Politician in hypocrisy shock!
Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Jackie Danicki
Or: Another reason to wish Al Gore would go away. I love his spokesperson saying, “Well, yeah, they may have a $30,000 utility bill, but they’re using energy-efficient lightbulbs!” Classic.
Filed under: Life
Pay no attention to that man behind the carbon offsets!
The Economist had a great article on this very topic last week:
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8703017
“This debate is really about a broader question: how much do leaders owe voters, beyond their best political judgment? Southerners (and Mr Blair) may answer: not much. Northerners think that leaders must not only say the right things, but do them as well. Or, as a Conservative environmental spokesman put it, speaking of Mr Blair, “he can expect nothing at all from the electorate unless he himself does what he knows is right.”
Climate change is a tough case because it covers two distinct forms of behaviour: legal v illegal (dumping toxic waste, killing whales) and ethical v unethical (not wasting food or energy). Northern Europeans say that this is precisely why the power of example matters, for they see legal and ethical behaviour as part of a continuum. Southerners reply that social pressure is more effective than political pressure at influencing unethical behaviour, and that politicians ought to restrict themselves to law-making, where they will have more impact than they ever could as individual consumers.”
As usual, I can add little to the Economist’s assessment other than to say that I firmly believe in the power and importance of setting a good example, and that hypocrisy kills the power to persuade.
I’d go further. I’d say that in Europe, they discuss regulations forever, get consenus, sign a meaningless document and do nothing (see: Kyoto) while in the US, we sign as little as possible (on the federal level) and just do it.
Case in point: When I hired a car in the UK back in 1999, I got a right talking-to from the Avis fellow about how it took only unleaded gas, and if I put leaded in it, I would eff up the engine. Erm, right. Leaded? The spotty kid in the Avis carpark gave me the same UNLEADED OR DOOM! speech before he handed over my sub-compact. Now I was really confused. What the hell else would I put in it?
So I asked my English co-worker about it at our Solihull office the following day. She informed me that Britain had just required that all new models take unleaded petrol only and they had to be sure I didn’t put the wrong gas in it. Because unleaded gas is better for the environment, she smugly informed me, the ignorant Murcan.
I smugly informed her that the US had figured out that little fact in 1971, and our cars had been unleaded-petrol-only for a generation. I also inquired as to why Britain waited for over two decades to implement this pro-environment regulation.
Oh wait, that’s right. Ameircans just recycle like crazy, switch to the catalytic convertor, build more light-rail lines in more urban areas, and buy more hybrids. But we didn’t sign Kyoto, so we’re killing the world even as we speak.
P.S. to Chris Yeh: My dad’s a Weegie, and I’ve always felt that hypocrisy was the greatest sin. Now I know where I get it from. ;o)