The NY Times is all in a lather over the superyachts of billionares. Of course, what would actually happen is that the fossil fueled boats of the average person would end up being banned
The Superyachts of Billionaires Are Starting to Look a Lot Like Theft
If you’re a billionaire with a palatial boat, there’s only one thing to do in mid-May: Chart your course for Istanbul and join your fellow elites for an Oscars-style ceremony honoring the builders, designers and owners of the world’s most luxurious vessels, many of them over 200 feet long.
The nominations for the World Superyacht Awards were all delivered in 2022, and the largest contenders are essentially floating sea mansions, complete with amenities like glass elevators, glass-sided pools, Turkish baths and all-teak decks. The 223-foot Nebula, owned by the WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, comes with an air-conditioned helicopter hangar.
I hate to be a wet blanket, but the ceremony in Istanbul is disgraceful. Owning or operating a superyacht is probably the most harmful thing an individual can do to the climate. If we’re serious about avoiding climate chaos, we need to tax, or at the very least shame, these resource-hoarding behemoths out of existence. In fact, taking on the carbon aristocracy, and their most emissions-intensive modes of travel and leisure, may be the best chance we have to improve our collective climate morale and increase our appetite for personal sacrifice, from individual behavior changes to sweeping policy mandates.
Does anyone really need to own one of these? Who cares? It’s none of anyone else’s business, but, members of the climate cult feel the need to tell Other People who to live their lives and spend their money. But, I will give Joe Fassler, a food and environmental issues “reporter” credit for noting that it’s time to take on the “carbon aristocracy” and their climahypocrisy.
Joe goes into all the megayachts and private jets owned and taken by the Elites, leading to
But this misses a much more important point. Research in economics and psychology suggests humans are willing to behave altruistically — but only when they believe everyone is being asked to contribute. People “stop cooperating when they see that some are not doing their part,” the cognitive scientists Nicolas Baumard and Coralie Chevallier wrote last year in Le Monde.
As the old Glenn Reynolds saying goes “I’ll start believing it’s a crisis when those who tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis (to which I add) in their own lives.” The Elites keep telling us we need to Do Something, preferably by government fiat, yet, they’re the worst offenders
Whether we’re talking about voluntary changes (insulating our attics and taking public transit) or mandated ones (tolerating a wind farm on the horizon or saying goodbye to a lush lawn), the climate fight hinges, to some extent, on our willingness to participate. When the ultrarich are given a free pass, we lose faith in the value of that sacrifice.
If you’re doctor tells you to lose weight, yet, he or she is fat and smokes, do you listen? I’ll still give Joe points for going after the Elites, but, he loses a few for pushing government authoritarianism. However, this is all a bunch of mule fritters when it comes to climate apocalypse. However, when it comes to real environmental issues, yest, they are very much polluting.