Climate Change Activist Art Took 30 Tons of CO2 to Produce

Brittany M. Hughes | December 3, 2015
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(Photo Credit: Reuters)
 

To make an environmental statement at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris this week, one global warming activist/artist had 100 tons of Arctic ice hauled down from Greenland and plopped in the streets of Paris to make a statement about how man’s production of CO2 is warming up the planet and will undoubtedly kill us all.

The only problem, besides 100 tons of ice water dripping all over the nice city streets, is that the journey to cart the frozen ice blobs all the way from the Great White North to Paris produced about 30 tons of CO2 – the evil emission that purportedly causes global warming in the first place.

Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson decided the slowly-melting ice chunks, which had whittled down to about 80 tons by Thursday, were a great way to make a statement about climate change in the very city where world leaders are currently meeting to discuss how to stop global warming. And apparently, he thinks it’s more important to make said statement than actually practice what he preaches.

From one New York Times article:

Some said the message was a bit garbled, given the carbon footprint created by such an immense undertaking. That footprint was about 30 tons of carbon dioxide, or carbon dioxide equivalent, a standard unit that measures the emission of different greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

Julie’s Bicycle, a charity that promotes environmental sustainability in the arts, calculated that the footprint was equivalent to about 30 round flights from Paris to Nuuk, Greenland.

But those 30 tons are a drop in the bucket compared to how much CO2 will be produced just to fly all the world leaders to and from the conference, where they will presumably try to reach an agreement on how to keep the unwashed masses global citizenry from producing so much…well, CO2.

From the Daily Mail:

The climate change summit in Paris that aims to tackle global warming will itself pump an estimated 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it was claimed today.

Around 50,000 people including world leaders, businesses and activists are expected to travel from across the globe for the two-week conference in Paris which started today.

Most will arrive by plane from as far afield as New Zealand, Sydney and Bermuda, while others will arrive by train and car.

 

Gosh, and just when we were about to feel bad about driving our car to work this morning.

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