Sunday, April 09, 2006
THE PROBLEM: OTHER PEOPLE
Envirovangelist Tim Flannery slams deceitful money-lusting earth rapers:
The people who are still resisting calls for action are leaders of industry who have “set out systematically to deceive the public on this matter,” Flannery said.
“I hate the term special interests,” he said. “Why don’t we call them people who want to make money through continuing to pollute the planet? Why dignify them?”
If Flannery earns just $5 for each copy of his latest book’s initial print run, he’ll pull in $375,000. He wants to make money. How is he promoting the book? By flying to and within Europe and the US (a 20-city tour there, in fact). No eco-friendly Internet tactics for Flannery, who does things the old-fashioned way. He is continuing to pollute the planet, the despoilment of which Flannery mainly notices in his hotel rooms:
Another area where we can make a difference is in the amount of electricity we waste, which Flannery illustrated by comparing two hotel rooms from his recent travels. While conducting our phone interview from his room in New York, he said there was a refrigerator “the size of a Buick” running empty 24 hours a day. “Isn’t that madness?” he exclaims.
By way of contrast, his hotel in Denmark offered an option. “If you forgo having your room made up,” he noted, “they would give you $20 to spend in their restaurant. Imagine how much energy that saves.”
Imagine! And then he got a cab to the airport.
UPDATE. Jeremy in NYC writes: “Ever been to New York? You couldn’t even fit a ‘refrigerator the size of Buick’ in the average hotel room. I can barely fit my visiting parents in the average hotel room here. I have a lot of visitors come who stay in different hotels here, and believe me when I say, the only refrigerators they’ve ever had in their rooms are teeny-weeny minibar fridges.
“There is one exception: extended stay hotel rooms with full kitchens, including normal refrigerators. Since those are meant to be for extended stays and function as apartments, of course they have a real fridge turned on. But if Flannery is being wasteful enough to stay in one of those, without actually needing the facilities, whose fault is that?”