Redneck Carbon Offsets

The global warming issue makes people do and say strange things. And I don't mean just Al Gore, the new environmentalist Elmer Gantry, preying on our climate fears with hyperbolic claims of imminent ice sheets melting. Or (strange bedfellows alert) the leftist who debunks the manmade-CO2 global warming myth.

I mean the nutty ideas of how to cure global warming or save the environment, such as our Austin city council and their nutty plan to ban harmless plastic bags. Or when singer Sheryl Crow says: ""I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used." Has this non-scientist thought about the fact that trees are a renewable resource and that toilet paper use has absolutely no relationship at all to global warming or indeed any serious environmental issue? Apparently not. The eco-puritans strike even into the privy.

But I have thought about how to make the world a better place, and determined that there are a number of things we can do to save the environment, all while living the back-to-nature redneck lifestyle. All of these ideas are verified to be at least as useful as limiting one's use of toilet paper, and for a fee I will engage in these activities for those who need a eco-indulgence for tooling around in an air-conditioned Hummer listening to Sheryl Crow:

1. Burning a pile of leaves and trash. It's well known that aerosols and particulates from dirty burning of materials cause 'global cooling' (happens after volcano eruptions). one pile of leaves is good enough to offset one 100 mile Hummer trip.
2. Chopping down a tree and bury it. The sophisticated term for this activity is "carbon sequestration". Locking up the CO2 to become coal someday in the distant future means less CO2 in the air today. It offsets perhaps a days use of electricity.
   
3. Shooting a deer. Animals and humans alike are generators of CO2, the natural counterpart to plants that soak up CO2 and emit O2. Heck, a deer could be emitting more CO2 than your car. Thus, if you accidently run over a deer on occasion, you could be said to be operating your car in a 'carbon neutral' manner.
   
4. Eating a steak. The theory is that by taking out a cow you are removing a flatulent generator of GHG methane. This is of some dubious value since the cow was raised for the purpose to begin with, but it tastes too good to leave out. (I should mention that I am a member of PETA aka "People Eating Tasty Animals").
5. Plant a tree or plants or lawn. Anything that soaks up CO2 and emits O2 can't be bad.
6. Going without electricity for a day.
7. Drinking a few beers. Drinking cool fluids is a lower-energy cost way to cool down compared with cranking up the A/C, thereby incrementally helping reduce overall energy consumption.
   

So, for a small fee, I am willing to do my part to offset your carbon emissions: I'll get up, seed my lawn, chop down and bury a tree (one of my many cedar trees that must go), go out into the woods hunting and shoot a deer, make a campfire and burn some leaves, eat a steak, drink a few beers, and live without electricity for a day.

And while I'm out there, I won't even use modern plumbing and manufactured toilet paper. Sheryl Crow would be proud, I'm sure.

P.S. Someone let me know if you can figure out how to work in fishing, and I'll be all set.