Footwear, Indulgences, and Carbon

This story is too ridiculous to ignore. It has some congruity with the old familiar fable - since it involves some very important footwear, royalty, and some last-minute rushing around:

The Duchess of Cornwall had a favourite pair of shoes flown 3,000 miles to Kuwait for a lavish dinner with senior members of the Kuwaiti royal family, it emerged last night.

After discovering to her horror that a pair of her killer heels had been forgotten by careless aides, a member of staff is said to have been ordered to find them at the couple's Highgrove home and get them to her within 48 hours because they matched an outfit she had chosen for a gala event.

But astonishingly after the pair were flown over in the nick of time, Camilla decided not to wear them after all.

(Camilla Parker-Bowles, for the benefit of the congenitally uninformed, is Prince Charles' number one lady these days.)

But here's the truly delightful part of the story: This special-delivery has caused all of the enviro-weenies to get their panties in a bunch over the "carbon footprint" of the airplane travel necessary to retrieve the crucial royal footwear. Nevermind that Prince Charles' handlers have suggested that there were other items delivered on the same flight, Camilla's fashion faux pas was wasteful and unnecessary - so say the high clergy of Green virtue.

The solution, of course - aside from a better job packing the regal luggage - is for Charles and family to atone for their eco-sins by purchasing carbon credits. It's a complicated, Byzantine system that allows Leftists to pay for their gaseous emissions by giving companies money to plant trees, harness sun power, and destroy cow flatulence - activities that theoretically "offset" the 20 tons of carbon that each human produces by such everyday activities as exhaling and visiting Grandma each year.

There are no standards governing this secular equivalent of indulgences, of course - as one Vermont psychotherapist discovered recently (see previous link). But it's endorsed by Al Gore. And any business model that relies on liberal guilt, no-see-ums, and average American's understanding of science sounds like a dream franchise, from a strictly capitalist point of view. By golly I want to meet the sales rep who sells the Duchess a million carbon credits, held against any future air travel as a dignitary of state - and any potential future last-minute special deliveries.

To-do list: Incoporate several Utah-based shell coporations and web domains with 'carbon' or 'green' names. Also hire the BFA working at local coffee shop to create sensitive graphics. Contract database/marketing person to scrub list of Gore donors for mail campaign with plans for summer rollout.