Do as green gods say, not as they do

A colleague sent me an Internet photo of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's home in Bethesda, Md. It's hysterical. The global warming warrior who urged the nation's young people to march on Washington for the right to pay a carbon tax doesn't live in a house. He lives on a campus.

The 11,000-square-foot sprawling complex sits on 7.5 acres and replaced a perfectly fine, smaller home that was torn down to make room for his palace. No need for the kids to march on the Mall. The writer could fit them all into his swimming pool.

And yet Friedman is not the biggest global warming hypocrite. That would be Al Gore. The former vice president began the greenwashing of America, urging its citizens to find harmony with the Earth by living smaller, less ostentatious existences. He meant you, not him. Gore's 9,000-square-foot, $2 million mansion in Nashville is slightly smaller than Friedman's. But he makes up for it with a 100-foot houseboat.

Gore calls the lake-liner "Bio-Solar One," so no one will miss the fact that it's outfitted with the latest energy-saving technology. Even with all its twisty light bulbs, I have to believe Gore's aircraft carrier consumes significantly more fuel than the entire fleet of bass boats it's swamping down there in Tennessee.

I also bet I could keep driving my pick-up truck the rest of my days and 100,000 miles into the hereafter and not leave as large a mark on the planet as Friedman or Gore. Or as Madonna, who, the Times of London noted when she showed up in England for a Live Earth concert, has a carbon footprint 100 times larger than the average Brit.

I'm not criticizing these eco-hypocrites for their lavish lifestyles. I celebrate them. If I had their money, I'd see their carbon excess and raise it by a couple hundred tons.

My point is that even for these environmental purists, human nature trumps nature worship. The more money people have, the greater their temptation to buy more and bigger things.

And it's why the green gods know so well that the only way to keep me and you from mimicking their offenses is to make sure we don't accumulate too much money. Money really is the root of all evil from an environmentalist's point of view.

Appeals to downsize for the sake of Mother Earth haven't worked. So now the greens are pushing conservation through confiscation.

If they take our money, we can't spend it in ways that will contribute to global warming.

Raise the price of all goods and services, as the Obama administration's climate legislation will do, and we'll be able to purchase and use less. Tax us more, as the bills would also do, and we'll be forced into smaller houses and tinier cars.

The enviro-elites such as Friedman and Gore won't have to worry about it cutting into their lifestyles. They're rich enough to buy their way into heaven with checks that erase their carbon sins.

But the rest of us require forced frugality to keep us on the path of eco righteousness.

If we were all allowed to live like Friedman or vacation like Gore, the earth would be a hell of a place.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The Detroit News. His column runs on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com">nfinley@detnews.com.