If there was an all-star game for hypocrites, last week's annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland, which was billed as a conference to discuss global warming and income inequality, was the place to be.

Many of the billionaires and world leaders who are avowed climate change advocates and environmentalists flew to the event in 1,700 private jets that were not exactly environment friendly. During the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, it was reported that "more than 95 percent of our total carbon footprint resulted from air travel."Some passengers got a free helicopter ride from the airport to the ski resort town of Davos in the Swiss Alps, but one private jet company charged between $10,000 and $15,000 per hour to use its planes. Former Vice President Al Gore, America's climate change guru, might have been the king of the climate change hypocrites at the forum.In 2007, just after winning an Oscar for his doom-and-gloom documentary about the dangers of "global warming," we learned that the gas and electric bills for his 20-room (plus eight-bathroom), 10,000-square-foot Tennessee mansion averaged around $30,000 a year.Other issues discussed at the forum included economic growth, the Internet, gender equality and the widening economic gap between the world's rich and poor. Last year it was reported that the most affluent 1 percent of the world's population owned 48 percent of all wealth, and that more than a billion people lived on less than $1.25 a day.The Swiss junket was just the latest in a string of emissions fests. Last September, New York City hosted a climate change summit, and speakers from across the world flew a total of 1,036,537 miles to attend. The mileage total just for speakers alone not including attendees or notable guests was enough to circle the equator 41.6 times!While the environmentalists at that event were urging the world to stop polluting to prevent global warming, an estimated 400,000 people gathered in the streets outside for the "People's Climate March." Although there were recycling bins and reusable drinking containers along the route, marchers left a mountain of litter in their wake.From the earliest days of the go-green movement, marchers have a long history of leaving a dirty footprint. During Earth Day in 1990, sanitation crews had to scoop up 154.3 tons of the litter that Earth Day celebrants left in Central Park.Gross polluters like the private jets and the gas-guzzling SUV of Al Gore have us wondering why the green movement poster boys such as Gore and actor Leonardo DiCaprio aren't practicing what they preach.By JIM ZBICKtneditor@tnonline.com