Full disclosure: I have very little idea who Taylor Swift is. I am aware that she's a singer, sure, but it's more than likely that I've never heard her sing. My tastes run more towards classic rock, from Aerosmith to ZZ Top. I am aware that the music business requires pretty much constant travel, though. It's part of the game. Back in the day, one would occasionally see a band on the road, usually in a big chartered bus carrying the band and crew, followed by a couple of tractor-trailers carrying props, equipment, and so forth.
Nowadays, musicians seem to tend more towards Gulfstreams than Greyhound buses. And that's fine. They can likely afford that, and they can spend their money as they please.
I do have issues with hypocrites, though, and Miss Swift's simultaneous whining about climate change while bopping around in a private jet is an example of this. Now we learn that she is buying "carbon offsets" to virtue-signal her way out of her use of a luxurious, $40 million private jet:
Pop star Taylor Swift, who has a $40 million private jet, is turning to carbon offsets to reduce her carbon footprint after criticism from fans, according to an editorial on Tuesday.
Carbon offsets are used by airlines and other companies in order to meet environmental goals of reducing net carbon emissions. But The Wall Street Journal editorial board argued that such offsets, what it termed as "climate indulgences," are mostly for show.
"They are a political creation that lets companies and countries—and now celebrities—virtue signal," the editorial board wrote. "If a manufacturer wants to claim it is reducing emissions, it can buy a credit rather than use less gas or coal power. Instead of flying commercial, Ms. Swift can buy credits to offset trips on her $40 million Dassault aircraft. Carbon offsets don’t significantly reduce emissions, but they do promote the illusion that a net-zero world is possible."
Miss Swift is far from the only celebrity to get called out on her hypocrisy; none other than departing Climate Czar John Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, was recently confronted about his lavish lifestyle and was less than happy to get that question. But then, hypocrites do tend to get prickly when called out.
See Related: WATCH: John Kerry Snaps When He Gets Confronted About His Climate Hypocrisy
Neither Taylor Swift nor John "Effing" Kerry is alone in this hypocrisy; look at Al Gore and his expansive mansion, for example. But this carbon offset garbage, which was in fact created by none other than Gore in 2010, is one of the more egregious pieces of nitwittery to come out of the climate movement; it is of a kind with the medieval practice of selling indulgences, and has just about the same practical effect - none.
The (Wall Street Journal) editorial board explained that "green businesses and developing countries" can sell off their carbon credits to "third parties," but "the market is fragmented and largely unregulated."
"While the credits have a notional financial value, their primary purpose is to deflect criticism," the Wall Street Journal explained.
By "fragmented and largely unregulated," the board means "nobody has any idea what's going on, and there's zero evidence that anyone's carbon footprint is more or less because of this medieval practice of selling climate indulgences." Nobody has any idea what the people who are selling these indulgences are up to, whether they have any carbon-spewing capacity or not, and if they do, what, if anything, they are doing about it to justify selling these indulgences to others. It's a perfectly ridiculous fabrication, and nobody with enough brains to pound sand should fall for this kind of blatant codswallop.
But then, this entire "green" movement is largely built on a tissue of whoppers, from electric vehicles to huge fields of raptor-killing windmills. And there are plenty of people who will believe all manner of bunkum; as a famous former president once said, you can fool some of the people all of the time. Apparently, Taylor Swift's fans have a leavening of such people.
See Related: Electric Vehicles Enter the 'Total Failure' Phase of Their Existence
We can hope that in a few years, the whole "carbon offset" idea will have gone the way of the pet rock.
I have no idea what kind of person Taylor Swift is. Honestly, I don't care. And nobody, least of all me, would give two hoots about her travel arrangements were it not for this egregious virtue-signaling hypocrisy based on something that is about as well-founded in logic as talking to a brick wall.
Recently, another intrepid reporter cornered Climate Czar John Kerry and asked him for his opinion; his reply was, shall we say, less than articulate:
