I spent last night in a lovely suite at the Marriott near the Columbus, OH airport.  The few nights before I’d spent in an old, noisy Comfort Inn in Piketon, OH – the only hotel in that town – while working with clients at the DOE’s Portsmouth site.  If the Comfort has seen better days at all, they are long gone and forgotten.  The bright, modern – and expensive – Marriott is the reward I treat myself with after the work is done and the rough accommodations have been endured.  That and a steak and Scotch dinner (they carry Lagavulin 16, one of my favorite whiskeys) in their restaurant, to make up for the Subway and Taco Bell meals that are about all that’s available in Piketon.

While settling in at the Marriott, I noticed a handful of not-so-subtle placards boasting of the corporation’s heartfelt commitment to environmental stewardship.  Such as:

And:

Good on ‘em, I thought.  I practice resource conservation at home and abroad – habits drilled into me by my mother so relentlessly that they are as inseparable from my being as DNA.  Waste is abhorrent to me; my body rebels physically at lights left on, faucets left running, AC too cool or heat too warm.

But being in an uncommonly active state of mind – I don’t know why – I considered Marriott’s declarations of righteousness and discovered they all shared one thing: I and my fellow lodgers were called upon to put the hotel’s principles in practice, while Marriott only has to print their placards – costly and wasteful enough in itself to more than outweigh any good behavior on my part – and pat themselves on their fat and self-righteous backs.

Re-use your towels, they ask; don’t ask for a change of sheets; turn off unnecessary lights.  All well and good, for Marriott’s bottom line.  If, after dropping $250 on them for a meal and one night’s sleep, I use their resources with spartan self-denial, they can save on laundry labor, water and power costs while crowing their virtue to whoever cares about such things, who shall call them on their hypocrisy?

They care for me, their ubiquitous notes claim.  If they care for me so much, why don’t they discount my charges if take a cold shower or leave the hair conditioner for the next guest?

And so it is, it seems to me, with all the Pharisees aspiring to the global-warming priesthood.  They may fly their private jets by the hundreds and thousands to grand conferences in grand cities, lodge in expensive luxury in hotels I could never afford, all to proscribe what I and others of the hoi polloi should and should not do to preserve their rarified privileges.

I think not.  Next time I find myself at a Marriott, I’m using two towels and both the tiny bars of soap…whether I need them or not.