This obsession with carbon footprints is more annoying than amusing.

But extreme enviro-stupidity is going to cause trouble. Wait, it has already caused food prices to soar*.

• Together with other factors, sure

Your link in the post seems broken, Donald, it should probably route to here

Incidentally, isn't the carbon cost irrelevant on the margin if the trip was going to be undertaken regardless of whether the car was on the plane or not? Or did they really charter an entire flight solely to transport this one plane? (The article doesn't mention it.)

[Double whammy time for that link: missing colon after trailing doublequote and embedded singlequotes in the URL. Fixed with a tinyurl. --NM]

...ARGH, and in trying to help I posted a raw URL long enough to break the front page. Sorry!

[Fixed. :) --NM]

I can see how this happened. On a poor quality Japanese bootleg CD, the song is "Baby, You Can Fly My Car".

Please send this to Sir Paul so he can feel better. He can get his carbon offsets here.

Carbon Offsets

Glen W - (GROAN) Really punny!!!!!

And to Paddy Gillett - HOGWASH!

But I cannot feel bad as idiots, to salve their consciences, get fleeced by con men. I really cannot. The problem is the Cap & Trade schemes are going to end up wrecking our economy, cause widespread famine in the marginal world, do nothing to stem global wormening and harm the rich not at all. Maybe it is time to use the rich to manufacture Soylent Green.

Just like the maroon in India today who claimed that the US was responsible for the starving in sub-Saharan Africa.

"... isn't the carbon cost irrelevant on the margin if the trip was going to be undertaken regardless of whether the car was on the plane or not?"

Not irrelevant. Aircraft fuel consumption is directly related to the weight of the aircraft and its load. (And to other things, of course, such as weather en route, etc.)

So the (I presume) 747 burned more fuel carrying the car than it would have burned not carrying it. And since the weight of the car is proportionally much greater, compared to the weight of the plane than it is to a ship, the relative carbon footprint for air transportation is greater than for by sea.

But this begs the question: wouldn't KAL want to fill the plane to cargo capacity anyway? And if Toyota hadn't bought passage for the car, would not KAL have sold that car's equivalent capacity to another customer?

If so, that means that the carbon emissions from the 747 would have been X no matter what it was carrying - a full plane is a full plane, whether it's carrying cars or washing machines.

My experience in loading US Air Force cargo planes, whilst I was in the Army, is that they "weight out" before they "cube out." That is, the maximum weight capacity is reached before the cargo bay's floor space is filled.

Whether this is true for civilian cargo I don't know. The Army's stuff is pretty heavy (tanks and SP howitzers, etc).

So, relating to carbon emissions of the 747, it all depends what the meaning of "full" is. A plane full of feather pillows will burn a lot less fuel than one full of bulldozers because the former will cube out before it weights out and the latter the other way round.

However, I wrote on my own site why all this is simply irrelevant anyway to controlling global warming, even accepting that AGW is real (which I do not).

Just read this.

Possibly true but probably not- because if there was ultimately the same amount of air cargo that was going to be lifted another flight would have to be added to catch the spillover. Its the total freight that counts, and adding to it has to bump the fuel cost whether that means a heavier flight or an extra flight. The only way that isnt true is if something else got bumped to a freighter in exchange for Paul's toy, in that case it would be carbon-neutral.

In my opinion, Paul McCartney should drive the car in good health, and we all should move on from this.

Toyota Motor Co. seems to have been so grateful for Sir Paul's promotion of the car that they flew it to him aboard a Korean Air flight instead of sending it by ship, the way the rest of the ultra-rich proles get theirs.

You obviously don't know many ultra-rich proles.

For the record, it is my goal in life to have the largest carbon footprint humanly possible. A lofty goal with Al Gore and John Edwards as competition, but i am willing to work for it. I furthermore promise not to compromise local ecosystems by planting huge numbers of my favorite trees in a misguided effort to offset my carbon loving lifestyle. I like carbon. I refuse to apologize for it. Without carbon, i'd be a puddle of water and calcium, and thats not ok with me.

CO2=fertilizer.

Thanks Mr. McCartney for helping make the world a greener place.

Mark B. -

"For the record, it is my goal in life to have the largest carbon footprint humanly possible."

That's and admirable goal, but my objective is not to spend all my meagre income on utility bills, so I drive a methane-powered car and use flourescent lamps...