Global Role Models: Don't Look Now, But.....

I'M NOT NAMING ANY NAMES HERE. But I just can't let the opportunity go by to say some unnamed larger-than-life environmentalist---who has a home right around the corner from me and has long-since positioned himself to be the carbon billionaire king of the world (if the global warming legislation he, along with Goldman Sachs, the Nature Conservancy etc. intend to pass)--- has just bought a new $8 million home down the way from Oprah in Montecito, California. This would be his fourth or fifth hacienda, not including the houseboat and farm. It comes with an ocean view, fountains, six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms. Whew, for a minute I thought we were talking about a really big carbon footprint.

Anyway, our buyer is counting on global warming legislation to pass which will tax the rest of us to death, even for breathing, while he makes gazillions brokering carbon credits---as in buying, selling, longing, shorting not to mention making markets in derivatives---on the American carbon exchange and European carbon exchange which he owns with Hank Paulson, Goldman Sachs and many other big time investors who are counting on this legislation (aka tax) to pass so they can be the new sheiks of the Western world. Carbon bubble is now being blown up.

One of the benefits of this particular Italian-style villa overlooking the Pacific is that he'll be able to monitor first-hand rising ocean levels as glaciers melt and polar bears migrate southward to Cabo in winter. That is, when he isn't out on the road giving bombastic speeches telling the rest of us to keep our carbon footprints low and slow.

Role models. Don't you just love 'em?