It’s hardly the first time European royalty have displayed laughably elitist and clueless condescension. It’s not even the worst current scandal involving a British royal and a private jet. But the spectacle of a prince and a princess jetting around the globe in private jets (including a visit to Sir Elton John’s estate in Nice, France) while scolding the rest of us about carbon emissions is a telling one about the West’s elites and the climate change fight, and more beyond.
Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, living on inherited wealth, don’t have jobs in the same way most of us do. Instead, they are full-time do-gooders. The Duke of Sussex, as Harry is also known, recently spoke (barefoot!) at a green summit in Sicily. Like many of the guests, he arrived by private jet.
When the Times of London reported on the duke and duchess’s flight to Nice to visit Sir Elton and his husband, it was a bad look for the royal couple. It sure looks like hypocrisy to lecture one’s subjects about climate emissions while flying privately around the hemisphere.
But knights exist to defend royal personages, and Sir Elton spoke up on Harry’s behalf, saying, “To maintain a high level of much-needed protection, we provided them with a private jet flight. To support Prince Harry’s commitment to the environment, we ensured their flight was carbon neutral, by making the appropriate contribution to Carbon Footprint™.”
This is anything but persuasive, reflects the heart of modern environmentalism, and reveals it for what it is — a religion.
Sir Elton can buy environmental indulgences to wipe out climate sins, both of his own and those of his friends.
There’s also a Calvinist element to this religion, for justification is by faith alone and not through good deeds. The United States gets no credit for slowing emissions faster than everyone else because we didn’t sign the creedal statements of the Kyoto Protocol and Paris accords.
Watching the Duke and Duchess of Climate Alarmism, we are reminded of the most decadent periods of the Western Church, when the rules applied only to the little people.
What, exactly, are the duke and duchess giving up for the sake of planet? They are giving up offspring. Prince Harry explained that out of concern for overpopulation, he and the duchess will limit themselves to two children. It’s an odd moral system that counts it a sacrifice to limit the number of people for whose well-being you’re responsible.
This is a bit dizzying, but if you dig a little into elite environmentalism, you find the connective thread.
The Economist recently noted that “more poor people are eating meat around the world. That means they will live longer, healthier lives, but it is bad news for the environment …”
The argument seems to be the more poor people we have, the worse it is for the planet. A recent Huffington Post article by the mother of two pleaded with readers not to have children because they’re bad for the planet.
A rash of articles have decried increases in global wealth because it allows the masses to visit Paris, Machu Picchu, and the Taj Mahal.
The animating spirit of the Duke and Duchess of Climate and their ilk is that they want you to travel less in order to offset the travel they simply have to do.
