Tom Steyer was put on the defensive Monday after a voter pressed him on how he can bill himself as a climate warrior at the same time that he is flooding the mailboxes and doorsteps of South Carolina voters with an “overkill” of campaign flyers.
Mr. Steyer said he had relied far less on charter private planes than the rest of the 2020 field of Democratic presidential contenders and said he is practicing “regenerative agriculture” on his ranch.
“I am the only person in this race who never gets on a private person to go to a meeting - [the] only person,” he said at a CNN town hall in Charleston. “That is probably the single biggest … greenhouse gas emitter you can do anywhere in the world - is [to] fly private.”
The response came after Steve Spector, an undecided voter, told Mr. Steyer that he claims to be a pro-environment and yet “we have been getting mailings from your campaign, literally three to five times per week, for months now, and canvassers from your campaign have left - I can’t tell you how much - printed material multiple times at our front door.”
“How do you justify this unnecessary overkill of mailings and printed material in a digital world that would certainly be much more environmentally friendly?” Mr. Spector said with a grin.
Mr. Steyer countered: “I think we are also bombarding you with digital materials.”
“But we have tried to use only recyclable materials… and the second thing I want to say is this: I walk the walk in my life in terms of climate, in terms of my [carbon] footprint,” he said.
The billionaire said he and his wife are raising cattle, chicken, and pigs on his ranch and said he is “doing it in a way that you can show that actually you can sequester carbon if you do regenerative agriculture.”
“So when people say to me are you walking the talk, the answer is I am intentionally doing every single thing - including never flying private,” he said. “If someone is asking me, ’Do I live up to what I am saying in my life?’ The answer is, ’Yes.’”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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