It’s great when celebrities get the green bug and decide they want to use their fame to tell people “hey, this climate change thing? It’s a problem.” But guys, GUYS, as much as we appreciate the support, we’re REALLY going to need you not to pull stunts like the one will.i.am just did: showing up to a meeting about climate change in a goddamn gigantic helicopter.
The rapper was paying a visit to climate change expert Myles Allen, who apparently is not as exasperated about this as we are. I do believe that, as Allen put it, will.i.am is “committed to the issues.” He’s written a whole song about this stuff! But. BUT. Riding in a helicopter and then BIKING to your meeting? Does not make sense. Sure, sure, every little bit counts. But that little bit of carbon you saved by biking was pretty much made irrelevant by the gigantic pile of pollution that helicopter dumped into the air.
This is great fodder for right-wingers: In its coverage of this story, the Free Beacon attached the epithet “eco-hypocrite” to the rapper and noted that he is “a max donor to the Obama administration, which has focused on green energy production as a way to mitigate climate change, despite the fact that green energy projects are disastrous for many endangered species.” Ha ha, these lefty greenies, right? They don’t know which way their heads are screwed on, riding helicopters even though they believe in global warming and supporting clean energy even though they like animals! They are crazy and therefore destroying the planet to squeeze oil out of it is sane! WILL.I.AM DO NOT ENCOURAGE THESE PEOPLE.
And for us, here at Grist List? Stunts like this make it harder for us to do our jobs. With all due respect, will.i.am, we need to be able to make fun of Chris Christie for tooling around in a helicopter without feeling like hypocrites for not making fun of you.
