Many politicians are good at talking green, but when it comes to walking green, they seem to prefer taking the plane:
Last summer German Minister of the Environment, Siegmar Gabriel, e. g. took a Bundeswehr airplane to get from Mallorca where he spent his holiday to Berlin to attend a one-hour cabinet meeting. This flight produced 44 tons of carbon dioxide and cost the German tax payer 50000 Euro.
“Kopfnoten - Schnipp - und weg: Siegmar Gabriel”, Die WELT, 13. März 2008
And according to an article sent to me by my friend S. (”Editorial: Air Schwarzenegger- The governor wings his way home daily”, March 10, 2008) the same phenomenon can be observed in the U. S.:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once joked that Sacramento was “death,” apparently doesn’t want to spend many nights in the graveyard.
As the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the governor has been spending nearly every night in his Brentwood mansion, shuttling between Sacramento and Southern California in his private jet.
The governor uses his own money to pay for his Gulfstream flights, which price out at about $10,000 an hour, the Times reports. (…)