If Cummins actually practised what he preached I wouldn't have a problem. I'm not parroting anyone - I formed my opinion at the time he came out with his comments about sponsorship. I don't hate Cummins and I haven't witnessed any comments that remotely resemble hatred.
Well there's an enormous media apparatus finely tuned to smear every person that suggests maybe we should do something about climate change (and all sorts of other issues), uses every rhetorical technique known to man and who know exactly how to frame every issue to push your buttons - yet you're sure your opinion is not influenced by them? You calling him 'entitled' is a real tell imo - he's entitled because what, he earned his own success being an excellent cricketer? It's a meaningless epithet in Cummins' case, but it's one thrown around by newscorp etc.
Re hypocrisy, other people have already addressed that well. Though I strongly suggest you have no idea how much or how little fossil fuel Cummins uses - you're sure as hell not going to get an accurate carbon accounting from his critics. Besides, the purpose of such accusations is that:
- noone that has ever benefited from the consumption of fossil fuels may suggest that we reduce using them, or they will be called a hypocrite immediately. As that's 100% of people, noone may ever suggest we reduce using them. Ever.
- if you do suggest we should reduce using fossil fuels, you will immediately be called a hypocrite unless you stop driving, stop flying, stop eating, stop using all electronics, imported goods, plastics and go and live in a cave.
In both cases, the entire purpose of the rhetoric is to shut people down. It's entirely in bad faith. And yet such obviously stupid points are still thrown at people like Cummins thousands of times over. The concept that a person might live within a certain system while suggesting it should consistently be improved is deliberately obliterated.
Sport has a long history of receiving, and even depending on, sponsorship. The tobacco and alcohol industries were heavily involved in the past and now gambling companies are involved. Where do we draw the line? If we are going to object to sponsorship by the mining and energy sector, what about the industries, such as the automotive industry, when they are reliant on mining and energy.
Correction - it's not 'mining and energy' at all, it's specifically fossil fuels, and in my view particularly companies that continue to push all sorts of propagandist nonsense to prevent climate action. And where do people draw the line? Where their own ethics tell them to.
