If you tuned in to watch Pete Buttigieg testify before Congress recently, you were in for a treat. As Biden’s Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg’s job is to oversee the airlines regular folks like you and I use. But “Fly Boy” Buttigieg was grilled about his penchant for flying in swanky private jets – at our expense, of course.
In a way, I guess I can’t blame him. Private jets are pretty much everyone’s definition of luxe living. After all, the so-called “elites” often stretch out in leather-trimmed luxury, bypassing long security lines as they zip in style from one coast to the other.
There’s just one problem, though. The private jets they so enjoy also happen to spew more carbon than most people do in their lifetime. In fact, they emit up to fourteen times more carbon than you or I typically do. All year long.
But don’t trouble Fly Boy Buttigieg with such facts – or even expect him to come clean about them. Although each of his flights costs taxpayers a bundle, he refuses to disclose exactly how much. In fact, his office has been accused of “dragging its feet” in responding to Congressional requests for details.
As unforgiveable as that is, there’s more.
Buttigieg is a member of the hapless Biden Administration, which – when it’s not putting our nation at incredible risk – is busy warning us of climate doom. Joe Biden himself calls climate change a “clear and present danger” that’s “code red for humanity.” His awful choice for Vice President, Kamala Harris, claims, “the clock is not only ticking, it is banging.” And his Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, screams on TV that “climate change is an existential threat!”
But all this heavy breathing raises an important question: if climate change is real, why don’t the elites act like it? Fly Boy Buttigieg is an obvious example of this contradiction, of course, but he’s by no means the only one.
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Consider the homes that elites live in, for example. In many cases, they’re huge. The Tennessee mansion owned by Inconvenient Truth-teller Al Gore, for example, boasts 20 rooms (yeah, because that’s necessary) and consumes far more energy than yours and mine. To save the planet, Gore says (with total lack of irony), “we have to change the way we live our lives.” I think he’s referring just to us.
Speaking of elites’ mansions, I’m also stumped by how many of them are situated on the coast. After all, climate crusaders say climate change will cause sea levels to rise, drowning everyone dumb enough to live in sight of a sand dune. But rather than head for higher ground, the elites love expensive beachfront property – and they own mansions right on it. In fact, Barack and Michelle Obama spent more than $20 million on not one but two.
But let’s set aside how big the Obamas’ houses are, how many swimming pools they have (three, but who’s counting), and how much energy is used to heat and cool them. Instead, let’s focus on the dire threat they face of being washed away. After all, if you sincerely believed climate change is real and will cause sea levels to rise, would you plunk down so much dough for houses right in harm’s way? Neither would I. But like so many other elites who tell us “to change the way we live our lives,” the Obamas did just that.
Perhaps, and I’m just spit balling here, the threat isn’t so dire after all?
Obama, Biden, Buttigieg, and all the other climate crusaders say they’re positively petrified about the harm you and I are doing to the earth. But then they live in huge houses (plural) that emit much more carbon than ours. Many of those houses are situated on shorelines that will be underwater if their dire claims of rising sea levels are accurate. And they travel around in posh jets that do far more damage to the environment than anything the little people do.
Are they honest about climate change but clueless about their contribution to it? Or do their actions reveal human-caused “climate change” might be a ruse, one that certainly sounds scary but may be more about increasing their power than improving the world we live in?
I look forward to Fly Boy’s next visit to Congress. Perhaps, he may come with an answer.
Ashley Hayek is Executive Director of America First Works, Chief Engagement Officer of America First Policy Institute and author of Beat the Elites.
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