Laurie David and environmentalist activists like her really annoy the shit out of me. Probably because I actually do care about the environment.

Ms David is yet another personality who is most famous for marrying rich and famous (in her case, the curmudgeonly Larry David, whom I like), but in order to inject some purpose in their otherwise pampered, empty lives, takes up a cause, and proceeds to ram it down everyone else’s throat.

In her case, it’s global warming. A curious choice, because it’s one where a person’s carbon footprint is in many ways directly proportional to their wealth. If you have a large house, a big, fast car, and money to take long-haul trips several times per month, you’re going to be creating far more CO2 than someone who can’t afford any of these things.

Still, just like John Robbins, the vegan heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune who never eats ice cream, it’s not impossible to meet someone who lives the life of an ascete despite being fabulously wealthy.

That’s not Laurie David.

In addition to her family’s enormous home in Los Angeles, she destroyed some wetlands to build herself a carbon-belching McMansion in Martha’s Vineyard. Meanwhile, she racks up serious miles in her private planeeven though plane travel is worse than even driving.

Her solution? Drive hybrid cars. Here’s what rounds out her solution to a rapidly heating planet: “Of course, I’m obsessed with telling my kids, no long showers and don’t run the water too much when you brush your teeth. I always use both sides of the paper for printing and faxing. I recycle obsessively. And since I get a lot of clothes dry-cleaned, I take a garment bag to the dry cleaner so I don’t waste the disposable plastic covers.”

Wow, that’s some advice. It’s clear she’s taking global warming very seriously, so much as to actually make substantial changes to her lifestyle.

And then there’s the rampant hypocrisy. She says:

“I’m very confrontational … It’s gotten to the point where my kids in the back seat of my car see an SUV coming and they say, “Mommy, please! No! Don’t say anything!” They’re horrified. But I believe in peer pressure. Look how peer pressure has worked for people not wearing fur coats or smoking. We have to spread the message that it isn’t cool anymore.”

But then:

“Sure, I have a big house, but I use it to gather hundreds of people for eco-salons. That’s not to justify the size of it, but it does create opportunities to spread knowledge and raise money for the greater environmental good. Sure, I could always cut down on clothes and dry-cleaning, but the point is not necessarily what more you could do — we could all do more — the point is that we do our part. And even with the house and clothes, I think I can do, and am doing, my part.”

So, no tolerance for SUVs. But McMansions are okay – hell, have two of them, provided you hold eco-salons (WTF?) in them.

It’s apparent that the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is drawn conveniently where she arbitrarily chooses to live her life.

Anyway, people like her are all the more damaging because their wealth gives them a bully pulpit with which to make environmentalists look like a bunch of Pharisees.

I hope now that Laurie has ditched her pot of gold and started shacking up with a Republican in Martha’s Vineyard, that she can abandon any pretense of actually giving a shit about the environment and take up a different cause to give her life meaning.