perfidy

Yesterday I ordered some books from an online purveyor of used books. Normally, nothing about this process is worthy of comment. But this store, the one that had the three books I wanted at the lowest price, is a little too concerned about doing good.

It’s primary purpose, apparently, is to collect books by donation, and use the profits of selling some of them to fund literacy operations and ship books to places that are not well supplied with books. Like the whole of Africa, for example. All to the good. More power to them. If certain people spent more time reading Sense and Sensibility, Somalia would not be the dog’s breakfast that it is.

But as I went to check out, I noticed a small extra charge. It was only $.12, but being the frugal person that I am, I clicked the little “What the fuck is this?” link. It turns out that I was being charged for Carbonfree™ Shipping.

What, you may well ask, is Carbonfree™ Shipping? Well, let me quote the helpful popup window:

Until Willie Nelson's Biodiesel bus does deliveries, we've got no choice but to send your book on normal planes, trains and automobiles. They all deliver your book considerably faster than we could on our bikes, but they belch carbon dioxide into the air the whole time. In case Al Gore hasn't stopped by your house, sat you down, and given you his slideshow yet, we've got some news for you. These carbon dioxide emissions are overheating our planet, causing a "climate crisis". Carbon Offsets are a way that we can "offset" these emissions through the purchase of clean energy credits and reversing deforestation. It is only a few pennies per book, but when thousands of people do it every day it adds up.

We looked at our shipments and used Carbonfund.org’s Carbonfree™ Shipping application to estimate the average offset needed for our packages and we always round up. 100% of the funds charged as Carbon Offsets WILL be used to purchase carbon offsets. Once Better World Books is 100% carbon neutral, we'll start to offset the carbon emissions of our non-profit partners. After that, we'll offset Exxon's emissions. They'll never know what hit 'em.

We work with Carbonfund.org to make this possible. If you like it, demand Carbonfree™ Shipping wherever you shop online.

Thank god Al Gore has not stopped by my house. And thank god you aren’t so doctrinaire that you do deliver my books by bicycle. I’d like to read them.

I know they’re trying to help. They think that the sky is falling, and they’re trying to do their part. And it’s only twelve cents. I can afford it, I hope. But inflicting their environmental pieties on me, at my cost, just irritates me. I don’t think that the world is coming to an end. And if the climate is changing for the warmer, I don’t think that what they’re doing, or the whole damn Kyoto accord will make a lick of difference. Even the people who put it together don’t think it will make a lick of difference. Carbon dioxide is not the most powerful greenhouse gas. And of all the CO2, the bit produced by us is a very small percentage. And greenhouse warming might not even be the reason we are seeing warming. And, for the last couple years, it hasn’t been warming.

Maybe I’m just being curmudgeonly, but I want my damn twelve cents back. And if I can’t get it, I’m going to light a plastic fire in my back yard, and cause at least twelve cents of environmental damage. Maybe even fifteen cents worth, because I’m pissed.