Reply #22: Lovins irritates the hell out of me.

[hunter]

He's beholden to the people who pay him -- he makes a good living greenwashing. But I really don't need to hear self-righteous stories about cars and commuting from some guy who probably uses ten times more oil than I do.

Part of it is that I can't stand listening to him. He reminds me a lot of George W. Bush. He may be a little smarter than Bush, but when he's answering questions Lovins' speech is punctuated by a steady stream of condescending sighs and grunts.

Unlike Bush, he can answer with a stream of actual numbers (he is not innumerate... I think) but sometimes those numbers are irrelevant to the intent of the actual question. He will almost always use a percentage sort of figure if it sounds better than the raw data he's got. (Pharmaceutical companies are always pulling that kind of crap too, so I have a sensitive ear for it.)

What irritates me most is that in a single paragraph he can put together numbers to express his adoration and support of the market economy, and then use those same numbers in a way that demonstrate the market economy's failures. You see, to him, the market economy is good, even when it's not. His points of view spin so rapidly I get dizzy.