Sælg dit økologiske fodsved til Al Gore

Først en hurtig opsummering: Som bekendt bruger Al Gore grotesk meget elektricitet i sit private hjem - foruden at rejse verden tynd i sin private gulfstream så han kan slå os andre oven i hovedet med, at vi sviner med energien. Vi må jo alle forstå, at Gore er en travl mand. Han kan ikke spilde tiden med at stå i kø i diverse lufthavne sammen med plebejerne. Ikke når isen smelter og vandstanden over alt på kloden truer med at stige syv meter hvert øjeblik.


Visse vil muligvis mene, at Gore er en hykler - 18.400 kilowatt timer om måneden (til sammenligning brugte jeg og min samleverske 4197 af disse enheder i løbet af hele 2006). Men nu er Gore jo ikke politiker for ingenting. Han har naturligvis sørget for, at hans økologiske fodaftryk er aldeles usynligt eftersom han har købt CO2-kvoter og således med en ren (og CO2-neutral!) samvittighed kan fortsætte sit gigantiske miljø-svineri. (Som altså kun er svineri, hvis man ikke lige er en Oscar-vindende might-have-been-præsident)

Dette køb af kvoter har fået en læser af Opinion Journal (Best of the Web) til at komme med en række kreative forslag, som jeg personligt gerne vil tilslutte mig:

With all of the concern about carbon "footprint" these days, I've decided to start my own carbon offset business to help the wealthy feel less guilty about their extravagance. Perhaps you would be kind enough to publicize my venture.

My business model is to don the hair shirt of self-denial in exchange for cash payment so that my clients can lead fuller, more enriching lives without worrying about carbon dioxide. And, just so there's no question about the validity of the offset, I'm not building wind farms or giving away fluorescent light bulbs. No, I'm offering to forgo real pleasures so that others may enjoy them.

A few examples from my brochure:

Want to fly to Paris in your Gulfstream? Hey, who doesn't--but the kind of CO2 emissions from a trip like that will come back to haunt you when global warming hits. But what if you persuaded someone else to cancel a similar trip? That's where I come in: For a modest fee of $10,000, I won't fly to Paris on a Gulfstream this spring, so your trip will be carbon-neutral, and you can stroll guilt-free along the Champs Elysées.

Though it's getting tougher and tougher to impress the ladies with a car these days, they still swoon for something really exclusive, like the $1.4 million Bugatti Veyron. But how can you sell your commitment to the Earth when you're behind the wheel of a 1,000-horsepower machine that, at its top speed of 230 mph, sucks up 26 gallons of gas in just 12 minutes? Easy. Let me do the conserving in a three-year-old Camry while you get busy in the Bugatti. For $70,000--just a 5% premium over sticker price--I won't buy a Veyron at any time in the next five years.

Household electrical usage is in the news this week after we learned that a prominent Democrat spends 10 times the U.S. average on his electric bill. Of course, more electricity means more fuel burned in a power plant and more CO2 spewed into the air, and that's just the kind of attention you don't need. So what are you going to do about that fabulous 2,500-square-foot addition you just got back from the architects? Quit fretting and tell the builder to get started! Your added carbon footprint will be neutralized because, for $25,000, I'll scratch my add-on plans for 10 years.

With some cooperation and ingenuity, we can be back in the Little Ice Age in no time!

Som James Taranto, der bestyrer Best of the Web lakonisk kommenterer:

This is such a great idea, it's almost too good to be true!

Og det er det nok også. Men det kunne da være rart at få penge for at slukke fjernsynet ved stikkontakten

På den anden side kunne det også være rart at kunne gå i seng med god samvittighed selv om samtlige pærer lyser i hele huset, når blot jeg jeg har købt en CO2-kvote, der betyder, at en familie i det sydlige Zimbabwe har givet afkald på at få lagt strøm ind i hytten.