Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and fellow at the University
of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, launched a preposterous and
profane Twitter attack on Jason Rabinowitz recently, over the latter’s decision
to fly to Madrid for no critically important reason. Rabinowitz, who hosts a
podcast about airline travel, had found inexpensive round-trip tickets to
Madrid-- from New York’s JFK International Airport—and was unafraid to use
them. He apparently noted on his podcast that he was only making the trip
because of the relatively low price of the tickets. This did not sit well with
Holthaus (which in German translates into “brings the house”), who brought the
house down on top of Rabinowitz, saying: “We are in a climate emergency. What the
f**k are you thinking, you selfish, entitled asshole? People are literally
dying because of this kind of shit.” He said “unnecessary” air travel should be
illegal and cited “unexamined privilege” for creating the “biggest existential
threat we’ve ever faced as a species.” Yes. Quite.
According to thecollegefix.com,
Holthaus added: “This kind of behavior is the same as taking a gun and just
firing blindly into the air towards a crowd just because you think it’s fun to
shoot a gun. You don’t care who you’re hurting. You just care about yourself.”
In fact,
hopping on an airplane is in no way like “taking a gun and just firing blindly
into the air towards a crowd.” When you step onto a plane, none of the people
around you will be harmed or killed. Attempting to make that analogy is akin to
saying, “mowing your lawn is the same as randomly lobbing tactical nuclear
missiles into neighboring territories just for your personal amusement.” Or
that “eating beef is the same as murder. You don’t care who you’re hurting. You
just care about yourself.”
And, what are the odds that Holthaus
is untroubled by abortion?
Rabinowitz
did not respond to Holthaus’s tweets. Holthaus later apologized, saying: “I
believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn’t have used that
word to describe a person and I apologize for it and will work on doing better.”
However, he could not help adding that it’s the system as a whole that needs to
change, and savaged civic leaders and the airline industry for their role in
the “outrageous” and “permanent” destruction of the biosphere on “the only
planet in the known universe that can harbor life.”
So, you’re
saying we are unique, Mr. Holthaus? Possibly even derived from our Creator? I
thought scientists believed life must be common around the universe? A
garden-variety, non-miraculous result of a simple scientific numbers game, no?
The “biggest
existential threat we’ve ever faced as a species” does indeed loom over us
today. It isn’t global warming, however. It is our rejection of natural law and
refusal to believe in anything greater than ourselves.
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