Official Memo - Limiting Emissions - DO NOT LEAK To keep human CO2 emissions to the absolute minimum it has been suggested that there should be limited movement. The population would be advised to stay in bed, asleep if possible. If they must get up, then the only permissible activities would be watching television or playing computer games. Walking must be kept to a minimum. Cycling or running would be out of the question as these activities would significantly increase CO2 output and could lead to Kyoto limits being breached. It is recommended that even short journeys should be made by car if at all possible. Carbon dioxide meters would be fitted to every house and if levels rose above a certain limit, yet to be decided, breathing wardens would order the inhabitants straight back to bed. If these constraints are not seen to be working even more draconian measures are planned. Everyone could be made to wear respirators rather like the gas masks worn in the Second World War, only they would contain caustic soda instead of carbon. Weighing one kilogram, this amount of caustic soda will absorb all the CO2 breathed out in a day. Supplies of respirators could be delivered to every household each morning, rather like the milk, and the old ones taken away for recharging.   The cost of this service would be paid for by a new tax, the Human Carbon Tax. A bill to introduce the tax could be laid before parliament as early as next session. If implemented it would be seen as the ultimate success of the Government's taxation strategy, a tax on the air we breathe.

 

If all else fails, the most radical proposal is that each citizen would have a breathing chip implanted in their brain. Depending on the number encrypted on the chip, people would only be able to breathe on alternate odd or even dates. When questioned, an official, who did not wish to be named, said that they were still working on the problem of months with an odd number of days. This might mean half the population having to hold their breath for two days at a time on up to seven separate occasions in the year although it was likely that the scheme would not operate on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Proposals to curb other carbon emissions from humans, such as methane, are the subject of study by a separate group and will be announced next year. They are rumoured to be even more unpleasant than those proposed for CO2. Stay tuned, you'll hear it here first!

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