Hypocritical Billionaires Want Money; Not Climate Fixes
The GAIN coalition has covered the hypocrisy of billionaire “environmentalists.” Many tell the average person how to live, how to travel, and what to buy, while flying around the world on private jets or vacationing on super yachts. Climate change activists such as Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg fund campaigns—such as Bloomberg’s Beyond Petrochemicals—that target American industry, eliminating good-paying jobs. The consequences of these campaigns would burden the working class with higher taxes on essentials such as gas and higher energy costs.
While rich “climate change activists” preach to the less fortunate about lowering their carbon footprint by making burdensome adjustments and paying more for energy, they are actually the world’s worst polluters. In fact, a 2022 report called out billionaires for disproportionately contributing to carbon emissions. An examination of the world’s richest 125 billionaires showed their investments emit 3 million tons of carbon, which is more than a million times the average that someone in the bottom 90 percent of wealth produces. So while they gospelize anti-U.S. energy rhetoric and call for policies that burden the middle class, they are reaping the benefits of their investments. In other words, the uber-wealthy willingly emits more carbon to remain uber-wealthy – regardless of the environmental cost.
Many elites want to virtue signal that they care about the environment through investments in technologies or funding campaigns targeting the oil and gas sectors, for example. But while they willingly push policies that drive costs higher, they’re simultaneously making millions and billions over investments in the same sectors they publicly denounce.
The real loser here is average Americans who reap what these billionaires sow – higher energy costs and more burdensome regulations.
