There’s a ‘carbon-neutral’ car-hire company that’s now offering to plant a tree for you every time you rent one of their cars. I thought I’d give it a try.

“I’ll take it now, please.”
“Take what now?”
“My tree. A leylandi please, to go in front of the wheelie-bins.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Trees. You can’t take one away with you.”
“Never mind. Perhaps you could pop round next week and plant it.”
“No; you don’t understand. You don’t actually get your tree.”
“Who does then?”
“A Brazilian.”
“What for?”
“To replace the one he’s just chopped down.”
“How do you get it to him?”
“We don’t. It’s already there, in a nursery. They dig it up and give it to him.”
“Don’t the children mind?”
“It’s not that sort of nursery.”
‘How are all these trees delivered?”
“On a lorry”
“What sort of lorry?”
“A big one.”
“How long does it take for the trees to offset the lorry’s CO2 emissions?”
“85 years.”
“And how old are they when they are chopped down?”
“50.”

This carbon-neutral business is fascinating.