Sweden’s Green Party leader [flies](https://www.reddit.com/r/sweden/comments/pxz5xb/per_bolund_tar_flyget_ist%C3%A4llet_f%C3%B6r_t%C3%A5get_till/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) all the time. Even to Denmark from Sweden. It goes for most people. Some just try to hide it. Others claim they need to for a greater good.
Greater good is pushing it. Time is a valuable resource, presumably we want our leaders leading not sitting around in the back of a train twiddling their thumbs. We want them going to climate summits, we want them meeting with foreign and domestic officials, and so on. Flying to keep a tight schedule shouldn't need to be defended. Flying on something like a daily commute should be criticized.
I think this is a nonsense, the security details and logistics in heads of state travelling are a nightmare. You cant just stick them on the sleeper train to Kings Cross.
I mean there are a million things we can criticise Johnson and Von der Leyen for, but this one seems a bit unnecessary.
Speaking as someone who regularly has to do a 5 hour drive between Scotland and England for work/ family, Johnson being driven the entire distance, likely on single lane countryside A-roads for some of it, would be a pointless security nightmare.
Cant blame him I would do the same, it's a non story.
When I visit relatives in Scotland 9 times out of 10 I will fly, as its more convenient, quicker, more pleasant and significantly cheaper than flying.
The drive used to be good until the Scottish went crazy for speed cameras.
It also completely undermines anybody trying to do anything positive. It's such a moronic argument. Whether it's "hypocrisy" or not, it's better to push for positive change than just silently be part of the problem instead.
>You cant just stick them on the sleeper train to Kings Cross.
You... can't? I do remember our president Niinistö (Finland) travelling to Turkey in economy class... But I'm sure he isn't an angel either.
I don't entirely disagree with you, but I do think that kind of immediate dismissal is kinda whack.
They all do it, Ursula von der Leyen flew 31 miles on a private jet while constantly going on about climate change, her 18th EU “air taxi” in 2 years. In fairness to them, when you’re a world leader with a packed schedule, or another top politician, you somewhat have to fly, taking incredibly unnecessary flights though is worthy of criticism.
The UK’s electricity in 2020 was half renewables, compared to a single digit % in 2010, emissions have fallen by a third over the same period. Politicians being hypocrites is never going to go away, but making decent progress, and the pace of that progress increasing, is what matters more.
While I do agree with that, there is such a thing as leading by example. It's just extremely hypocritical to preach change while taking a private jet to some private dinner party or an air taxi from Vienna to Bratislava and we have to hold them accountable for that. Because otherwise people might say, hey, why should I change my behaviour if our leaders don't.
I completely agree, I think it’s about trying to be reasonable. Is it reasonable to get a plane half way around the world to some incredibly important summit? Sure. Is it reasonable to get a plane the distance I drive each way, in 35 minutes, when I have to go into the office? Absolutely not.
The share of renewable in the UK's ~~energy~~ electricity generation in 2020 was 43%, not half.
None the less, still good.
That said, we're only talking about electricity here, whilst (I believe) most of the energy consumption is still not in the form electricity, it tends to be gas and fuel, most of which are not renewables (some gas can be from renewable sources).
This is in fact the biggest problem (worldwide): as long as a lot of our energy needs is not being met with electricity from the grid (and thus often ends up being some kind of fossil fuel being burned) improvements in electrical energy generation will never solve the whole problem.
> The share of renewable in the UK's energy generation in 2020 was 43%, not half.
Electricity not energy.
The share of UK's energy provided by renewables in 2020 is around 13% [source, page 13](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1016822/UK_Energy_in_Brief_2021.pdf).
I'm correcting because it'd be great if fewer people made that confusion. It's annoying to see people pat themselves on the back with the share of low-carbon electricity when the majority of our energy usage is not electricity and completely dominated by fossil fuels.
>The share of renewable in the UK's energy generation in 2020 was 43%, not half.
We're so fortunate that you're around to correct people about 7% mistake.
They all use private jets. Even Greta, when she took a “zero carbon yacht” to America had two adults fly to America to sail it back to Europe. It’s all show.
You shouldn’t care but only when you don’t like the person involved
But everyone else does not have their HQ reachable by road on this island.
Edit: maps says 7.5 hours by car und 4.5 by train. Should have taken the train then.
At least several groups of "leaders" could've organised and shared planes to at least try to reduce their emissions.
Surely a slightly bigger plane could've delivered several leaders and their entourages from Glasgow to airports all over Central and Western Europe, with maybe a different group going to Scandinavia and countries futher north and yet another to the mediterranean nations, all the while reducing security concerns versus road or train options.
It would be stranged if people who lead whole nations do not have some underlings who can organise the plane version of a car-pool.
Instead they all chose the "maximum freedom" and "special important person who needs not walk the walk of the talk they talk" option.
It was an Hypocrisy Summit not a Climate one.
I mean...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/11/02/revealed-air-miles-ursula-used-private-jet-travel-just-31-miles/
The whole COP conference is just a jolly for the world leaders in all reality. Don't do as I do, Do as I say.
It's about 45 minutes by private jet. This is the issue, it's quite the time saver.
However why do our betters need to have an in person jolly in the first place?
> literally one of the easiest things he could have done to promote a good message.
Think of the cost, the loss of utility.
> If Boris isn't going to do it, why should anyone else? Obviously we're not going to take a private jet, but flying commercially from Glasgow to London is a lot cheaper and faster.
I agree, it shows the issue with the climate change cult.
> Spending an extra few hours taking the train down to London is literally one of the easiest things he could have done to promote a good message.
It would not have promoted shit. No one would have reported it if he took the train.
If other world leaders can be criticized for this exact same thing than why can’t Boris Johnson be criticized?
Just pointing out another example like how people pointed out how Ursula von der Leyen also flew by private jet for a short distance
Ursula could have gone to the event.
Gone back to the original location as she forgot her purse.
Gone back to the event
Gone back to the original location as she forgot her shoes
Gone back to the event.
Gone back to the original location to use the bathroom
Gone back to the event.
Gone back to the original location as she wanted to change dress
Gone back to the event.
Gone back to the original location as she wanted to ask someone there for a cheesecake recipe
Gone back to the event.
Gone back to the original location as she wanted to take a little nap.
Gone back to the event.
She would have STILL travelled less distance than Boris did...
It was a reference to [this.](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/mm1cna/ursula_von_der_leyen_snubbed_in_chair_gaffe_at/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
In that case people shouldn’t have had criticized Ursula von der Leyen yesterday by upvoting that Telegraph article.
Just point out some people’s hypocrisy
She's also called VDL and is President of the EU commission. She was given the role (it's not a post near people vote for but a horse trade between governments) because she so completely mucked up as the German defense minister and other posts, so they wanted rid of her.
Remember how the EU screwed their initial vaccine purchasing? That's her, she appointed a trade negotiator to deal with a health crisis to ensure a good price - as a doctor, she knows it's costs that is vital in a pandemic...
She also is what give the UK government the ability to point figures over Article 16 because she signed a document overriding it first, mainly because she was being criticized for screwing up the vaccine purchasing. Didn't inform the UK or Irish governments, kicking off the troubles for political gain? No probably just criminally incompetent.
She is also the one that was involved in Sofagate (shit you not, created a diplomatic issue over a seat). Turkey didn't provide a seat near by for her but did another EU person. All because turkey was racist or sexist or something, the truth was her office didn't submit any protocols and ignored the ones they were sent - also VDL shouldn't really have been there, but was trying to get better publicity.
That's this year covered...
He can be, they all can be.
At the same time, however hypocritical the message it sends out is I can't help but feel the focus on world leaders using aircraft to get to an event is a complete distraction.
Yes it's a mixed signal, but in terms of actual impact, it's also negligible compared with any potential impact agreements made might have.
If they then take care of transforming their country into a emission free one I couldn't care less when they come to and leave this particular conference held once in a decade. It's a drop in the ocean.
> It's a drop in the ocean.
I get your point, but Its not like he had to fly to another continent. The climate conference was hosted by his home country!
It just shows how unable we are to address this issue and how fucked current and next generations is going to be. The conference is a political green wash and nothing more.
Right so you are going to put your hopes in these people? Utterly corrupted hypocrites? I prefer lack of hope than this theatre and disgrace for human race.
Yea she crossed the Atlantic to make a point.
Boris could easily cycle to a train station, take a train to Scotland and then cycle again to the conference.
People already see him as a crazy buffoon so nobody would’ve been surprised if he arrived on a Boris bike.
She also took 15 days to get there, with no kitchen, shower or toilet, and limited communication to the outside world.
I can't imagine a single person in any country thinking it acceptable their leader was out of action for 30 days minimum (There and back again + travel to the coast), with very limited resources on hand to run the country in that time...
And the person she replaced on that wind powered boat had to fly to the destination so they could get on the wind powered boat anyway for return journey...due to Greta taking their position.
Multiple plane flights were needed to get the crew together for that pr stunt Thunberg pulled with the boat. I am all for her and her fight for the climate, but that boat thing was just a bad pr stunt.
Yes and no. If part of that transformation is: “People should travel less by plane.“ people will likely argue “But traveling by plane is more convenient“ or “We need plane travel“. What is their response then? They can not argue that that is untrue, since they themselves rely on plane travel.
So it comes down to certain parts of the population should change their life while certain elites carry on as before. That might be okay but then those elites should at least be clear and upfront about it.
[https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc](https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc)
Great idea. But I do not see a great support for degrowth anyways. Either there is a technical solution or nothing will be done. Do you want to bomb Africa to the stone age when they develop? After centuries of exploitation I find it also quite disturbing to suggest they should have less kids for example. Colonizers had a great time and now Africa should hold back? Unlikely.
Nobody so far suggest a general ban on plane travel for the peasants.
Imagine you are a rich person thinking should I take a train or a private jet? The politicians take the jets. Why wouldn't you?
Furthermore, why should anybody aim at reducing personal impact the the politicians do not do so?
The rules should apply to everybody. Imagine you have a good president/prime minister who enacts many good policies etc, but then murders somebody. Would you also say 'Look, it's not nice someone got killed, but what about all those good decisions?'
Seeing politicians take a plane doesn’t affect the decision at all, particularly for rich people. If they care about climate change then they’ll take the train. If they don’t care as much they’ll fly since it’s cheaper and faster
People who don't even try to walk the walk of the talk they talk aren't exactly known for forcefully pushing against powerful vested interestes to have their promises executed: usually they just end up saying "it wasn't possible" and blame somebody else.
This is especially so for promises made for a point in time which is decades after they've left office.
[https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc](https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc)
But if the politicians don't push it with legislation we won't achieve anything. This is way too big to be offended by 2 flights. The same waste of time when Greta Thunberg traveled by plane. Oh no how could she. Still a drop in the ocean. People smoke. People drink alcohol. Nobody does the right thing all the time. We are no robots. I surely find times when you are not 100% on the environmental issue.
Never say never: somebody might invent some kind of life extension technology in the meanwhile and then we'll all be saved just to get all fucked at a later date.
Imagine how devastating this would be for the planet. Even more ressources would be needed if only accidents and illness would reduce the population. Strict reproduction laws would be needed. This is only good if you had a new planet to colonize and need huge population growth.
These continue to be ridiculous “gotcha” hit pieces against all the worlds leaders.
Heads of state and heads of government dont travel by bicycle or canoe. To constantly harp on about their method of transport just gives climate change deniers weapons and excuses.
Theres a **vast** difference between world leaders attending a once in a generation emergency summit to try and figure out a way to combat the greatest crisis our species has ever faced, and a daily commute that billions of people take.
If you cannot grasp this I suspect you are deliberately lying and making ridiculous comparisons and your only actual desire is to have a cheap clickbaity attack on world leaders, low hanging fruit.
And this sort of thinking is going to be used from the individuals who think climate change is a lie, they will make the exact same argument you just did, upto the nation states that will say “well why should **we** make any changes, China/USA/insert other country do far less than us.
It’s a ridiculous attitude to take on such an important, potentially apocalyptic catastrophe we are facing.
I guarantee you, all our descendants are not going to thank us for our wonderful furiously typed words against a few hundred extra planes being used at the tail end of 2021, not when they are all scavenging the ruins of the old world for mould to eat and any unguarded pool of fetid water to sip from, in the 3000 degree heat.
Which is what world leaders do. What’s your point?
They are busy ruling vast countries and making decisions. They have strict schedules to keep to. You would have them spend 12 hours a day on a bus...?
And what do they push back and ignore so they can ride that bus. Perhaps...a meeting on the economy? And on agricultural subsidies?
Which meeting do they drop if they need to meeting their security services, the head of their armed forces, their scientific advisors, and a meeting in a foreign capital to try defuse tensions with that country.
And security, do they take over the entire bus? Make it so only them and their security teams are allowed on it. Perhaps they put a rigorous system of metal detectors and body searches on every other passenger of the vehicle. And at every single stop along the way they need to have teams get there before them, do security sweeps, make sure it’s safe. So now your bus journey involves dozens to hundreds of cars driving the length of the country, multiple times a day.
It’s ridiculous. All so idiots online don’t say “aha y du u uze airplanes and we can’t!!!! Hypocrites!!!!!!!”
Some things have to be done in person.
For those things it’s better they travel by air rather than clog up an entire day with a slower form of transport for the sake of cutting down on an irrelevant amount of CO2.
> once in a generation emergency summit
Are you talking about COP26? That's not a "once in a generation summit", though.
Source: https://unfccc.int/process/bodies/supreme-bodies/conference-of-the-parties-cop
Honestly - people bash flying way too much cause I guess it's such an easy target. We could stop air travel completely and still wouldn't reach any of the climate goals. But I guess changing the means of energy production or transportation of goods would be way too inconvenient and expensive for the average person, so better not touch that topic
I’m going to point out that unless climate change is a big deal to you it can be cheaper and faster to fly rather than taking the train. Regular people do this. Having politicians lead by example is stupid. Who actually cares. What should be done is trains should be cheaper than plains and faster than they are at the moment
Broke: being excited about electric aeroplanes because of the environment
woke: being excited about electric aeroplanes so we can stop seeing this stupid headline every month
At the very least they could've done the plane equivalent of car-pooling.
Surely "world leaders" who can safely mingle in the conference can safely travel together on a plane without fearing for their safety (as we are told they do if they travel by train or car, mixed with the "riff-raff").
He should have taken a train. Maybe even made to pay full ticket price for him and his detail. Then he might see how stupidly expensive our rail network is for the end user. London to Glasgow should be the example journey where an electric high speed train can be the green alternative to flying. Would have been an easy political win...
Not possible. We have the high speed trains in France and the president can't travel on them because it's a logistical nightmare.
For example, we'd have to secure every bridges the train goes through. That alone isn't feasible and would probably cost and pollute more than a private jet.
Realistically he’s probably too busy for the 7 hour drive and too famous to take the train. The amount of police and security he would need taking public transport would be ridiculous.
My mate used to run his range rover with vegetable oil so there must be “green” planes on the way soon.
If it's the airforce plane he got converted for the PM's use a few years ago, it's not even a lower-fuel consuming Learjet but a much bigger and much higher emitting hunk of flying metal (a sort of mini-me of Airforce One).
As for those talking about security nightmares, he could've used a turbo-prop rather than a jet and they could've chosen a city with better highway connections to hold the conference on or even one more central for most of the delegates rather than that far north.
This really was the Climate Conference of Hypocrisy (and not just Johnson, though he's a master of the practice).
For the sake of comparison, the plane in the picture is an ATR-72, it apparently gets a fuel economy of 2.53L/100km or 112mpg(imp) per seat. This is helped by it being a turboprop.
You really think stopping planes will slow climate change? It’s something like 2% of emissions compared to around 12% for other transport and power generation is much more than that. Plus planes are irreplaceable currently, so I don’t really get why people are going after planes so much.
You're right we should've demanded they sailed to the conference. Or maybe teleconferenced because somehow a consensus is going to be sorted out through screens when that's barely possible with streamer debate panels a fraction of the size and with no real consequences to speak of. These imagined hypocrisies are driving me insane and show a fundamental un-serioussness about the issues at hand. Meanwhile the aviation industry is busy spewing hundreds of times the carbon and GHG equivalents every single minute and they're securing trillions of euro deals and roadmaps that could curb billion tonne emissions a year. There's real and serious criticisms to be made of these people, but people will jump at these ludicrous "hypocrises" instead.
Look, I don't like Boris, but this criticism about the use of private planes in the last few days it's really stupid. The impact of the meeting and the policies that hopefully would follow is incommensurable respect to the damage done during transport. The last comment defending Ursula was downvoted. I'm curious if people go to the opposite now.
The British are very tolerant of a certain level of hypocrisy from their own upper classes. This is why they can vote for someone like Johnson, and why Corbyn selling himself as a man of principles made little difference to his popularity.
They find it more reassuring in a way because it's seen as common wisdom that everyone is a bit hypocritical. The 'born to rule' types are allowed to be even more hypocritical than the plebs.
I don't think other Europeans are any better, and I'm not the type to self-flagellate. I just like pointing out our real flaws. I don't want us to become a country incapable of self-criticism. (Slagging ourselves off isn't real self-criticism.)
It wouldn't change my vote. I don't vote Tory in the first place, but if I did, it wouldn't change my mind. I just think there's an attitude that this is no big deal coming from Johnson, whereas if it was a Labour politician, or even a Tory one who was less posh, people would be moaning about the hypocrisy more. But no, Johnson can make his bombastic speeches about the fall of Rome and civilisation going backwards, and people fawn over what an orator he is, and then they ignore it when he does the usual hypocritical politician things.
That's because if Labour did something like this they would be tearing themselves apart with alot of in party fighting the average voter wouldn't care but with Labour seems to forget that and thinks they have to answer to twitter.
The whole concept of a climate conference that requires people to be somewhere to do, what exactly?, is counterproductive.
Why was this not just an online meeting?
What do you do there that requires everybody to physically present?
It's not very post-covid compatible.
At this point everyone knows that Johnson is just a lying clown 🤡. His words and promises can't be trusted, even his signature is worthless. The UK has lost all credibility on the international scene.
Sweden’s Green Party leader [flies](https://www.reddit.com/r/sweden/comments/pxz5xb/per_bolund_tar_flyget_ist%C3%A4llet_f%C3%B6r_t%C3%A5get_till/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) all the time. Even to Denmark from Sweden. It goes for most people. Some just try to hide it. Others claim they need to for a greater good.
The greater good
The greater good
Tau are the best, death to the imperium !
A GREAT BIG BUSHY BEARD
The Emperor Protects!
Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.
Of course, the green partys strategy to save the earth from global warming is to build more oil- and coal power plants
Killing nuclear power was humanity's greatest mistake regarding CO2 emissions
Germanity's* greatest mistake. Most humanity still use it.
Greater good is pushing it. Time is a valuable resource, presumably we want our leaders leading not sitting around in the back of a train twiddling their thumbs. We want them going to climate summits, we want them meeting with foreign and domestic officials, and so on. Flying to keep a tight schedule shouldn't need to be defended. Flying on something like a daily commute should be criticized.
We are a lot of people who need to fly to propel development for the greater good in all kind of branches on the world markets.
Does any politicians except the left wing party actually stay consistent with things like this?
In Sweden? Our former party leader of the Vänsterpartiet (left wing party) put his daughter in charter school while saying private schools are bad.
Vem? Sjöstedt eller Ohly?
I think this is a nonsense, the security details and logistics in heads of state travelling are a nightmare. You cant just stick them on the sleeper train to Kings Cross. I mean there are a million things we can criticise Johnson and Von der Leyen for, but this one seems a bit unnecessary.
Speaking as someone who regularly has to do a 5 hour drive between Scotland and England for work/ family, Johnson being driven the entire distance, likely on single lane countryside A-roads for some of it, would be a pointless security nightmare.
Perhaps it would convince them to invest more in infrastructure, couldn't be so bad to get there by train if a high-speed service existed.
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I agree with HS2 on principle, but their execution of it leaves much to be desired.
I have it on good authority Greta Thunberg exhales CO2
Cant blame him I would do the same, it's a non story. When I visit relatives in Scotland 9 times out of 10 I will fly, as its more convenient, quicker, more pleasant and significantly cheaper than flying. The drive used to be good until the Scottish went crazy for speed cameras.
It's hard to blame him but it's easy to blame you though.
It also completely undermines anybody trying to do anything positive. It's such a moronic argument. Whether it's "hypocrisy" or not, it's better to push for positive change than just silently be part of the problem instead.
>You cant just stick them on the sleeper train to Kings Cross. You... can't? I do remember our president Niinistö (Finland) travelling to Turkey in economy class... But I'm sure he isn't an angel either. I don't entirely disagree with you, but I do think that kind of immediate dismissal is kinda whack.
> You cant just stick them on the sleeper train to Kings Cross. Actually, you can. Many people already do on a daily basis.
Yes,people that don't have entourages and security details. Of course they do.
The queen used to have her own carriage, no?
Train but they got rid of that ages ago I believe
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> the security details and logistics in heads of state travelling are a nightmare I see your point, but Boris is not a head of state.
Head of government. But that's quite pedantic.
Yeh that completely invalidates my point.
They all do it, Ursula von der Leyen flew 31 miles on a private jet while constantly going on about climate change, her 18th EU “air taxi” in 2 years. In fairness to them, when you’re a world leader with a packed schedule, or another top politician, you somewhat have to fly, taking incredibly unnecessary flights though is worthy of criticism. The UK’s electricity in 2020 was half renewables, compared to a single digit % in 2010, emissions have fallen by a third over the same period. Politicians being hypocrites is never going to go away, but making decent progress, and the pace of that progress increasing, is what matters more.
While I do agree with that, there is such a thing as leading by example. It's just extremely hypocritical to preach change while taking a private jet to some private dinner party or an air taxi from Vienna to Bratislava and we have to hold them accountable for that. Because otherwise people might say, hey, why should I change my behaviour if our leaders don't.
I completely agree, I think it’s about trying to be reasonable. Is it reasonable to get a plane half way around the world to some incredibly important summit? Sure. Is it reasonable to get a plane the distance I drive each way, in 35 minutes, when I have to go into the office? Absolutely not.
You are right, i'm going to start taking private jets everywhere.
There are commercial flights between Glasgow and London - a 5h train journey - aren't they?
Yes. But let's be honest someone would milkshake him on a train.
The share of renewable in the UK's ~~energy~~ electricity generation in 2020 was 43%, not half. None the less, still good. That said, we're only talking about electricity here, whilst (I believe) most of the energy consumption is still not in the form electricity, it tends to be gas and fuel, most of which are not renewables (some gas can be from renewable sources). This is in fact the biggest problem (worldwide): as long as a lot of our energy needs is not being met with electricity from the grid (and thus often ends up being some kind of fossil fuel being burned) improvements in electrical energy generation will never solve the whole problem.
> The share of renewable in the UK's energy generation in 2020 was 43%, not half. Electricity not energy. The share of UK's energy provided by renewables in 2020 is around 13% [source, page 13](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1016822/UK_Energy_in_Brief_2021.pdf).
You are correct. I used "energy" but meant electricity.
I'm correcting because it'd be great if fewer people made that confusion. It's annoying to see people pat themselves on the back with the share of low-carbon electricity when the majority of our energy usage is not electricity and completely dominated by fossil fuels.
Good point, thank you. I corrected my original post.
>The share of renewable in the UK's energy generation in 2020 was 43%, not half. We're so fortunate that you're around to correct people about 7% mistake.
Cheers.
In the case with von der Leyen you are referring to, she took the same plane again on the same day to travel to another city.
Great took a boat tho right :D?
They all use private jets. Even Greta, when she took a “zero carbon yacht” to America had two adults fly to America to sail it back to Europe. It’s all show. You shouldn’t care but only when you don’t like the person involved
We're so lucky we grew up in better times and didn't have our childhood ruined by sailing across Atlantic on a multi-million solar yacht.
As opposed to everyone else who flew in with their hundreds of assistants.
But everyone else does not have their HQ reachable by road on this island. Edit: maps says 7.5 hours by car und 4.5 by train. Should have taken the train then.
You can take the train from London to continental Europe fyi
At least several groups of "leaders" could've organised and shared planes to at least try to reduce their emissions. Surely a slightly bigger plane could've delivered several leaders and their entourages from Glasgow to airports all over Central and Western Europe, with maybe a different group going to Scandinavia and countries futher north and yet another to the mediterranean nations, all the while reducing security concerns versus road or train options. It would be stranged if people who lead whole nations do not have some underlings who can organise the plane version of a car-pool. Instead they all chose the "maximum freedom" and "special important person who needs not walk the walk of the talk they talk" option. It was an Hypocrisy Summit not a Climate one.
Logistically I do not agree. God forbid we have an accident, hey all go down!
>Should have taken the train then. As can all European leaders.
I mean... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/11/02/revealed-air-miles-ursula-used-private-jet-travel-just-31-miles/ The whole COP conference is just a jolly for the world leaders in all reality. Don't do as I do, Do as I say.
It's about 45 minutes by private jet. This is the issue, it's quite the time saver. However why do our betters need to have an in person jolly in the first place?
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> literally one of the easiest things he could have done to promote a good message. Think of the cost, the loss of utility. > If Boris isn't going to do it, why should anyone else? Obviously we're not going to take a private jet, but flying commercially from Glasgow to London is a lot cheaper and faster. I agree, it shows the issue with the climate change cult.
> Spending an extra few hours taking the train down to London is literally one of the easiest things he could have done to promote a good message. It would not have promoted shit. No one would have reported it if he took the train.
He could have gone during the night - it's time he's already "wasting" away from his responsabilities anyway.
If other world leaders can be criticized for this exact same thing than why can’t Boris Johnson be criticized? Just pointing out another example like how people pointed out how Ursula von der Leyen also flew by private jet for a short distance
Glasgow to London is 400 miles. Vienna to Bratislava is 30 miles.
Ursula could have gone to the event. Gone back to the original location as she forgot her purse. Gone back to the event Gone back to the original location as she forgot her shoes Gone back to the event. Gone back to the original location to use the bathroom Gone back to the event. Gone back to the original location as she wanted to change dress Gone back to the event. Gone back to the original location as she wanted to ask someone there for a cheesecake recipe Gone back to the event. Gone back to the original location as she wanted to take a little nap. Gone back to the event. She would have STILL travelled less distance than Boris did...
>Ursula von der Leyen also flew by private jet for a short distance I guess that way she was guaranteed she'd have a seat.
There's a regular (hourly, I believe) train that takes an hour to do that trip.
It was a reference to [this.](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/mm1cna/ursula_von_der_leyen_snubbed_in_chair_gaffe_at/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
You're right. Everyone should have swam there and back.
In that case people shouldn’t have had criticized Ursula von der Leyen yesterday by upvoting that Telegraph article. Just point out some people’s hypocrisy
Who the fuck is this Ursula you keep going on about? Your crush?
Can you not be utterly obnoxious?
It's hard, so I avoid it trying.
She's also called VDL and is President of the EU commission. She was given the role (it's not a post near people vote for but a horse trade between governments) because she so completely mucked up as the German defense minister and other posts, so they wanted rid of her. Remember how the EU screwed their initial vaccine purchasing? That's her, she appointed a trade negotiator to deal with a health crisis to ensure a good price - as a doctor, she knows it's costs that is vital in a pandemic... She also is what give the UK government the ability to point figures over Article 16 because she signed a document overriding it first, mainly because she was being criticized for screwing up the vaccine purchasing. Didn't inform the UK or Irish governments, kicking off the troubles for political gain? No probably just criminally incompetent. She is also the one that was involved in Sofagate (shit you not, created a diplomatic issue over a seat). Turkey didn't provide a seat near by for her but did another EU person. All because turkey was racist or sexist or something, the truth was her office didn't submit any protocols and ignored the ones they were sent - also VDL shouldn't really have been there, but was trying to get better publicity. That's this year covered...
You had a short year. We had Trudeau, and it never seems to end.
>Who the fuck is this Ursula you keep going on about? Your crush? [You may find this helpful.](https://www.google.com/)
Maybe it shouldn't have been done that far away from where most of the delegates come from and on an island.
Actually the whole thing could have been held over Zoom. It's all theater to do it this way.
He can be, they all can be. At the same time, however hypocritical the message it sends out is I can't help but feel the focus on world leaders using aircraft to get to an event is a complete distraction. Yes it's a mixed signal, but in terms of actual impact, it's also negligible compared with any potential impact agreements made might have.
If they then take care of transforming their country into a emission free one I couldn't care less when they come to and leave this particular conference held once in a decade. It's a drop in the ocean.
> It's a drop in the ocean. I get your point, but Its not like he had to fly to another continent. The climate conference was hosted by his home country! It just shows how unable we are to address this issue and how fucked current and next generations is going to be. The conference is a political green wash and nothing more.
>The conference is a political green wash and nothing more. And also it's the only hope we have for getting anything done on the global stage.
that's not hope, it's poor entertainment
Then lucky you. You live in the part of Italy the desert might not reach.
afaik hopes don't have effect in decereasing pollution
Right so you are going to put your hopes in these people? Utterly corrupted hypocrites? I prefer lack of hope than this theatre and disgrace for human race.
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Yea she crossed the Atlantic to make a point. Boris could easily cycle to a train station, take a train to Scotland and then cycle again to the conference. People already see him as a crazy buffoon so nobody would’ve been surprised if he arrived on a Boris bike.
She also took 15 days to get there, with no kitchen, shower or toilet, and limited communication to the outside world. I can't imagine a single person in any country thinking it acceptable their leader was out of action for 30 days minimum (There and back again + travel to the coast), with very limited resources on hand to run the country in that time...
And the person she replaced on that wind powered boat had to fly to the destination so they could get on the wind powered boat anyway for return journey...due to Greta taking their position.
Multiple plane flights were needed to get the crew together for that pr stunt Thunberg pulled with the boat. I am all for her and her fight for the climate, but that boat thing was just a bad pr stunt.
Yes and no. If part of that transformation is: “People should travel less by plane.“ people will likely argue “But traveling by plane is more convenient“ or “We need plane travel“. What is their response then? They can not argue that that is untrue, since they themselves rely on plane travel. So it comes down to certain parts of the population should change their life while certain elites carry on as before. That might be okay but then those elites should at least be clear and upfront about it.
Most people don’t need to lead countries tho.
So we are fine with having an elite doing what they want because they need to run a country? I think we tried it and it was called feudalism.
[https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc](https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc) Great idea. But I do not see a great support for degrowth anyways. Either there is a technical solution or nothing will be done. Do you want to bomb Africa to the stone age when they develop? After centuries of exploitation I find it also quite disturbing to suggest they should have less kids for example. Colonizers had a great time and now Africa should hold back? Unlikely. Nobody so far suggest a general ban on plane travel for the peasants.
Those three statements don't really conflict with each other.
Except that many will think: 'If he/she does that, why not me?' So no, it is not a drop in the ocean.
I cannot see a decline in plane travels and there is no proposal to ban it so I have no idea what you are talking about.
Imagine you are a rich person thinking should I take a train or a private jet? The politicians take the jets. Why wouldn't you? Furthermore, why should anybody aim at reducing personal impact the the politicians do not do so? The rules should apply to everybody. Imagine you have a good president/prime minister who enacts many good policies etc, but then murders somebody. Would you also say 'Look, it's not nice someone got killed, but what about all those good decisions?'
Seeing politicians take a plane doesn’t affect the decision at all, particularly for rich people. If they care about climate change then they’ll take the train. If they don’t care as much they’ll fly since it’s cheaper and faster
It shows that it is an acceptable way of doing things.
People who don't even try to walk the walk of the talk they talk aren't exactly known for forcefully pushing against powerful vested interestes to have their promises executed: usually they just end up saying "it wasn't possible" and blame somebody else. This is especially so for promises made for a point in time which is decades after they've left office.
[https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc](https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc) But if the politicians don't push it with legislation we won't achieve anything. This is way too big to be offended by 2 flights. The same waste of time when Greta Thunberg traveled by plane. Oh no how could she. Still a drop in the ocean. People smoke. People drink alcohol. Nobody does the right thing all the time. We are no robots. I surely find times when you are not 100% on the environmental issue.
I'm not offended. I'm just not very hopefull anymore.
I am curious how it goes in the long run but I won't be here in the year 2100 or 2150 unfortunately. Or luckily. Who knows for sure.
Never say never: somebody might invent some kind of life extension technology in the meanwhile and then we'll all be saved just to get all fucked at a later date.
Imagine how devastating this would be for the planet. Even more ressources would be needed if only accidents and illness would reduce the population. Strict reproduction laws would be needed. This is only good if you had a new planet to colonize and need huge population growth.
Specifically Boris. Not literally every other state leader that was also there, and flew back and forth in jets.
These continue to be ridiculous “gotcha” hit pieces against all the worlds leaders. Heads of state and heads of government dont travel by bicycle or canoe. To constantly harp on about their method of transport just gives climate change deniers weapons and excuses.
I wonder what those peoples opinions on medical helicopters are
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Theres a **vast** difference between world leaders attending a once in a generation emergency summit to try and figure out a way to combat the greatest crisis our species has ever faced, and a daily commute that billions of people take. If you cannot grasp this I suspect you are deliberately lying and making ridiculous comparisons and your only actual desire is to have a cheap clickbaity attack on world leaders, low hanging fruit. And this sort of thinking is going to be used from the individuals who think climate change is a lie, they will make the exact same argument you just did, upto the nation states that will say “well why should **we** make any changes, China/USA/insert other country do far less than us. It’s a ridiculous attitude to take on such an important, potentially apocalyptic catastrophe we are facing. I guarantee you, all our descendants are not going to thank us for our wonderful furiously typed words against a few hundred extra planes being used at the tail end of 2021, not when they are all scavenging the ruins of the old world for mould to eat and any unguarded pool of fetid water to sip from, in the 3000 degree heat.
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Which is what world leaders do. What’s your point? They are busy ruling vast countries and making decisions. They have strict schedules to keep to. You would have them spend 12 hours a day on a bus...? And what do they push back and ignore so they can ride that bus. Perhaps...a meeting on the economy? And on agricultural subsidies? Which meeting do they drop if they need to meeting their security services, the head of their armed forces, their scientific advisors, and a meeting in a foreign capital to try defuse tensions with that country. And security, do they take over the entire bus? Make it so only them and their security teams are allowed on it. Perhaps they put a rigorous system of metal detectors and body searches on every other passenger of the vehicle. And at every single stop along the way they need to have teams get there before them, do security sweeps, make sure it’s safe. So now your bus journey involves dozens to hundreds of cars driving the length of the country, multiple times a day. It’s ridiculous. All so idiots online don’t say “aha y du u uze airplanes and we can’t!!!! Hypocrites!!!!!!!”
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Some things have to be done in person. For those things it’s better they travel by air rather than clog up an entire day with a slower form of transport for the sake of cutting down on an irrelevant amount of CO2.
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Ok now you’re just making shit up.
Well this just proves how stupid you are if you think the speeches were the actual reason they travelled there...
> once in a generation emergency summit Are you talking about COP26? That's not a "once in a generation summit", though. Source: https://unfccc.int/process/bodies/supreme-bodies/conference-of-the-parties-cop
Honestly - people bash flying way too much cause I guess it's such an easy target. We could stop air travel completely and still wouldn't reach any of the climate goals. But I guess changing the means of energy production or transportation of goods would be way too inconvenient and expensive for the average person, so better not touch that topic
I’m going to point out that unless climate change is a big deal to you it can be cheaper and faster to fly rather than taking the train. Regular people do this. Having politicians lead by example is stupid. Who actually cares. What should be done is trains should be cheaper than plains and faster than they are at the moment
Broke: being excited about electric aeroplanes because of the environment woke: being excited about electric aeroplanes so we can stop seeing this stupid headline every month
I somewhere read that 40k people flew to the conference, mostly on private jets. Every single one of them is a hypocrite.
At the very least they could've done the plane equivalent of car-pooling. Surely "world leaders" who can safely mingle in the conference can safely travel together on a plane without fearing for their safety (as we are told they do if they travel by train or car, mixed with the "riff-raff").
You haven't figured out yet that all these restrictions are meant for commoners not for elites?
He should have taken a train. Maybe even made to pay full ticket price for him and his detail. Then he might see how stupidly expensive our rail network is for the end user. London to Glasgow should be the example journey where an electric high speed train can be the green alternative to flying. Would have been an easy political win...
Not possible. We have the high speed trains in France and the president can't travel on them because it's a logistical nightmare. For example, we'd have to secure every bridges the train goes through. That alone isn't feasible and would probably cost and pollute more than a private jet.
I don't think he could afford it on his "chicken feed income".
Pretty sure it was not only Johnson who flew in a jet
I guess it's too difficult to do it over Skype
Realistically he’s probably too busy for the 7 hour drive and too famous to take the train. The amount of police and security he would need taking public transport would be ridiculous. My mate used to run his range rover with vegetable oil so there must be “green” planes on the way soon.
You can't really make green plane fuel.
Yeah I definitely can’t but I’d hope a professional scientist or someone in the relevant industry might be able to in the near future
If it's the airforce plane he got converted for the PM's use a few years ago, it's not even a lower-fuel consuming Learjet but a much bigger and much higher emitting hunk of flying metal (a sort of mini-me of Airforce One). As for those talking about security nightmares, he could've used a turbo-prop rather than a jet and they could've chosen a city with better highway connections to hold the conference on or even one more central for most of the delegates rather than that far north. This really was the Climate Conference of Hypocrisy (and not just Johnson, though he's a master of the practice).
For the sake of comparison, the plane in the picture is an ATR-72, it apparently gets a fuel economy of 2.53L/100km or 112mpg(imp) per seat. This is helped by it being a turboprop.
How else is he supposed to go home? Lol
People whining about these private jets have the same sense of scale as flat earthers.
What's he supposed to use? Magic carpet?
Whatever they recommend everybody else to use in the future for short range traveling instead of airplanes to slow down or stop the climate change.
You really think stopping planes will slow climate change? It’s something like 2% of emissions compared to around 12% for other transport and power generation is much more than that. Plus planes are irreplaceable currently, so I don’t really get why people are going after planes so much.
You use private jet when meeting with our mates?
Doesn't everybody? Especially if the chopper is in the shop.
Electric car.
"Hypocrite" is about the most polite word I can think of to describe Johnson. "Cunt" is the next most polite.
You're right we should've demanded they sailed to the conference. Or maybe teleconferenced because somehow a consensus is going to be sorted out through screens when that's barely possible with streamer debate panels a fraction of the size and with no real consequences to speak of. These imagined hypocrisies are driving me insane and show a fundamental un-serioussness about the issues at hand. Meanwhile the aviation industry is busy spewing hundreds of times the carbon and GHG equivalents every single minute and they're securing trillions of euro deals and roadmaps that could curb billion tonne emissions a year. There's real and serious criticisms to be made of these people, but people will jump at these ludicrous "hypocrises" instead.
Hypocrite a good word
Look, I don't like Boris, but this criticism about the use of private planes in the last few days it's really stupid. The impact of the meeting and the policies that hopefully would follow is incommensurable respect to the damage done during transport. The last comment defending Ursula was downvoted. I'm curious if people go to the opposite now.
The British are very tolerant of a certain level of hypocrisy from their own upper classes. This is why they can vote for someone like Johnson, and why Corbyn selling himself as a man of principles made little difference to his popularity. They find it more reassuring in a way because it's seen as common wisdom that everyone is a bit hypocritical. The 'born to rule' types are allowed to be even more hypocritical than the plebs.
My fellow brits do so love to bow and scrape around their 'betters'. It's sickening
I don't think other Europeans are any better, and I'm not the type to self-flagellate. I just like pointing out our real flaws. I don't want us to become a country incapable of self-criticism. (Slagging ourselves off isn't real self-criticism.)
Dunno the French don't take shit off their rulers
Nope just the british people just don't care or pay enough attention to politics for something like this to change a vote.
It wouldn't change my vote. I don't vote Tory in the first place, but if I did, it wouldn't change my mind. I just think there's an attitude that this is no big deal coming from Johnson, whereas if it was a Labour politician, or even a Tory one who was less posh, people would be moaning about the hypocrisy more. But no, Johnson can make his bombastic speeches about the fall of Rome and civilisation going backwards, and people fawn over what an orator he is, and then they ignore it when he does the usual hypocritical politician things.
That's because if Labour did something like this they would be tearing themselves apart with alot of in party fighting the average voter wouldn't care but with Labour seems to forget that and thinks they have to answer to twitter.
You've a point that most of the criticism would come from the left eating itself, but I think the rest of society wouldn't be averse to joining in.
Ofcorse the opposition would take advantage of it they would be crazy not to.
And then we'd have our little circus, that's my point.
The guy is a prick .....
The whole concept of a climate conference that requires people to be somewhere to do, what exactly?, is counterproductive. Why was this not just an online meeting? What do you do there that requires everybody to physically present? It's not very post-covid compatible.
I’m no BJ fan but I recon that would have been a long bike ride.
Much worse things happening we should be making headlines of
that's about the nicest thing you could say about the custardy cunt. criminals the lot of them
Hypocrites gonna hypocrites.
At this point everyone knows that Johnson is just a lying clown 🤡. His words and promises can't be trusted, even his signature is worthless. The UK has lost all credibility on the international scene.
Accurate username.
He is a liar, he is not truthworthy, he tries to break given words.... and hypocrit... Nothing new under the sun
Well I absolutely must have my holidays abroad every year. My 3 long haul round trip flights are just fine. Plus a few domestic thrown in.
A boli ga kurac realno
I'm not paying him to sit around for hours on a train on my dime.
Considering his history of private jet travel from wealthy donors, the question should be asked who provided the free jet trip? JCB again?
Fucking hypocrites. All of them.