The Earth is Full… of Hypocritical Eco Blowhards
**Written by Doug Powers
Thomas Friedman had a column in Wednesday’s New York Times entitled “The Earth is Full.” In the column, Friedman called for people to work less and own less in order to save the planet. Bla bla bla.
There’s a common thread among many of the people who demand that everybody else do without: They tend to have a lot more than the people they’re asking to own less — which is why the following items come as complete non-surprises: Friedman’s wife is the heir to the shopping mall fortune of one of America’s wealthiest families (safe bet they don’t all live in eco houses). As for the more relevant issue of Friedman himself, if the world is too full, maybe it’s because he’s taking up too much space:
Newsbusters points out that the July 2006 issue of Washingtonian magazine called Friedman’s home “a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million, on a 7.5-acre parcel…”
Between Thomas Friedman and Al Gore, if they’d let some of us greenhouse gas-spewing eco-unfriendly serfs spill over into their sprawling carbon footprints, maybe the earth wouldn’t be so full.
If somebody wants to effectively convince people that the world is in peril because of carbon footprints, they’d be wise to first make sure it looks like they believe it. That’s Salesmanship 101. Global warming alarmists with private jets and mansions are like cardiologists preaching healthy diets to their patients while walking through the waiting room smoking cigarettes and eating pork rinds.
(h/t Weasel Zippers and Matt Taibbi)
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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I believe that there are too many people on this planet.
I would like the Gaians to lead by example in thinning out the herd.
Friedman’s hypocrisy would be both disappointing and sad if it wasn’t so incredibly laughable. How can these people preach their drivel to us and keep a straight face? Yeah, I guess it is just sad.
This is the softening up phase. *They* can’t fix the economy so they have to make us learn to like it and accept their truth that there is no way to fix it.
At first, I thought I was just experiencing deja vu, but now with the leftists recycling the Population Bomb hysteria, along with global warming/cooling/whatever it’s now called, SSA and Medicare on the cusp of imploding… Oh yeah, and a genuine OIL CRISES, I know it’s just that time again. Time to battle it out – is it gruel and hot, dark nights, or is it Morning in America yet?
I know which one I’m voting for!!!
I’m all for stopping the reproduction of Progressive Elite Big Central Government Planners. That would be a start.
Or a Chrysler dealer driving a Honda… Always ask what kind of car they drive when they’re trying to get you to buy (force you to buy if it’s GM) one of theirs. Same goes true for the eco-types.
Work less… and have more free time? Doesn’t he know the kind of crap people get up to when they have too much time on their hands?
It’s amazing how a Democrat can simultaneously believe that we have too many people here, and want us to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. Without the constant influx of immigrants beyond those we regulate and allow, our population would be very nearly stable.
Sounds a bit like eugenics. So who is on the list to go first?
With Obama driving the economy, he may just get his wish.
This guy is a classic tool. There are millions of unemployed Americans who aren’t working at all, losing their homes, and other things. This is typical of the left–ride around in their limo’s and tell us to buy a damn scooter or bike. When are people going to rise up against these socialists??
Compared to that selfless advocate of the poor John Edward who gets by with a very modest 20,000 sq. ft. cottage, Friedman is living in a shack. We should admire is restraint and willingness to sacrifice for the common good.
BTW, if the earth is full, why do they think the US is any different? A couple million immigrants, legal and illegal, come here very year but somehow we are expected to accommodate them.
Doug! Y’all jus’ don’t understand!
Friedman thought long and hard about how we poor, crawling worms should do with less as he was flying in his private jet to the airport where his 30-foot-long Mercedes limo was waiting to take him to his palatial 11,400-square-foot house where he and his wife were planning to have a steak-n-lobster-n-champagne dinner party with some friends while watching the latest Hollyweird thriller in their home theater.
So ya know he knows what he’s talking about!
Hey moron! Between now and the next millenia the earth is going to rollover and fart and all of mankind’s contributions will be nowhere to be found. You ain’t saving sh!t!
When I used to work construction we would have tree huggers come out and protest saying we were killing forests by cutting down tress (of course it is loggers that cut down trees not construction workers, but I digress). I used to ask them what kind of house they lived in. When they told me it was a single family dwelling, apartment, or duplex I would respond with a follow up question…how many trees do you think were cut down for your home.
This is the classic Libtard Socialist Democrat responce – High Unemployment? Less wages? these are here to stay, we will not fix any of this and learn to do without and do not aspire to anything. With our Socialist Libtard help we will make damn sure to have a concrete block house in a Peoples Apartment Complex in a Peoples neighborhood waiting for you. And, your place in the bread line is assured.
Money tends to make people think they are smarter than they really are, especially when they didn’t earn it.
Sounds like your average member of the liberal masses. Not doing much work… and doesn’t own much other than a bicycle and protest sign that say Bush Lied.
Now… your liberal elite. That’s a whole different animal as we see in the aerial photo.
These liberals are starting to sound more and more like Chairman Mao.
Liberal Politicians.
They may, at their convenience, step in an active volcano.
Several years ago somebody calculated you could fit the entire world’s population into DuVal County Florida (Jacksonville), each in one square yard. There’s plenty of room and plenty of resources. What we have too much of is retrograde Socialist group-think and one-world power mongers.
Wow…think of all the illegals he could house in that place! I think he should get right on that. Work less and OWN less? Share YOUR wealth, you a-hole.
What is most frightening about this is not that he said it, but that he is so blind as to not see his own hypocrisy! That, to me, is the influence of evil that permeates the minds of the regressive elites.
Well said. But he better hope he’s on the uphill side of the Marxist steamroller.
I’ve read his columns in the NYT for years and he hasn’t persuaded me yet. Either I’m dense, or he’s wrong.
And a hypocrite.
Socialism will go the way of Vichy France. It was all good for them until the tide turned, then everyone magically turned Partisan.
As I said the other day, Obama will be lucky if his peeps don’t give him the Il Duce treatment sans the cocky smirk and upturned chin.
Exactly right. Obama is in trouble right now, and his so-called “friends” would turn on him in a minute if they thought he would hurt them or take their precious wealth. Obama will be residing under his own bus one day…mark my words. At this point in time, he is standing in front of it while it speeds toward him downhill.
“Save the planet” is a joke.
The planet was here for BILLIONS of years before people, and it will be here for BILLIONS of years after people are gone.
There will be new creatures, different plant life… the continents are still drifting and the entire planet setup will even LOOK different.
Save the planet… sigh… the planet is gonna do just fine.
He is just showcasing his extreme HYPOCRISY. Never liked him or the ‘stuff’ he had published. Oh, and the world is NOT ‘flat’. Can’t he just fade quietly into obscurity working in some university somewhere please?
Yes! Thanks for shining light on a most obvious and preventable aspect of the domestic population dilemma. And, I would add.. at a time of near-historic economic downturn, into the most resource consuming society on earth… oh, there’s no irony here folks, move along please — move along.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Friedman…
and Gore, and Obama, and Gingrich, and Romney, and..you fill in the blank. You all belong to a gang of hucksters trying to force everyone under your control. They’re like the pigs in Animal Farm. “All animals are equal, but pigs are more equal than others…”
The first thing I thought of was all of the liberal elites telling me that I shouldn’t have a gun to defend myself – all the while they are surrounded by armed bodyguards.
One set of rules for our “betters” and another for the rest of us.
Don’t they make ya sick?
i love the idea of working less, and owning less. but since i am a hayseed hick, bitter clinger i might add, i would love for the government to lead by example!!
It’s time for the pod people to go back to their home planet. We were here first and we were doing just fine before they showed up with all of the great ideas.
One of the best takes on this hoax I’ve seen, from of all people, Pat Sajak:
Wow! Shades of “If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Interesting facts…
The current calculated world population is 6,923,965,915. Total acres of land in the world is 36,794,240,000. That’s 5.3 acres of land per human. Of course it’s not all habital, but clearly we’re not over packed.
American population is about 310,000,000. Total acres in the US is about 2,260,994,361. That’s 7.3 acres per American.
Just farm land alone in the US (2007) is 922,095,840 acres. That’s 3 acres of rich and habital farm land per person in the US.
But screw facts, right?
If we are going to embrace a centrally-planned economy where the first directive is to level wealth by merging the middle class into the chronically poor classes, the 1% of Americans who control 50% of the wealth cannot expect their pie to grow unless ours shrinks.
The “shared” pain only to be experienced by the “wealthy” (middle class. Kill the middle class, kill personal freedoms in this country. America will no longer be exceptional. Just another failed experiment in freedom and the end of the world’s last great hope.
And I thought that Al Gore’s carbon footprint was the benchmark for liberal hypocrisy…
Most Liberals never get out of their neighborhood, never get the window seat on a cross country flight, and have no idea how the numbers actually work out (population to inhabitable land area), nor do they care. Facts get in the way of strongly held convictions.
So then the EVIL United Stated is less densely populated than the global average? Don’t let that get out.
Between lines, I could read that humans will have more time to procreate. That is just the opposite of Friedman’s viewpoints just like his mansion.
This is what David Mamet spoke about when he had his epiphany. Liberals talk left but live right. That’s why you can’t trust them. Ever.
The Malthusian Doctrine tells me that somehow we will never have to worry about overpopulation.
Or they are too lazy to look at satellite view on Google maps and scroll the wheel forward.
Friedman is just another liberal ass wipe from NY who couldn’t write a complete sentence without steping in his own $hit. To him I say – you get off the earth and we’ll all be a lot better. The sooner the better.
The Friedman, Gore and Kerry types marry their money. They didn’t earn it and their wives didn’t earn it. They lounge off the efforts of their betters, the hard working individuals who created the fortune. These men are sponges. Living off of someone else’s success, while they look down their noses at the rest of the country. If they had not married money they would have been an afterthought. With any luck, they will become an afterthought soon.
If Earth is full, I hear there’s space on Mars.
Take some of your billions, build a spaceship, fill it with your crap and blast off!
Oh, and DLTDHYOTWO.
This is the typical leftist mindset. It’s why their “solutions” to problems (real and invented) all lead to poverty, suffering and disaster.
The way they think, the automobile, the airplane, the air-conditioner, the train, the water-wheel… heck, even irrigation would never happen.
These are all examples of people seeing problems, limitations, and instead of pulling back, they expanded. Irrigation: people needed to grow crops or starve. But, where they lived, the land was too arid to grow crops. The leftist solution would have been to A) stop having kids, B) move to where food is already growing and stop having kids. The “conservative” solution… bring the water to the crops.
The air-conditioner… it was developed in an attempt to bring relief to malaria sufferers in places like Florida. The leftist solution: A) let people suffer and die, B) move away from Florida. The “conservative” solution: cool and dehumidify the air in the buildings housing the patients.
Look up. We don’t have only one planet. We have 8 planets, a number of dwarf planets, hundreds of moons, thousands of asteroids and millions of cometary bodies. The leftist solution to this false “The Earth is Full” problem is to limit our lifestyles and population. The “conservative”, and natural solution is twofold: develop technologies to live under the seas, in currently uninhabitable regions, in space and on the other planets. And, eventually… to Terraform other planets into Earthlike, life-bearing worlds. One side-effect of this last would be to learn how to really control the climate of the Earth (as much as is possible, at any rate…)
But, the leftists will decry all this as impossible as flying to the moon. ..
Because their agenda is not to preserve the Earth or ensure the survival of mankind, but to hobble other people enough so that they may control us and force us into their idea of a Utopian, agrarian existence that cannot exist this side of Eden.
If this planet is full, what we need is a crash-program to invade space, to learn to Terraform other worlds, and expand. After all, the leftists think our undirected activities are changing the climate of the Earth, so just imagine what we can do to the climates of other worlds if we really put our minds to it.
That’s not even considering all the land that the federal government has locked up through the BLM, Forest Service, Parks, Wilderness etc etc. Give that back to the states and we’ll put it to good use easing the overcrowding.
These idiots make make sick. Go preach your bullsh$% in Europe where they actualy have a bit of an overcrowding problem.
We have LOTS of space in this country!! All the regressives are welcome to live in and even own the land known as desert. I would even be willing to contribute a case of bottle water to get them started with their transformation. Buh-bye.
The first science fiction book I bought for myself was Isaac Asimov’s “Buy Jupiter and other Stories”. Among the stories were two he’d written based upon the above, dystopian quote.
2430 A.D. pictured a future world consisting only of humans and plankton. The only thing standing in the way of this perfection was one man, a few plants and a handful of small animals. The Earth council petitioned him to destroy them, so that we could achieve perfection. Who was he, to stand in the way of billions upon billions of humans achieving a perfect world?
So he killed the plants and animals… and himself.
The magazine didn’t like it; they wanted the quote refuted. So Asimov wrote “Man’s Greatest Asset. The Earth has become an ecological park, and the world coordinator is giving an interview in which his famous misquote is cited. During the interview, a young man comes in and asks for a dozen asteroids to perform experimental ecologies upon. The coordinator overrides the computer and hands them out, knowing the experiments will fail. But, he does it to preserve the young man’s unsettled mind and keep him productive.
The misquote goes “Man’s Greatest Asset is a Balanced Ecology”. The correct quote is actually two: “Man’s Greatest Need is a Balanced Ecology”… “Man’s Greatest Asset is the Unbalanced Mind”.
I was perverted, apparently, by the writings of Asimov and Heinlein. When you read stories about people who solve problems, sometimes involving the transfer of entire worlds, you become unable to accept absolute limits on Mankind’s ability to solve problems. Solving problems is what we do. And we don’t solve problems by cutting off our hands and legs.
I never knew who Thomas Friedman was until today. Now I hate him with a passion I reserve for Obama and Satan.
I’m sorry, but this article has me absolutely furious. I fought this war 30 years ago when I was still young and vigorous, and thought we’d finally settled it!
I am so tired of this constant sense of deja vu as the garbage in the White House, the garbage in Congress, the garbage in the unions, the 40% garbage that supports socialism, re-invigorates the idiotic leftist propaganda that failed in the 1960s!
My preferred solution to solve any perceived overpopulation problem… declare open season (literally) on anyone who promotes socialism in any form. That’ll eliminate the excessive population.
February, 1616… the science is settled. The sun is NOT the center of the solar system, the Earth is. Everybody knows this to be true.
Except Galileo Galilei.
But, truth is a matter of consensus, not facts.
This same moronic blowhard last week proclaimed the Chinese so smart and so productive that they were the next leader of the world. But this dimwit didn’t remember that from 45 to 95 the chicoms couldn’t feed themselves, and had to kill their children to keep from dying off due to starvation. But in 95 they decided this communism crap wasn’t working. So has this bozo Freidman figured that lesson out yet? No, he still supports Obama and every other socialist around the world. He’s PROVEN that he isn’t as smart as the chicoms.
This kook has given us the benefit of his wisdom in every sphere. America should adopt a Chinese style tyranny to deal with global warming. (the Chinese do not deal with global warming) Israel must stop provoking Palestinians.The US should allow the UN to control its economy.
On the other hand he gets Iran.
His main failing is his unswerving belief in AGW and nutty environmentalism.
For Thomas and the elites,
Three words: Lead By Example
They don’t actually give a damn about the environment – ‘environmentalism’ is simply a convenient and timely facade to advance their desire for power and elitism
Now, now Doug. There is nothing wrong with either of those things. Don’t, don’t don’t believe the hype!
What makes you think that he does not see his hypocrisy?
What makes you think that he cares?
I have always thought that the colonization of space by mankind is an inevitability.
That is one reason why I was disappointed and saddened in the early 70s when the space program was arguably neutered by clowns who brayed, “We have enough problems here on Earth”.
Obviously, those for whom the 99 weeks of unemployment benefits have run out.
That solves 2 problems.
/central_planning_aparachik_mode_OFF
Friedman wrote:
The tanker was actually en route with two other trucks to fill the pool at Friedman’s house. How many people are going thirsty, how many wars must we endure, because of one man’s need to sustain himself?
A courtesy reminder to Friedman: the Hinckley Springs delivery truck arrives Monday at 9am.
There’s one and a quarter quintillion tons of water on the planet. We are nowhere near to running out. Getting it from where it is to where it needs to be, getting it made consumable… these are logistics problems… best solved by capitalism.
Bingo! And if you live in a place that is running out of water, then move on to a place that isn’t. Duh.
I remember the immortal words of that prolific comedian/sage, Sam Kinison…
“YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A F-ING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT’S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT’S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A F-ING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SH#@, WE’LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE’LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA — WE JUST DON’T LIVE IN THEM, A-HOLES!”
–From an appearance on Rodney Dangerfield’s “It’s Not Easy Being Me,” 1984.
Yup. From the Yemen Times (I won’t add the link due to the possible deletion in moderation, but the article is easy to find online):
This would be the same Yemen sitting on the Gulf of Aden?
Desalination has seen amazing advances in the past 10 years too. Simple inventions that help recycle the water itself to produce the energy needed to desalinate it have been invented by virtue of capitalism through need. Desalination produces two crucial products to human survival: fresh water and salt.
And on the same Arabian Peninsula as the UAE, which just so happens to be the home of the world’s largest desalination plant.
I wonder what’s so different between the UAE and Yemen….hmmmmm….
Their country is about to implode. They have make work projects, where they built complete towns with shopping centers where no one lives.
Because of their one child policy they have a country of first born males. Anyone who knows about family dynamics knows that birth order determines a child’s characteristics. The youngest is the risk taker. There are no Bill Gates types in China. They will not go out on a limb to fix things. China will implode and take N. Korea with it.
From the linked article:
Schadenfreude defined.
Any bets on Mrs. Friedman’s estate going up for sale to help out her weasel brother??
OK eco-hypocrits, which one of you will be the first to say “Stop the world, I want to get off“?
When I listen to Thomas Friedman, I know that Joseph Goebells would be extremely proud. He makes me the most ill of all the hyper-narccissistic pseudo-journalists.
My favorite comic strip quote “It’s amazing what one can do
when one doesn’t know
what one can’t do” is from GARFIELD, when Jon finds ODIE on a tree branch and tells him “Dogs can’t climb trees” whereupon ODIE falls off and GARFIELD says that in the next panel. I cut it out and had it taped up on the wall over the kitchen sink in the 80′s. It perfectly epitomizes the difference between us and them!
Friedman called for people to work less and own less in order to save the planet. The planet Earth is far larger and richer in resources than Friedman can apparently conceptualize. We are not running out of room, most shortages and short-comings are political. Export capitalism and see what happens!
Or do the moderately intelligent thing and settle the major cities alongside the rivers that run through the deserts- up until California dams the river upstream without Congressional approval and takes the water first.
It’s not an implosion I’m expecting there. I forget where I first heard the quote, or even its precise words, but the gist was that young men left without wives or the chance at them are left with war instead.
They may be left with war, but they will need food first. The Chinese gov fears that the population may rise up against the gov. Govs need to be careful what they create because that creation comes back at them. The same goes for islam. The implementation of sharia on populations which haven’t experienced religious tyranny will rebel. The thug dictators of those countries knew that a population could only accept a certain amount of control. So the thugs kept the religion suppressed when it did not serve the dictator. Without the dictators, the religion will be more brutal.
The country I feel will rise is India.
translation from leftese to English: We Marxists want you to lose your job so you cannot consume as much. Starve and die, American middle class!
Since 2008, Americans ARE working less and owning less. Doofus.