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Last updated on August 5th, 2017 at 09:05 am
Holy George Monbiot hits the road:
George Monbiot, the environmental campaigner, scourge of the automobile industry and champion of not owning cars, has finally bought himself … a car.
Notwithstanding pledges to live a green lifestyle and be a model to others, he has given in to temptation and acquired a secondhand Renault.
Gaia weeps.
He bought [the Renault Clio] from a friend for an undisclosed amount. As zealots will be quick to remind him, it emits 115g/km of CO2, 10% higher than a Toyota Prius, the petrol-electric hybrid beloved of the green movement.
Gaia not weep now. Gaia angry!
Jeremy Clarkson, Monbiot’s long-standing antagonist, said: “I’m glad he hasn’t gone for a Prius – that would have marked him out as an idiot. I just hope the bonnet doesn’t fly up [Renault Clios have been criticised for faulty bonnet catches] because he’ll be killed – then where would the world be?”
Imagine Germaine Greer’s obit: “The vehicle world has finally taken its revenge on Monbiot.” George explains his heresy:
His move from Oxford to rural Wales with his family in January meant a change of lifestyle, and he discovered he needed personal transport.
“I had cars from 1982 to 1989, then I didn’t have a car until about six weeks ago,” he says. “I’ve had to break a long-time commitment, but the only way to get by, we decided, was to have the occasional use of a car” …
Monbiot admits he is open to charges of hypocrisy but says people he has so far confessed to have been understanding. “I still feel pretty awful about it,” he admits. “The rule is, if it’s at all possible to travel by any other means, then that’s what we do. The car is a last resort and I haven’t even used a tank of petrol yet.”
And it never will. As the article points out, George’s hatchback from Hades is actually a diesel model.
Monbiot knows the acquisition will be seen as capitulation but blames shortcomings in the public transport system.
The guy moves to rural Wales then complains about a lack of public transport. What did he expect?
(Via Peter R.)
- Screw Monbiot with a barnacle encrusted, rented, 10 foot barge pole.
Clarkson’s article on the Audi R8 sums up what cars are all about.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 06 05 at 11:16 PM • permalink
- “I just hope the bonnet doesn’t fly up because he’ll be killed – then where would the world be?”
If I wasn’t a Christian, I think I’d have to be a Clarksonian. Roll on the new series of Top Gear!
Posted by blandwagon on 2007 06 05 at 11:17 PM • permalink
- Public transport? Does he mean that he expects the public to pay for a bus to drive out to his place in the boondocks and pick him up. Are they to run on a regular schedule, several times a day, just in case he needs to go somewhere? Would he spend his time waiting on the next scheduled bus to transfer, or does he expect one that will take him just anywhere his little heart desires?
Prate.
- Okay, digging the mocking Monbiot thing, but did I miss a memo? Even with Sarkozy and the whole immies go home thing?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 05 at 11:38 PM • permalink
- What a pompous jackwad.
Monbiot admits he is open to charges of hypocrisy but says people he has so far confessed to have been understanding.
I can just see this clown walking up to random people in the street.
Moonbat: “Hey, you! Sir! I need to confess something.”
Random Guy: “Um, all right…”
MB: “I bought a car.”
RG: “…And?”
MB: “Don’t you understand? I bought a CAR. Me. George Moonbat. A CAR. I need a spanking – I’ve been bad.”
RG (backing away slowly): “Yes, that’s lovely… Look, I need to go cut my lawn or put out the trash or watch paint dry, OK? Have fun with that car.”
MB: “Wait – where are you going? Wait a moment… oh, damn. Another one gone.”
And now for something completely different and OT – I bring you the new logo for the Olympics.Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 06 05 at 11:43 PM • permalink
- Monbiot … blames shortcomings in the public transport system. “I spoke at the Hay literary festival the other day and we worked out that the only way to get there without spending an entire day travelling was to take the car.”
Not quite, George. You could have caughtthe bus from Hereford and the shuttle to the festival; or shared someone else’s car.
- The more you look, the funnier it gets:
Here’s what the Hay Festival organisers are advising attendees:
” … Hay Festival … what Bill Clinton described as ‘The Woodstock of the Mind’…
Top tips on how you can be more ‘green’ at The Guardian Hay Festival:
1) Take public transport to the Festival e.g. travel by train or organise a car share.
2) When you’re at the Festival – walk, cycle or take public transport to and from the site.
3) Keep an eye out for recycling bins – throw away all your rubbish but put paper, plastic and glass in the recycling bins provided.
4) Consider the packaging of any products (food stuffs etc) purchased during the day. Also bring a reusable bag from home – say ‘NO’ to plastic bags.
5) If you bring your own food to the Festival, try and avoid plastic wrap and bags. Greaseproof paper, paper bags and lunch-boxes are the environmentally-friendly alternative.
6) Visit Sky’s Lower Carbon Lifestyle Home at Hay which is packed full of innovative ideas on how to reduce your impact on the environment. You can also measure your carbon footprint using Sky’s Carbon Calculator. Alternatively click here to calculate your footprint online.”
And Georges kicks off proceedings by purchasing a motor vehicle.
Beyond parody.
- #17 paco
I think somebody dropped a ceramic model of the actual design just before presenting it to the committee, looked at it for a moment, and said, “what the heck – good enough.”
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 06 06 at 12:15 AM • permalink
- #14 – I will draw strength from my colllection of Faberge Eggs and drown my sorrows with vintage Krug.Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 06 06 at 12:16 AM • permalink
- The guy moves to rural Wales then complains about a lack of public transport. What did he expect?
At a guess, a solar-powered monorail from his humble cottage to Oxford, with a sup via Heathrow so he can board a plane to bugger off and hector peasants somewhere or another about their greed and addiction to consumption (and BTW, I’d say George would love to see an upsurge in another form of consumption, especially one resistant to microbe-genocidal antibiotics produced by rapacious chemical multinationals).
- 4) Consider the packaging of any products (food stuffs etc) purchased during the day. Also bring a reusable bag from home – say ‘NO’ to plastic bags.
Wait – what if your reusable bag IS plastic? Does taht mean you can’t bring it along? I’m so confused.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 06 06 at 12:19 AM • permalink
Okay, digging the mocking Monbiot thing, but did I miss a memo? Even with Sarkozy and the whole immies go home thing?Still mocking the French?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 06 at 12:37 AM • permalink
- The kicker for me is that he moved his family to Wales so that his kid can grow up speaking Welsh.
I have Welsh ancestors. Most of them left Wales a very long time ago to get away from the bloody Welsh (and the weather). Wanting to learn Welsh is like developing a desire to lie in the piss trough in a pub.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 06 06 at 12:42 AM • permalink
- #28 – Much like calling your daughter Cristal-Lace and being surprised when she graduates top of her class in greased pole contortion, these parents should not be surprised when young Mohammad Bull starts purchasing one-way tube fairs.Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 06 06 at 12:45 AM • permalink
- #27, paco
Oh dear. I forgot the world was going to end before the 2012 Olympics! And here they’re spending all that money on committees and logos and stuff, and that doesn’t even begin to address the money spent planning the venues.
I wonder how they are going to plan for the Islamofascists who live there in Londonstan? This is going to be a summer Olympics—a really hot hot hot summer Olympics, if it isn’t all over by then—and that means lots of cat meat out and about for all the world to see. And they’ll probably have their evil hair rays zapping all the men crazy with raping urges. I just don’t see how this is a good thing at all.
- #32 – Good to have you back, IT.Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 06 at 02:17 AM • permalink
- #13 New olympic logo. ugly. plain. just plain ugly. and it’s very red, too.
And yet Ken Livingstone doesn’t like it.
Posted by blandwagon on 2007 06 06 at 02:36 AM • permalink
- Re the logo – at last someone has broken the stupid obsession with cute furry animals as logos for events.
Last year Melbourne added political correctness to cute furriness by having an endangered bird – with a native name, of course – as the Commonwealth Games logo. Sydney 2000 couldn’t stick at one but had a kookaburra, a platypus and an echidna representing earth, air and water.
Barcelona had a cat, Seoul had a tiger and Edmonton had a beaver which I believe was also an animal, but I couldn’t be sure – it was black and furry.
- Tell me the Monbiots are not the inspiration for The Modern Parents?
Malcolm and Cressida Wright-Pratt…are the modern parents in question, adults whose obsession with equality, political correctness, liberalisation, and environmental awareness often works against their basic role as parents….
They take the moral high-ground because of their apparent ideologies. Both of them have large upturned noses, perhaps indicating how they turn their noses up at what they believe to be the ignorant bigotted masses of unenlightened people…
They both seem to think victimhood is some sort of achievement, with Cressida delighting in pointing out that, as a woman, she is apparently an oppressed minority. Malcolm, in turn, frequently claims he has “Sensitive Persons Syndrome” which, as well as being completely made up, happens to get him out of various things. For example, as a committed environmentalist, he insists he supports public transport, but cannot use it himself because of his Sensitive Persons Syndrome preventing him from getting on a bus or train. However, he does point out that his Volvo “is Scandinavian, so it must be eco-friendly.”
- “Monbiot admits he is open to charges of hypocrisy…”
As if we had enough jail space to hold all the leftards guilty of hypocrisy.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 06 06 at 03:19 AM • permalink
- Instead, Monbiot advocates developing … electric cars with a longer range and which are much easier to recharge. He envisages battery stations from which drivers could lease ready-charged batteries, rather than having to find a plug and spend hours waiting for a recharge.
“There is no car in band A of vehicle excise duty available in the UK at the moment,” says Monbiot. “Why not? It is possible to make a car that does 120mpg. The technology is available.”
Tightwad f*ckwit sums it up.
How far is the turd’s commute … how much fuel is he using?
Coz his Missus wanted a change in lifestyle, Gaia gets shoved aside … left your precious principles with your spine, eh?
- MINOR CORRECTION…
“left your precious principles with your spine, eh?”
As is well known, leftists are invertebrates.
They fall somewhere between maggots and slime molds on the evolutionary ladder.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 06 06 at 04:20 AM • permalink
- I like cars. Cars are cool.
When it comes to mass production cars, I’m kinda partial to the look of this one –I like mocking the french too. Thanks for reminding me of that #29, richard mcenroe. I’d nearly forgotten how enjoyable that can be.
O/T and maybe a bit of fyi to any Aussie wine factory owners.
Aussie wines are starting to earn more and more shelf space at retailers around here. Today i went shopping at Costco (large national warehouse type bulk sized grocery general merch store, membership required and costly…damn card renewal cost me $100.00 today) and Smart and Final (another kind of combo grocery/general merch store). Had Aussie wines from a number of vinyards stocked. Item space is hugely competitive in such stores. I got 2 kinds of Shiraz, one Mattie’s Perch. It’s “ripper!” says so on the label so must be true. The other had a picture of a penguin on it. Don’t remember if it said “ripper!” though and the bottle is in the garbage unless I missed when I threw it in that direction.
Im not a “wine guy” or anything but I’ve decided that shiraz is pretty tasty. Had 2 brands of it this evening and both were, well, tasty.
He envisages battery stations from which drivers could lease ready-charged batteries,
He’ll need a strong back. According to Prius battery specs the battery pack weighs 68 kg (150 lbs).
- It is possible to make a car that does 120mpg. The technology is available
Yes, it exists. It’s called a scooter.
It wouldn’t be a very fast scooter, or have many accessories, but a scooter would do.
But it has to have four seats? Why? The family aren’t going anywhere are they? I thought only George needed to travel.
If the family does need to travel as well, just go Bali style – you can take a family of four, plus some chickens that way.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 06 06 at 06:03 AM • permalink
- I think Mr Moonbat moved into this sustainable little suburban house in Machynlleth. But that’s okay, because Machynlleth is just the hippest little place in Wales, and George can make all the right choices there. And because he’s so good and moral and wise, he gets to own a car as well.
- This makes no sense, but that’s never stopped me before. What goes through Moonbat’s mind when he discovers the joy of driving.Posted by dean martin on 2007 06 06 at 09:23 AM • permalink
- Moves out into the sticks, buys a crap used car… “You might be a redneck if…”Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 06 at 09:39 AM • permalink
Monbiot, a Guardian columnist, attended Stowe school in Buckinghamshire, followed by Brasenose College, Oxford, before joining the BBC, first in the natural history unit, then as a reporter for the World Service before leaving to write his first book and becoming a leading light in the environmental movement.
Sounds like a solid leftist career path.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 06 06 at 12:12 PM • permalink
In his latest book, Monbiot worked out that the coach was the greenest form of travel, in terms of CO2 emissions per person per kilometre. But does Monbiot use it? No. “Coach travel would be slightly better [than the train] but I will be damned if I’m going round the country in the current system,” he says.
Right. And I’ll be damn if I give up my special order Humvee with the optional tow missile launcher. Do I blame myself? Oh pah. I blame Ohio. Its public transport system currently offers no armor protection nor heavy weaponry capability. I consider myself a victim.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 06 06 at 12:19 PM • permalink
- I also presume that Moonbat thinks that changing the battery in an electric car is not unlike changing the batteries in a flashlight? I’m willing to bet it’s a bit more complicated.Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 06 06 at 09:35 PM • permalink
- #65 Odd, that. I’d sooner choke than be seen saving the planet, but I do sometimes take the National Express over to York. London may be a different matter, but around here coaches seem to be cheap, fast, clean, comfortable, usually half-empty, punctual, and you can buy an e-ticket with a few clicks of the mouse. Beats the crap out of the trains. It ought to be ideal for a chap of George’s ethical principles, if he wasn’t a giant spoilt phoney. I bet he’s just worried there might be ordinary people on it.
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And he can do it because George was smart enough to buy Pre-Al Carbon Offsets! Another fine investment vehicle from Paco & Sons, Ltd (Cayman Islands).