Enviro-Nutters Controversial climate change boss uses car AND driver to travel one mile to office... (but he says YOU should use public transport)
| 01 February 2010
[H/T to Richard] He is the climate change chief whose research body produced a report warning that the glaciers in the Himalayas might melt by 2035 and earned a Nobel Prize for his work – so you might expect Dr Rajendra Pachauri to be doing everything he can to reduce his own carbon footprint.
But as controversy continued to simmer last week over the bogus ‘Glaciergate’ claims in a report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – which he heads – Dr Pachauri showed no apparent inclination to cut global warming in his own back yard.
On Friday, for the one-mile journey from home to his Delhi office, Dr Pachauri could have walked, or cycled, or used the eco-friendly electric car provided for him, known in the UK as G-Wiz.
But instead, he had his personal chauffeur collect him from his £4.5million home – in a 1.8-litre Toyota Corolla.
Hours later, the chauffeur picked up Dr Pachauri from the office of the environmental charity where he is director-general – The Energy and Resources Institute – blatantly ignoring the institute’s own literature, which gives visitors tips on how to reduce pollution by using buses.
Dr Pachauri – who as IPCC chairman once told people to eat less meat to cut greenhouse gas emissions – was driven to an upmarket restaurant popular with expatriates and well-off tourists just half a mile from his luxurious family home.
As he waited outside the institute office for Dr Pachauri, the chauffeur said: ‘Dr Pachauri does use the electric car sometimes but most of the time he uses the Toyota.’
The electric car might be kinder to the environment and more suitable for short trips, explained the chauffeur – who has worked for the environmentalist for 19 years – but it was simply too small for Dr Pachauri and a driver to share. ‘When he uses it, he has to use it by himself,’ he said.
At his office, Dr Pachauri has at his disposal four electric cars obtained by the institute last year from REVA – the Indian company that makes the G-Wiz cars seen in many British cities.
The institute bought the battery-powered cars with the express aim of reducing pollution on short trips by staff around town. One of those cars has been set aside for his personal use.
The chauffeur said Dr Pachauri’s family owned or ran a total of five cars. Dr Pachauri used three: the company Toyota, the REVA and an older ‘Ambassador-style car’ – a reference to the smoke-belching, Indian-made Hindustan Ambassador car, based on the vintage British Morris Oxford, that is a common sight at taxi ranks in Delhi.
The family’s two other cars are owned by Dr Pachauri’s wife and his grown-up son, also a scientist.
The five-star lifestyle and considerable wealth of Dr Pachauri – who is said to wear suits costing £1,000 each – has come under growing scrutiny since he was forced to acknowledge the error of the claims in an explosive 2007 IPCC report that the Himalayan glaciers might melt within 25 years.
The humiliating climbdown over the report, which was masterminded by Dr Pachauri and which led to the organisation sharing the Nobel Prize with Al Gore, was followed by calls for him to step down from the UN panel, which he has chaired since 2002.
On Friday, at the institute’s swish city-centre offices, where the foyer walls are covered with pictures of Dr Pachauri meeting politicians and dignitaries and receiving awards for his environmental work since he took up his role as its head in the Eighties, he declined to comment on recent calls for his resignation. He said: ‘I am very tied up – I am just too tied up to talk to you just now.’
His company’s manager for corporate communications, Rajiv Chhibber, later said: ‘Dr Pachauri is really stressed at the moment. The past two weeks have been very rough on him.
‘We have about 250 interview requests and he has to do all his usual work as well. We have the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit coming up in February and he has got a lot of work to catch up on.’
Another concern for Dr Pachauri could be the questions being asked about his portfolio of business interests in bodies that have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations – including banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds involved in carbon trading.
His institute is said to have received £310,000 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the lion’s share of a £2.5million EU grant after citing what have now been found to be the bogus Glaciergate claims in grant applications.
And there are signs in Delhi that Dr Pachauri – once fawned over by politicians and celebrities alike as a climate change luminary – is losing the support of some of his most powerful allies, including, critically, Indian government officials who previously used him as a key adviser.
Reports in Delhi last week suggested Dr Pachauri had been quietly dropped as head of a solar-power campaign being prepared by the prime minister.
Comments
Think about it they pick up a engineering graduate and give him a nobel prize for something he even dosent believes in..or why else would you need five cars in a scientist's house...
"A`fulltime cook cum maid will get a salary of about 2000 to 2500 a month(for a small family of 2-5 members). She will know to cook most common Indian dishes. you will have to teach her if you want her to cook more uncommon(differ ent region) dishes."
indiamike.com/.../...
That is about $45- $50 per month 6-7 days a week work and long hours for $45 a month.
We feel bad for any of the girls that come into his contact. His self deluded deity status and tales of prowess are telling. Pachauri like Gore are god's in their own eyes.
NO! What is good enough for us commoners is certainly unacceptable for the "chosen ones" in "high places"! We are asked to turn down our thermostats in the winter, while the White House is kept at sub tropical temps so that the President can work in his shirt sleeves! We are asked to give up our full size cars, trucks and SUVs while Obama and Pelosi travel in private(US government military) aircraft and run up millions in costs PLUS dump tons of CO2 into the atmosphere! And Obama wonders WHY Americans are pissed?
1. The elite class(the 1% of the population that control almost 50% of the entire wealth and the ruling class).
2. The public class.
Based on the socialist model. The sole purpose of the public class is to keep the elite class thriving.
In politics today you decide your entire future based on your allegiance toward the elites or the public class. Unfortunatelty the elite class is winning.
1. The "Elite Receiver" class, this includes the "inherited" rich and/or connected people like politicians and so called "intellectuals"! These people include anyone who confiscate others' money through legislative means(Producer Class taxes) to enrich themselves or gain, maintain or expand their power.
2. The "Poor Receiver" class, those people on all forms of public assistance who do not AND never have paid taxes. This is the perpetual welfare class! These are the people who believe that they have a "right" to all the benefits or "things" that corporations or people produce, simply because they exist! These people enable the "elites" to maintain power because they vote for those who will promise them more "free" stuff! These are the "Net Takers"!
B: The Producer Class:
Working, "productive" class people (rich and poor) and all "net" taxpayers (those who "pay in" more than they "Take out"), including the so called "rich" and "businesses" and "corporations" who pay a large majority of the taxes in the US and are the ones supporting the entire Federal and State "house of cards"!
Obama and the "elites" in society are fostering the "Class Warfare" that we are seeing today. This battle is not about the "rich against the "poor", it is about the "producer" against the "taker or receiver" class!
Read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand! Ms. Rand painted the society in which we live with a fine brush over 60 years ago with uncanny accuracy and clarity! We in the producer class are fast becoming John Galt!
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