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The World Economic Forum gets underway Monday in Davos, Switzerland Tuesday as hundreds of world leaders, business titans, and politicians will gather to privately discuss the issues of the day and make recommendations to reduce climate change, hunger, and poverty.

If you’re not concerned about the WEF’s doings, read RedState writer Nick Arama’s excellent article from Monday, “Michael Shellenberger Drops a Chilling Thread About the WEF That Gives Elon Musk the ‘Willies.’”

But how do all these leaders get there? Do they fly commercial then take a train, the likely option if you or I were to go? Do they rent a car, or ride alongside the unwashed masses on a bus?

Nope. Many of them drive in surrounded by huge convoys of gas-guzzling vehicles, while another bunch flies in on private jets, some of them on incredibly short flights. An estimated 1,500 private flights flew in and out of nearby airports in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, while Greenpeace puts the 2022 number at around 1,040. (When the radical environmental group highlights the incredible hypocrisy of the folks shaming you on climate change, you know they’re on shaky ground.)

Thousands of elites will fly into Davos on private jets this week to discuss how regular people should stop consuming so much

If this was really about saving the planet, why don't they do the conference over Zoom? pic.twitter.com/LvpAUDuLxc

— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) January 15, 2023

I wouldn’t begrudge these people for these flights if their actions weren’t completely at odds with what they preach. YOU must get rid of your gas stove, YOU must get an electric vehicle (despite the fact EVs are more expensive and their non-recyclable batteries are likely made with cobalt mined by slave labor in Congo), YOU must eat less meat, but US? That’s a different story—we do what we want.

The Washington Post reports on the numbers:

The [Greenpeace] analysis found that private jet flights were up 93 percent during the week in late May of the 2022 World Economic Forum compared with the weeks before and after the conference, which includes sustainability and global warming as a major focus of discussions. Long-haul private jet flights of greater than 1,860 miles, or 3,000 kilometers, were especially high compared with the baseline, according to the Greenpeace analysis, which was produced by CE Delft, a Dutch environmental consultancy, using private jet flight data at the airports near the location of the conference in the Swiss Alps.

One of the flights in the analysis traveled just 13 miles, or 21 km — and eventually went onward to the French Riviera resort of Cannes. [Emphasis mine.]

If you don’t want to come by plane, you could always join a huge automobile convoy:

The world’s highfalutin ‘elites’ will once again arrive at Davos next week for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting by private jet and motorcade to discuss a “net-zero future”. They are not the elites. They are hypocritical parasites.#WEF#Davos2023 pic.twitter.com/MLL97DfFFz

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) January 12, 2023

How much of the carbon emissions they’re always going on about are all these private flights putting out there? How about four times more CO2 emissions than during an average week, or the same as 350,000 cars? From Context:

A private jet can emit two tonnes of carbon dioxide in an hour – which is equivalent to a few months of an average person’s greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, according to the European NGO Transport & Environment (T&E).

Private planes are between five and 14 times more polluting than commercial jets per passenger, and 50 times more than high-speed rail, according to T&E data.

Another thing to point out: Davos is easily accessible by train from virtually anywhere in Europe. If these “leaders” truly believed what they were saying, they would do everything in their power to avoid private aircraft at all costs.

But they don’t, and they won’t, and they will continue to try to tell you that you’re the problem and that you must change.

Welcome to the World Economic Forum: Private jet emissions quadrupled during Davos 2022 https://t.co/CTjHqDNoha pic.twitter.com/Bc4HUZpXev

— Net Zero Watch (@NetZeroWatch) January 16, 2023