Always on the lookout for a new green-business enterprise, I think I’ve found a winner. I want to share this ground-level opportunity to join me in this sure-to-be-profitable plan.
Environmental experts have often told us plastic water bottles that end up in the landfill will not decompose for a thousand years.
This is where the new-age thought processes have to move to the forefront. Those bottles are mostly carbon. If I — or you — send a plastic bottle to the landfill, we have just sequestered that carbon for a millennium.
Here’s where the business genius comes in to play: All we have to do is document how many bottles our partners send to the landfills across the nation, and we can then calculate, and document, how many tons of carbon we have sequestered. It’s just that simple. We can then sell those carbon offset credits to Delta Airlines so they can become good corporate stewards by becoming carbon neutral. (With much fanfare they made that commitment just last week.) Delta’s costs will simply be tacked on to the price of passenger tickets, but the flyers won’t object because they can now fly guilt free. Oh what a glorious feeling.
By simply counting and reporting the number of bottles your family has sent to the landfill each month, you will be doing your part in the battle against climate change. You will no longer experience that deep sense of guilt that throw-away bottles have caused in the past, and you and your friends will once again be comfortable hoisting one in public places.
There are no losers. The carbon gets sequestered. We make some big bucks selling carbon credits. Delta’s corporate image is preserved. Delta passengers fly guilt free. Greta Thunberg will be proud.
Now it is true Delta only needs 40 million metric tons of carbon credits per year, but other opportunities are vast. Take for instance Hollywood stars with private jets, yachts and mega homes. Purchasing our carbon offset credits will allow them to counter all accusations of hypocrisy.
Delta, we thank you for opening up this great opportunity for those of us trying to make an honest living while, at the same time, protecting our fragile planet. Mother Earth is smiling.
Endnote:
According to Jeremy Bogaisky at Forbes, “A 2016 European Union study found that 85% of the offset projects it reviewed that were established under the Kyota Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism didn’t produce additional carbon emissions reductions to what would have occurred without the investments.”
Ron Boyer is a member of the Missouri Air Conservation Commission.
