Did It Fly Over Greenland?
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
It was a Lexus in the sky, with carbon, and it is causing Paul McCartney and Lexus no end of grief.
The former Beatle was given a Lexus by Toyota Motor Corp. for his help in promoting the raaather posh and expensive Lexus LS 600H. In Great Britain, the hybrid costs the equivalent of $165,000.
Sir Paul, as the Brits like to call the knighted entertainer and environmental activist, asked that the leather upholstery be stripped out and replaced with cloth (he's an animal rights supporter and a vegan).
Then Lexus loaded the car, which also has a special paint job, onto a Korean air jet and flew it to Britain.
The British press is having a field day, going on about how that flight created a carbon footprint almost 100 times larger than if the car had been shipped by sea, as is usual.
The Telegraph, for instance, quotes an unidentified source in its story as saying McCartney will be "horrified after learning it was delivered by plane."
The paper says that a carbon-offset company, CO2balance.com, said the plane flight "caused a carbon footprint of 38,050 kilograms [23,591 pounds] compared to 397 kg [246 lbs.] for a three-week boat journey."
McCartney hasn't said anything, but Nancy Hubbell, a Lexus spokeswoman at the company's North American headquarters just south of Los Angeles, called it a case of mistaken assumptions.
"It was a scheduled flight, so the carbon footprint was there whether we shipped the car or not," she said, adding that McCartney shouldn't be shocked or horrified as the decision to ship the car by air "was a joint one."
Lexus and McCartney's people jointly decided to do the air shipment to help protect the expensive paint and to speed delivery to fit into Lexus' plans to use the car in several upcoming promotional events in Britain, she said.
But even had the car come by boat, there still would have been grumbling.
The Telegraph quotes a spokesman for the anti-aviation lobby Plane Stupid complaining that "for anyone to pretend that a private limousine is in any way eco-friendly is like pretending a private jet is. It's total greenwash."
McCartney and Lexus have a long relationship stemming from the carmakers' sponsorship of his 2005 U.S. tour. The singer has publicly lauded Lexus for making hybrids because they use less fuel -- and have a reduced carbon footprint.
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