I wrote a quick response to Ben Stein’s commentary on Tuesday night’s Marketplace. In Stein’s commentary, he raised appropriate concerns about regulating the emissions of private jets and yachts. Aspects of the way he raised those concerns struck me as inappropriate. Specifically, he defended the use of SUVs and belittled Prius drivers (such as myself). Here’s my response:
I’m a Prius driver who happens to be about as beautiful as, well, Ben Stein. While I wonder too about why we don’t ban private jets and yachts, I found his defense of SUVs coupled with the belittling of hybrids troublesome. While my wife (who also drives the Prius) is indeed beautiful, I’m not. As teachers, we’re not rich. The car costs quite a bit less than the average SUV to buy and far, far less to fill up. Our other car isn’t a Ferrari — it’s a 1998 Chevy Prizm.
Stein is right that the rich need to do their share. He’s also right that their share is larger than Joe Sixpack’s. Joe is superior to the super rich in that he does far less damage to the environment. Ecological damage is not something we want to equalize if it means catching up to the rich.
The rich tend to have more than one big house, more than one car and they fly an awful lot more.
Whether the (jet) flight is in a private jet or an airliner, the plane typically spews out tons of CO2 for each and every passenger. That fact deserves much more attention, but belittling ugly Prius driving schmucks like me isn’t the way to do it.
You should be able to catch me on the radio tonight (depending on where you live). To find if Marketplace is on in your area, see their station locater map. Clicking on the map pins will show time and station. I assume the piece will be posted to the website after the show. If I’m right about that, I’ll post the link.
Sometimes it’s good to be a schmuck!
Post air date update:
I was indeed on the show but they edited my comments down to about five seconds of fame and mispronounced my name. Ah well. Fame is elusive, I suppose.
