Senator Manchin sees "Hypocrisy at the highest level"

Senator Manchin (D-W.VA) denounced the coerced and presumably upcoming resignation of Al Franken (D-MN) today and used the word, 'Hypocrisy'.

The image shows the two Senators, with Manchin on the left. Manchin commented on Senators who called for Franken to resign and then watched Senator Franken's resignation statement (in which Franken said he would resign at a future time).

The statement using 'hypocrisy' was,

"...The most hypocritical thing I’ve ever seen done to a human being — and then have enough guts to sit on the floor, watch him give his speech and go over and hug him? That’s hypocrisy at the highest level I’ve ever seen in my life. Made me sick,”

I don't understand Manchin's use of the phrase, 'most hypocritical thing'. Calling for someone to resign and then watching him make a speech seems devoid of any hypocrisy.

Watching Franken give his speech in which he never apologized nor named victims and go over and hug him seems strange. If the hug were sensual and non consensual and if such a hug were given by a person who called for him to resign that would be hypocritical.  I don't have any way to judge that, I doubt Manchin does either.







Information and image from a Politico article here.

Climate Scientist calls other climate scientists hypocrites

An Op-ed in the Guardian presented the argument that climate scientists shouldn't fly. This was done, I think, to show, among other things, why the author did not attend a conference held by the American Geophysics Union.

It was authored by Peter Kalmus (that's him in the image) who is a scientist with NASA involved in the physics of clouds. For some years, Dr. Kalmus has been writing articles about how he himself stopped using airplanes and how he bicycles around, etc.

He implies that other scientist are hypocrites (he does not use the word 'hypocrisy') for flying to conferences on climate (thus making climate scientists among the most prolific carbon emitters on the planet- if you accept his assumptions). He does so in the way of 'confession and redemption' which makes this interesting. Here is a sample of the confession,

"... In 2010, I sat down and estimated my climate emissions. It turns out that, hour for hour, there’s no better way to warm the planet than to fly. I’d flown 50,000 miles during the year, mostly to scientific meetings. Those flights accounted for 3/4 of my annual emissions..."

and here is the redemption,

"...Eventually, there came a day when I was on the runway about to take off and felt an overwhelming desire not to be on the plane. I saw too clearly the harm it was doing to the world’s children, to all the beings on our planet. I haven’t flown since 2012, nor have I wanted to.."

Of course, not all scientists at all conferences are there to discuss climate science. In fact the event he mentioned in his op-ed, the American Geophysics Union conference, had many sessions that were not about climate science. Also, while Kalmus is happy in his presumably secure job, many people are not and find going to conferences a way to network to other jobs. So, to some extent, Kalmus is just grandstanding and preaching. Also, I wonder if Kalmus ever co-authors articles and lets his co-authors go to conferences and present. Finally not all people at the APU have the same fear of carbon dioxide based global warming as Kalmus. 

The op ed by Kalmus is here.

A 2014 article by Kalmus about his low carbon life is here. The third image is from that site and show his wife and kids.