Smoke cigars, do a partial load of laundry, drink bottled water, and feel no shame. That's what a campaign against a carbon trading bill is urging.
The latest parody of the proliferation of "green" social networking sites and eco-friendly events comes via "Carbon Belch Day", a campaign from the conservative Grassfire.org alliance that encourages people to pollute as much as possible on June 12. So far, more than 140,000 people have signed a petition against "climate alarmism", according to Ron De Jong, spokesman for Grassfire.org. And if the effort attracts half a million people, it would lead to the release of 105,000,000 million pounds of carbon a week from this Thursday.
| Thereby seriously pissing off the professional virtuous. |
The effort is strong on shock value, yet weak on social networking and Web 2.0 tools, other than its "belch" calculator. There are no real-world events planned, so expect no sea of SUVs clogging freeways, other than the usual weekday bottlenecks.
Fire up your charcoal grill and the riding mower.
Important safety tip: Do not use your charcoal grill while riding the mower!
There are few things that hurt worse than a lap full of glowing charcoal! |
The point, instead, is a political campaign to get people to oppose the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would establish a corporate carbon cap-and-trade system, but is already threatened by a promised White House veto. "Somehow, this bogus idea of environmental indulgences has become accepted as a real and valid way to deal with our Carbon Guilt," De Jong wrote in an e-mail. |