Frequently I read books, to say nothing of news articles, that show a great deal of panic about climate change and that claim that drastic changes are necessary in the lives of ordinary people for this to be avoided.  To put it bluntly, I tend to be rather skeptical about the modeling that is done that claims there will be catastrophic changes that don’t recognize possible ways that the earth would compensate for what we do.  I say this without making any claims that we as human beings have been good stewards of the earth or that we have tended and kept the earth as we were given the responsibility to do at Eden.  Nor is this a new problem.  It was a decade and a half when former Vice President Al Gore was winning global prizes for his mockumentary on climate change, and the contemporary age of environmental panic goes back at least fifty years at this point.  What I would like to talk about, though, is the stunning lack of credibility that many leftist elites have when they talk about such matters, and point to this lack of credibility as something that we all ought to learn from because it is something that can affect us powerfully and negatively when we are trying to urge other people to make changes.

Why is it so hard for elites to see that they are hypocritical when it comes to climate change?  It is tempting to say that elites are simply out of touch when it comes to the way that they live as opposed to the way that ordinary people live.  When one has a ten thousand square foot mansion and one flies on private jets, it is easy to bash people who drive gas guzzling cars without realizing that one’s own environmental footprint is far greater than the people whose lives are going to be changed for the worse.  But because there are so many more common people than there are elites, and because most elites probably do not know many commonfolk (and vice versa), it can be very hard for the problems of ordinary people to be recognized by such elites or for elites to make themselves seem anything less than privileged doublespeakers to those whose lives they want to drastically change with intrusive new regulations.  Do people who support drastic change not see the need they have to set an example of how to live for others, or is it just too easy to enjoy the unearned privilege of elite status to think about the model for others that one sets in such a role.

It is perhaps unsurprising that there is a biblical passage that deals with precisely this problem, where those who sought to be a moral exemplar for others are shown to be hypocrites whose conduct brings dishonor upon the God whom they wish to serve by browbeating others into obedience or scolding them into contentment.  Let us look at this passage in Romans 2:17-24:  “Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?  You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?  You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?  As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.””  This passage is a reminder to us, if such a reminder is necessary, that hypocrisy is absolutely fatal to one’s desire to paint oneself as a moral authority.  There are many people who wish to teach others and to be viewed as a moral authority–something applies in the climate change debate and many other aspects of our culture–but most of those self-appointed moral authorities drastically fail to live up to the demand that having a good example is absolutely essential to proving one’s point.

How would it be possible for such a situation to be remedied?  Well, some aspects of it are obvious.  For one, those who wish for others to make a change of lifestyle need to be the first people adopting such a change for themselves.  Do you believe that carbon emissions are really harmful?  Then drastically change the way one travels so as to leave elites having the minimum possible carbon footprint–so no private jets or limos.  Make sure that one’s house is designed for minimum electrical usage or for the use of alternative energy sources that make the home something that generates electricity for the grid rather than drawing power from the grid.  To the extent that people can see ways that others are taking their ideals seriously enough to change their own behavior according to those ideals, we can gain respect for someone else as someone who can serve as an example for ways that we might do well while doing good.  And is that not worth trying out not only when it comes to environmental concerns but a great many other moral questions?