.
And what sort of camp is this camp? Maybe the camp helps to advance the kid's virtue in some way: environmental, charity and so on. Or maybe it helps to advance the development of the kid: scholarship, new experiences, dressage and so on. IOW maybe the hit to the environment is worth it.
IDK.
that famous study that purported to show that "ocean acidification" was going to wipeout fish in the oceans
The same with the "ozone hole", which is a natural, recurring, thinning. The same with hexavalent chromium, which in the wild produced no excess health conditions including cancer. The same with AIDS which primarily followed a natural transmission path in digestive intercourse through the rectum in socially liberal cohorts. The same with Covid-19/20/21/22, which, aside from planned parent/hood, and collateral damage from affirmative spread of social contagion, did not threaten or produce excess deaths and conditions beyond other corona viruses. The same with petroleum in the ocean, where it was catalyzed by the sun and digested by lower orders in the food chain. CO2 has a positive radiative effect in the lab, and likely has a net-zero radiative effect in the wild where attribution generally and to human source specifically is poorly characterized, and has an observable positive greening effect in the environment. Excess carbon is for babies, our Posterity.
Bill Murray in Meatballs, a more egalitarian summer camp adventure, said it best. When asked where the only air conditioner in the camp had gone, he lied, "I have no idea." The AC Unit was under a plywood box right next to him at the time.
There is more than one way to handle unwanted intrusions into your private decisions.
As a p.s. to my comment just made: computer models are NOT experiments
No, they are not, models are simulations, hypotheses, which are confirmed to be either viable or a burden with observation in a limited frame of reference.
Ah the progressive mindset. This doofus "has traveled a fair bit at age 45".
But he doesn't want anybody else to travel because of climate change.
Shorter version of this guy's bleat: "I got mine. But God Forbid that you get yours."
Sleazy self satisfied jerk to the max.
I think the answer is rude. If the letter writer had called his cousin, she would have been gifted with a most excellent highly entertaining story. The answerer has attempted to deny her that. Malicious and spiteful.
n.n said...
As a p.s. to my comment just made: computer models are NOT experiments
No, they are not, models are simulations, hypotheses, which are confirmed to be either viable or a burden with observation in a limited frame of reference.
****************
Correct. ALL are based on conjectures regarding the many, many factors that go into determining atmospheric temperature. A "viable" result is not data, as some of the models' conjectures may be wrong, and others correct, but still have no true relation as to what's going on in the real world.
And....ALL the climate models run "Hot", yielding predictions that the atmosphere will heat up much faster than has actually been measured since the satellites went up beginning in the late 70's.
Don't get me started on the difference between "air temperature" and enthalpy, the heat content of that air.
110 F degrees in Death Valley holds much less energy than 110 F degrees in very humid pre-monsoon Delhi.
I'm surprised there is no Religion Substitute tag. Sacrifice purifying and granting salvation to a person is a common theme in many religions. Why not buy a moral indulgence by abstaining from flight, especially if you can pick some more up trying to convince others to join up.
If it's an existential crisis, then treat it that way.
If it isn't, then STFU about it
This reminds me of the well-known quote from Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds (whose blog, which turned 21 this week, is where I'm pretty sure I first discovered the Althouse blog around '03 or so): "I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who are telling me it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis."
i liked this story a Lot better, when i was misreading it as SOCCER camp in Paris;
which made little sense. FINALLY, i read it as SUMMER camp in Paris, and it makes NO sense.
Parisians do NOT stay in Paris in the summer. The Summer is THE WRONG TIME to go to Paris.
The Entire country takes August off, and goes into the country
There is no undeniable evidence of climate change. It's a theory.
"If you have to assume man-made climate change is real in order to get to these issues, please do that. Otherwise this thread won't be new but just a repetition other comment threads."
Okay, for the sake of argument, lets pretend these things are true:
1. Climate change is real.
2. Climate change will have more bad consequences then good consequences.
3. The most effective solution will be in curbing Humanity's output of CO2.
As long as China, India and a burgeoning Africa are accelerating their build-out of coal fired plants, it really doesn't matter what we do: CO2 emissions will not drop, they will increase. There are two pathways, which I will call, "The way of peace" and "The way of violence"
The way of violence involves binding treaties, which include every nation on Earth. This will necessarily involve threats, sanctions and possibly warfare.
The way of peace involves getting our heads out of our asses for a moment and designing safe, mass producible atomic power plants. Our current regulatory structure makes this impossible. If we can solve this, everything else falls into place: If we don't have to burn things to make electricity, they we can already reduce emissions. If electricity becomes cheap enough then people will stop heating with carbon based fuels and electric vehicles will start to make sense. Long distance aircraft will be the last thing which runs directly off atomic generated electricity, though it could be done.
Individuals making little sacrifices will either make no significant difference, or will reduce the pressure to do things which would have an actual impact.
I had really never thought that summer camp was elitist. It was just a fact of life for us. My grandparents had a girls’ camp about an hour SW of Denver. Throughout the summer, every summer, my parents would pack us all into the station wagon on Fri evenings, and head up there, so my father could help his parents. Then back down Sun evening. Except, for us, it meant a vacation every weekend where we rode, hiked, swam, did archery, even, in retrospect, stupid crafts, if it was raining. A lot of riding - my grandparents, both from OK, grew up on horses. What’s weird is that one of the things that I have in common with my partner was three generations going out horseback riding together. Then, when I was maybe 8, my grandmother managed a trade, where the owners of a boy’s camp sent their girl to her camp, and I went to theirs for a couple of years. Then, when her grandsons were just getting ready to really enjoy the “girls” part of owning a girls’ camp (some of the girls were sneaking away to be with us boys), my grandmother sold the camp and retired. But then, a couple years later, my parents started sending us to a camp by Estes Park. My grandparents had gotten to know the family that owns it still back in the 1930s, when they were working summers at the YMCA camp there. And in due time, my kid went there, and I have committed to send their kids, should they ever have them. Interestingly, there were some Europeans at camp with them, and my kid is still friends with one from Belgium.
Looking back, these summer camps were somewhat elitist. Some of the kids we knew there came from some wealth, but many weren’t that rich. The richest was when we had Swanee and Helen Hunt at our camp (because the camp in Estes was full that year), and I remember their father, HL Hunt, filming the term end horse show with an 8 mm camera. My oldest two girl 2nd cousins were there at the time, and one of them remembers the one in her cabin having smuggled several cartons of cigarettes into camp, and was did a brisk business selling them. I think that it was the one who ended up as ambassador to Austria under Clinton.
I was fairly naïve. I first met the guy who was my best friend, starting in college, in that camp in Estes Park. He went back as the backpacking counselor for the oldest boys’ camp when we were in college. The problem was that his younger brother was a camper at that camp, which meant that he was 15-16. The camp is set up with six camps, three for boys and three for girls, with the youngest camps together, and the oldest as far apart as possible. Turns out that the younger brother was the leader in a group of boys who would sneak out, and over to the corresponding girls’ camp. The result was that the younger brother was the subject of a number of counselors’ meetings. The head of the camp would implore my friend to do something about his younger brother. He couldn’t because he was out of camp 5 days a week on multiple day backpacks. I never had any idea this sort of thing was going on, nor that kids were smoking and drinking. And, indeed, my kid was no less naïve almost 40 years later - and didn’t find out about the seedier side of summer camp until they went back as a junior counselor right before college (which was a pretty good scam for the camp - we paid for them to help supervise the younger kids).
In any case, as I noted above, I have committed to funding summer camp for a fifth generation, should my kid manage to have some kids of their own (they are going to Octoberfest in Germany this year, and claim to be starting to try after that).
Do you have a 'travel shaming' tag? Seems like this would fit the bill. I know you had a post, probably a couple of years ago, about the subject.
Ah! Now I see it. 'the eco-shame-contortion genre' tag.
Michael K -
Yes! Took the sons to England twice on business trips. Great experience, very educational. Wonderful memories!
One other comment, from an angle that does not seem to have been explored in this comment thread.
A majority of the world's population has NEVER taken a commercial flight. So a "fair share" of air travel is ZERO.
Indeed, the carbon footprint for pretty much any person who writes to the NYT is sasquatch-esque in comparison to the rest of the world, and the rest of history.
We live in marvelous times, powered by copious amounts of energy.
The real issue is that both sides of the described discussion don't really believe people have any control over climate change.
Otherwise, why would there be any question?
We don't read, for example, questions regarding whether one should spread liquid mercury around the school grounds because it's cool stuff to play with and the kids love it.
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