Offsetting your flights? Don't bother, says Wong

Whenever you buy tickets for flights these days, you can choose to waste another few dollars making your trip "carbon neutral". Forget it, says Penny Wong:

GUILTY flyers may be encouraged to offset their carbon-intensive plane trips, but our elected representatives in the Government appear to think it's a waste of time.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has informed Parliament that neither she nor her department are members of any so-called carbon offset schemes. In a written response to a question from Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt, Ms Wong's office said the Government did not believe such schemes necessary.

The reason? Because the wondrous two-errors-in-four-words Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme would do all that hard work for us. Not only that, but the climate change wonks seem make quite a contribution to global CO2 themselves:

Other documents tabled in Parliament reveal the Government's top climate change bureaucrat notched up $120,000 of plane travel and hotel bills in 20 months, delivering speeches and attending conferences and meetings.

Dr Martin Parkinson has spent $99,055 on air fares and $20,141 on accommodation and travel allowances since the Department of Climate Change was formed in December 2007.

That's a lot of Frequent Flyer points as well.

Read it here.