With so many people traveling for Thanksgiving, I was thinking about these “carbon offsets” that are so popular now, and how much of a scam they are. I happened to be talking to some friends, criticizing Al Gore for using so much jet fuel and electricity while at the same time he demands that everyone else cut back on their own usage, and I said that I didn’t see why Gore didn’t write down a plan to use twice as much electricity and fuel next year, and then on January First make a resolution to make a real attempt to keep them both at 2007-amounts. That would then mean that he’d be causing only half the carbon-emitting that he’d planned. I laughed and said that that way he could use his non-usage as an offset for his usage. He’d be carbon-neutral!
My friend Biff was awfully quiet after I said this, and soon we all started talking about football.
So now Biff tells me he is going to start a new company to help the Fight Against Global Warming. He was really excited about it when we met for breakfast this morning, but he wouldn’t say a word until we finished eating. Then, he said we’d be eating at the Four Star places soon. His company was going to make a fortune.
“You see,” he gestured broadly, “It’ll be ‘Biff’s Travel Offset Inc.’ I line up a group of players who own those private jets. They agree to fly anyone I want anywhere they want to go. I advertise, and get travelers. They book one of the private jets. We figure out how much carbon would be used by the jet, say X tons, and how much the pro rata share of his travel would cost in carbon if he took a public airline, say Y tons. Then X minus Y tons is the carbon offset if the traveler could be convinced to take the public airline flight. We have a line-up of people ready to buy the offset to offset their lavish lifestyle—and, hey, living in LA means there’s zillions of ‘em—and one of them buys the offset. The traveler takes the public flight he was going to take before he signed on with us, and voila! I get a cut, the private jet-owner gets a cut, and the traveler gets a cut. With Hollywood alone, we could have it operating like an assembly line!”
“But, Biff,” I said. (People say ‘But, Biff’ a lot in his presence.) I gestured even more broadly than he had. “Can’t you see that nothing is really being saved? The traveler always meant to use the public airline.”
“Not to worry—I got that all figured out.” His eyes were aglow. “We have a couple of the private jets actually take a few of the travelers somewhere. That’ll establish our sincerity. And we’ll have signed contracts and covenants and stuff. It’ll be official. We can print up the offset like those college Diploma-things, fancy writin’ and all!” He spilled some pepper out on the tablecloth and traced a couple of “fancy” letters in the powder. He sneezed, and then gasped as another idea hit him. (Biff is full of ideas.) “Hey, then we can move out into a construction line of pools we won’t build, additions to houses and buildings we won’t make—why, the sky’s the limit!!” He gasped again. “Hey, maybe the sky’s not the limit! Didn’t you tell me something the other day about Mars having Global Warming, too? I’ll bet we can work something out with NASA for trips we won’t make to the moon and planets! This is gonna be BIG!”
As I hesitated, he said, hurriedly, “Don’t worry about the details—I can look it up online.” He got up. “I gotta go.” He started away, then turned back. “You know what? It feels real good to be helpin’ the planet!” He bustled off.
I almost started after him, to try to convince him that the whole set-up was meaningless, but then I stopped.
This is the LA/Hollywood area, I told myself. The guy’s going to make a fortune!
Trackposted to The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, Adam's Blog, Right Truth, Stuck On Stupid, Cao's Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Chuck Adkins, Adeline and Hazel, , DragonLady's World, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, and High Desert Wanderer, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
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