The elites are laughing in our faces
COP26 promises to be a grotesque spectacle of decadence and hypocrisy.
Brendan O'Neill
Brendan O'Neill
chief political writer
1st November 2021
The elites are laughing in our faces
COP26 is gearing up to be a grotesque spectacle. We are about to witness Versailles levels of extravagance and hypocrisy. The rich, the powerful and the full of puffed-up virtue will gather in Glasgow to pontificate to the rest of us about how much we are harming the planet with all our waste and hubris. They’ll arrive in their private jets to bemoan the scourge of air-industry emissions. They’ll tuck in to five-star meals in between wondering out loud if the little people should eat less meat. They’ll rest their weary, virtuous heads on plump, silk pillows after long days of discussing how to rein in the material aspirations of the masses. It promises to be one of most nauseating displays of oligarchical conceit of recent times.
It feels like the elites are just laughing in our faces now. So the other day we had the UK’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, saying everyone will have to eat less meat and fly less if we are going to get a handle on this climate-change thing. A little later it was reported that around 400 private jets will fly into COP26, carrying world leaders and big-business execs to the plush surrounds in which they’ll wring their manicured hands over mankind’s carbon crimes. Ordinary people are guilt-tripped for taking one poxy flight a year to escape the trials and vagaries of life in capitalist society for a couple of weeks, while those who quaff champagne on airplanes that it costs $10,000 an hour to hire out get to pose as hyper-aware defenders of poor Mother Nature.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/01/the-elites-are-laughing-in-our-faces/
