A dozen years ago Arthur Brooks, now President of the American Enterprise Institute, shook the “Look at how much I care! I support government action for the poor!” crowd with his book Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide–Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.

What he revealed, from painstaking statistical research, is that political liberals, who justify all kinds of government entitlement programs by saying that anyone who really cares about the poor should embrace them, give hardly a dime of their own money to help the poor.

And political conservatives, who oppose such programs, give generously, often, and sacrificially.

Well, research shows the same sort of hypocrisy on the part of climate (and other environmental) alarmists. They support all kinds of government programs, costing me and thee, but they aren’t willing to make sacrifices themselves.

Case in point: uber-rich actor and environmental activist Leonard Dicaprio, whose amazing yacht has an enormous “carbon footprint.”

Todd Myers lays out some of the evidence in “Environmental Hypocrites of the Left,” in National Review. A few tidbits, and then you really should read the whole thing:

A study by researchers at the University of Michigan and Cornell University found that those who are “highly concerned” about climate change are “least likely to report individual-level actions” to reduce their environmental impact. Those who considered themselves “skeptical” of climate change “were most likely to report engaging in individual-level pro-environmental behaviors.”

And then there’s this:

For only a few dollars a month, anyone who supports renewable energy can already buy renewable-energy credits (RECs), ensuring that there is enough renewable energy on the grid to cover their personal use. I asked one politician pushing for the 100 percent–renewable requirement if she buys RECs to cover her environmental impact. She admitted that she does not and has no plans to do so.

Go ahead. Click through and read the whole thing. And then maybe read the university study from which it draws.

You might never take a climate (or other environmental) alarmist seriously again.