Thanks, Airline Captains and Controllers
Super CO2 Sinners

In the scheme of CO2 sinners, there are individual CO2 sinning based on one's personal life. A Humvee owner is a greater CO2 sinner than a bicyclist. Likewise a materialistic shopoholic sins more CO2 than the thrift-store re-user.

In one's professional life, that is, one's job or career, one can vary in affecting the CO2 sinning of others. Some people earn a living by encouraging others to sin against Mother Nature, e.g., cheerlosers , enablers, pulpit pied piper and habitual politicians. A few are, in effect, super Humvee drivers who transport scads of people in a way that has a high CO2 metastasis per passenger mile. These people are airline pilots and air traffic controllers.

A plane flying across the Atlantic Ocean generates over 250,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, basically one pound per passenger per mile. Stop and go local and regional flights generate more CO2 per passenger mile. Thus, a trans-Atlantic airline captain flying 500 passengers is guilty of organizing over 12,000 metric tons per year if he flies a weekly trans-Atlantic round trips per month. That is a lot more CO2 sinning than the average U.S. citizen who releases 24 metric tons per year.

On annual basis, this theoretical pilot sins at a 500:1 ratio (500 times) of the average U.S. citizen. On an hourly work basis of pilot versus citizen (400 versus 8,000 annual hours), the hourly CO2 sinning is proportionally greater, 60,000 lbs versus 6 lbs per hour (or, a ratio of 10,000:1). The devil is not only in the details but in the exhaust.

Thanks, Captains and Controllers for Killing Life On Earth.

In 2006, Richard Branson of Virgin this and Virgin that said that "all of his profits from his five airlines and train company, projected to be $3 billion over the next 10 years, would be invested in developing energy sources that do not contribute to global warming." (NYT 060921). This is like a thief promising to tithe his thefts if he is allowed to continue stealing. Three billion dollars in financial CO2 sinning are not profits unless one engages in the semantic dishonesty of Humpty Dumpty --no forward existence (pro esse) occurs when activity is causing life to go backwards toward death of all life on earth. Brash Branson could do a lot more by being a Saul of Tausus: Sir Richard, stop killing the environment with your massive coordination of CO2 sinning. Start campaigning for an end to Super CO2 sinning by travelers. Sell all that you have. However, don't give it to the poor leg-spreaders who are littering planet earth with more CO2 sinners. Just burn it up. For Branson, like Al Gore, CO2 reduction is for the little people.