I suspect it might have been taken out of context. The tone of Eb's reply made it sound like the reporter was perhaps trying to put words into his mouth to get some evocative quote about conservation or something, and instead got the exasperated response "If I want to buy an airplane and fill it full of a thousand gallons of fifty-dollar-a-gallon fuel, and I got the money to do it, goddamn it, leave me alone!"

It's the freedom to, not necessarily the goodness of doing it. He's just on the conservative/libertarian side of things.

Libertarians usually follow the NAP - Non-Aggression Principle - which forbids polluting the atmosphere, since you harm others doing it.

We are all polluting the atmosphere every day.

Yes, that was a little bit of a surprise.

"Each object a person carries represents a particular fear: of injury, of discomfort, of boredom, of attack. The “last vestige” of fear that even the most minimalist hikers have trouble shedding, he said, was starvation. As a result, most people ended up carrying “way the hell too much food”. He did not even carry so much as an emergency candy bar."

Given this minimalist orientation, the hassle and support systems needed for mechanised transport seem incongruous. Interesting article.

Well, I think the vast majority of people support the freedom to pollute some amount.