>Do as you preach, and others will follow.

It is still logically consistent to play the game as everyone else, but still advocate for changes to rules that affect everyone. For example, flying in private jets while also supporting laws/regulations/taxes that would make that amount of pollution per person per unit time unaffordable.

No, it's not. You're just excusing hypocritical behavior because of your own bias.

It is not hypocritical, because I do not expect others to behave in a way I do not.

For example, I want fossil fuels to be drastically costlier to force everyone to use smaller vehicles and live in denser communities enabling public transit.

But I do not want other individuals to have to do that while I do not. I am willing to make the sacrifices if everyone will, but if everyone is not going to, then I have a hard time seeing why I should.

Does anyone know if he actually buys carbon offsets for his footprint? I mean that would be one way to negate the impact of flying around. I imagine he does.

The people complaining about this generally don't believe in carbon offsets either.

Good point. Not sure why I even comment in here.

He could buy carbon ofsets and still not fly around in a private jet and help the environment on two fronts.

Similarly the vocal and rich advocates for climate change policy buying beachfront property on Martha's Vinyard. To say that these people are merely hypocrites is being too generous. They don't believe what they're saying at all.

Which advocates in particular? Why do you think buying a beach homes implies they don't believe what they are saying? Are you arriving at the most convenient conclusion for yourself, rather than the most likely one?

Former president Obama stands out. Why would you spend a considerable amount of your wealth on a home that is about to be swallowed up by the ocean on account of us barreling headlong into imminent climate catastrophe? You wouldn't.

Climate catastrophe will not visit Martha's Vineyard within Barack Obama's lifetime. No one says it will.

Living on MV does not contribute to the climate problem, so his actions are not hypocritical.

If he was looking for a 100-year property investment, perhaps he should have chosen a different part of New England (elevation > X meters), the Pacific Northwest, or the Great Lakes region.

If he's looking for a nice, private, place to live for the next 30 years, MV has a lot going for it. He won't live there for 30 years of course, and maybe "leaving it to the kids" isn't high on his priority list, and maybe he even has a lingering hope that mitigation efforts will happen and succeed. He didn't get famous by being a pessimist (ObOnTopic).

And, sure is a good thing he didn't move to Florida or the desert West, where he'd be both more endangered and more contributive to the danger.

I really can't imagine any plausible explanation for how any person arrives at the "Obama says climate change is a problem, but buys house near beach, must be hypocrite and bad person" narrative, unless of course you started at the end and worked backwards.

(edit) ... which, I see from other comments, seems to be the case. You believe Obama is lying about climate change and that buying a house on MV is proof? OK. Amazing.

What is the definition of imminent? Maybe Obama thinks that he and his family will still get sufficient utility out of before the home is swallowed up by the ocean? Perhaps he feels he has enough set aside for his descendants and is comfortable blowing the rest on personal comforts for their remainder years?

Perhaps Obama is optimistic that we'll pull our heads out of the sand and do what we need to do to prevent his home from being swallowed up by the ocean.

Do you really believe that his home is imminently about to be swallowed by the ocean?

I definitely don't and neither does he.

Does that mean climate change isn't real and we shouldn't enact any policy to deal with it? Just trying to understand what your actual position is.

Don't allow anyone to gaslight you about such an obvious observation, too.

There will be considerable mental gymnastics and glib responses to any post that points out the obvious. That's just how it goes.

You're being downvoted severely for going against current leftist orthodoxy, but you should know that a lot of us out here agree with you.

Personal carbon budget.

But then the upper middle class twats couldn't go on vacation to Bali and we can't have that no sirree!

Are they twats because they're upper middle class, or because they want to go on vacation to Bali? Or maybe both?

Edit: the point that I'm driving at (if it wasn't clear) is that we seem to all want upward mobility to be a thing, but boy do we hate those that actually experience it. That seems almost like it's own kind of pessimism to me.

Yes, the crab bucket mentality

You don't have to go on holiday across the world.

But for the record I don't give a shit just don't preach environmentalism. Hypocrisy is just one of those things that crawls up my butt.