One principle aim of Earth Day is to recruit green warriors to combat man’s effect on the environment. This battle must then — as some conservatives conclude — place nature above human interest.Students and University officials celebrated Earth Day last week by emphasizing different ways students can shape their impact on the environment.But many who celebrated on the Parade Ground were probably unaware one the founders of the movement and one of its current leaders are liars.Why then does Earth Day get more coverage than its hypocritical leaders? Is it because the latter case is not newsworthy, or is it because the former is more relevant?Probably.But it could also be because we care more about the planet and politics than we do about people and human rights.Earth Day co-founder Ira Einhorn was an Earth-lover but apparently not a people person. Friend of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, Einhorn — whose name means “one horn” — also became known as the Unicorn Killer.Einhorn was so self-absorbed that he considered himself too “mythic” to bathe regularly or use his real name. He even referred to himself as a “planetary enzyme,” as documented by TIME.After murdering his lover, Holly Maddux, and leaving her decomposing corpse in a trunk in his closet for more than 20 years, the Unicorn Killer insisted his arrest was part of a government conspiracy. That’s why he changed his name and ran away to France.The celebration of Einhorn’s arrest eventually turned to frustration as the French took advantage of the political expediency the case offered. Using the case as an opportunity to teach the U.S. a lesson on human rights, the French cited the use of capital punishment in Pennsylvania and conviction in absentia as reasons for their refusal to extradite Einhorn, according to TIME.Einhorn was eventually sentenced to life in prison.To a vastly lesser extent, the green movement’s new leader, Al Gore, is also a hypocrite and a liar.Steven Milloy recently laid out the case as to how Gore lied to Congress — specifically U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. — about his personal finances and his connection to Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs.Two years ago, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research attained information from the Nashville Electric Service attesting to Gore’s hypocrisy: despite his calls for decreased energy consumption, Gore’s home used 20 times the national yearly average for home energy use.Apart from their hypocrisy, the only thing Gore and Einhorn had in common was the fact that they both claimed to have invented the Internet.Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh immediately leapt on the story by The [Philadelphia] Bulletin.”Ira Einhorn, member of the counterculture pantheon, one of the founders of the environmentalist movement, icon of the liberal intelligentsia, was charged with murder,” Limbaugh read, after pointing out that the Unabomber and the Son of Sam were also environmentalists.”Yet Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security, sends out this memo warning of returning veterans who might commit acts of terror in the United States,” Limbaugh said.Limbaugh flirted with the mistake of confusing all environmentalists with murderers, but a second read of his commentary offers real insight — some people care more about the planet than they do its inhabitants.In pointing out the great irony of the Einhorn case, The Bulletin noted Einhorn was arrested the same day as the Three Mile Island accident, a meltdown at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant.This is significant because more people were killed in Einhorn’s apartment than the most significant environmental disaster in American history.Limbaugh was right, but he should have been the first to realize that hypocritical leadership doesn’t necessarily translate into the futility of foot soldiers.A movement doesn’t always need a leader.Daniel Lumetta is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from Metairie.– – – -Contact Daniel Lumetta at [email protected]