Why I'm a Total Cynic about Greenies, Part 345

Behold today's New York Times piece on the decline of carbon offsets. In it the reporter, Elisabeth Rosenthal, decides to interview the president of a non-profit in the UK, a guy named Paul Dickinson.

Paul, tells Times readers "that rather than buying offsets he had sharply scaled back on flying and was instead taking trains or conducting meetings by phone or teleconference."

Huh, funny, because as his bio says HE FOUNDED A TELECONFERENCING COMPANY.

Then there is another environmental expert quoted in the article, Anja Kollmuss. She claims to be a "scientist," but she's not. Her degree is in Urban and Environmental Planning. She tells the Times readers that "buying offsets won’t solve the problem because flying around the way we do is simply unsustainable." Well she should know. As her bio notes SHE'S BEEN WORKING ON A PROJECT IN RURAL INDIA FOR SEVEN YEARS. That means she's been flying a couple times a year back and forth to and from Europe to India. I mean, what's her carbon footprint like?

Does any reporter ever, EVER check their sources? Is anyone in the Green movement not a total hypocrite? It took me literally five minutes to find this information, and yet the Times parades these hypocrites around to make people feel badly about flying? Ms. Rosenthal appears to be the Times lead reporter on environmental issues, and she can't even check to see how unbiased her sources are? This is America's paper of record?

Flying is one of the greatest advances in human history. It has allowed people to live remarkably better lives. It allows medical patients to receive donor organs, transports goods all over the world, and sends Doctors Without Borders to rural areas. Ms.Rosenthal, please stop bashing modernity and making regular people who don't fly back and forth all over the world feel badly for hoping over to Iowa twice a year to visit Mom and Dad.