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Georg Etscheit at the climate alarmist Klimaretter here whines about the Greens in Munich setting a poor example when it comes to (ab)using jet-fuel burning commercial airlines.

This reminds us of serial private jet flier Leonardo DiCaprio, who took his private jet 12,000 kilometers and burned 30,000 liters of jet fuel to pick up an environment award.

Munich Green official took airliner to attend “bicycle traffic conference”. Public domain photo.

It turns out that in the Bavarian capital city of Munich the opposition Greens were looking for a way to create an issue with which to put the ruling socialist-conservative coalition administration on the defensive, and so they sent a query to the city government demanding to know who abused (ab)used commercial flights the most. They hoped to place the blame for damaging to the environment squarely on those responsible. Before 2014, Munich was governed by a SPD socialist/Green coalition. Since then it has been governed by an SPD (socialist)/CSU (Christian conservative) coalition.

Surely the recent government must be abusing air travel and irresponsibly damaging the environment.

Hat-tip: Die kalte Sonne.

Fliegen für mich, nicht für dich

It turns out the opposition Greens should have never posed the question. The answer came back from the Munich city administration, and it is truly embarrassing for them. According to Etscheit:

It’s the Greens. By a wide margin who fly the most often, more often than members of the other political fractions. According to the SZ [Süddeutscheteitung] 23 flights were logged by the Greens, while the members of the SPD party, which is twice the size, flew half the number [12], the CSU even less [6].”

Etscheit bemoans that this is in line with a 2014 survey conducted by news weekly Der Spiegel, which found that greens are “passionate fliers”. I wrote on this here, whereby a reliable survey found that:

…Green Party voters fly the most: 49% have flown at least once in the past 12 months. They were followed by the communist Die Linke (42%), the conservatives CDU (36%) and lastly by the socialists SPD (32%).”

That’s remarkable behavior given that the Greens are the most vocal when it comes to protesting airport expansions or nighttime landings and takeoffs. They loudly protest such projects, but then end up being the ones using them the most.

Air travel to a “bicycle traffic conference”

The Munich Greens write here that they were surprised to discover that they are the biggest abusers of air travel, despite being a comparatively small party.

But they had good reasons, blaming: “inconvenient connections”, and official business such as being the only party to send an official to attend “Kiev Pride”, or to participate at a “bicycle traffic conference” in Rostock, or to visit a day-conference in Venice.

So why is it that Greens in general are most often involved in widespread (ab)use of the commercial airlines? Etscheit writes it is because they tend to be high income earners.