Some ideas seem like good ones at the time, but end up as embarrassments in retrospect. Other ideas seem pretty bad from the jump, but as Albert Einstein once famously said, "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe!"
In any event, if humans were perfectly infallible, we'd have nothing to write about and the stock market would rarely make swings we couldn't predict. So these things keep me employed.
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As NATO holds its 2023 Vilnius summit in Lithuania and the threat of WWIII still vaguely looms in the shadows, some global leaders tended to other, more naturalistic existential threats. One of those leaders is Spanish Environmental Minister Teresa Ribera, who attended the Valladolid Climate Summit in Spain and rode an electric bike to the gathering -- at least, for 100 yards.
The reports are conflicting, however. According to Falcon Despega, a Spanish jet tracking site, Ribera flew a military-style private plane to the summit and was then escorted by limousines to the location of the summit. Roughly 100 yards before arriving at the destination, however, she hopped out of the limo and got aboard a green e-bike as cameras were rolling. Her escort appeared to have stayed with her the entire time, though.
WATCH:
Spanish climate minister flies on private jet to eco-conference, gets out of limo right before the venue to ride bike for the cameras 😂🤡🌎pic.twitter.com/MeVDPNBh44
— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) July 11, 2023
Ribera's team insists she did not use a private jet to get to the summit and was already in the area, which is over 120 miles from Madrid, where Ribera works.
"STOP BULLIES," the tweet reads in Spanish, denying that Ribera "did NOT travel by plane, commercial or institutional, to attend RIM in Valladolid." The tweet also urged people to stop paying attention to "false news," spread by those in bad faith.
🔴 STOP BULOS@mitecogob desmiente la falsa noticia difundida por responsables públicos con manifiesta mala fe
— Transición Ecológica y Reto Demográfico (@mitecogob) July 10, 2023
▪️ VP @TeresaRibera NO se desplazó en avión, comercial o institucional, a la RIM de Valladolid
Por favor, sé responsable con la información compartida no contrastada
Private plane or not, the now-viral video which has been viewed over seven million times and was picked up by major news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, which released an op-ed by the Editorial Board on Monday headlined "Climate Politics in One Lesson."
Members and officials from the Partido Popular -- a right wing Spanish party, condemned Ribera's move as embarrassing.
"To go to the meeting on her bike, she went with an official car in front of her and another behind her, creating double the emissions, so people would take photos of her," People's Party politician Pons Gonzalez tweeted. "How ridiculous, minister. Aren’t you embarrassed?" the translated tweet reads.
Para llegar en bici a la reunión ha ido con un coche oficial delante y otro detrás, emitiendo el doble de humo, para hacerle fotos.
— González Pons (@gonzalezpons) July 10, 2023
Buscad el video, es para partirse.
El sanchismo también es postureo.
Qué ridículo, ministra, ¿no te da vergüenza parecer salida de Vota a Juan? https://t.co/yS2PopHLDH
This behavior is hardly new, however. A freedom of information request reveals that European Council President Charles Michel flew commercial fewer than 20 times for his 112 flights to appearances between 2019-2022 -- many of them to discuss the evils of fossil fuels and climate change. Ribera, for her part, has called to ban gas cars by 2035.
