Of all the environmental humbug, the airline claim that flying full planes and packing in extra rows is done to reduce carbon emissions has to rank near the top. The airline industry, freed of federal regulation (how wonderful), has become a cutthroat, competitive industry. Guess whose throat is usually feeling the knife?

A plentiful supply of hypocrisy, quackery and hidden agendas accompanies the environmental movement. Not to blame environmentalists in particular; these sins, endemic to human nature, doubtless accompany all great causes, (try religion for example). But those who travel by air a good deal more than they want to, have recent, special reasons to complain.

Instead of competing on efficiency or quality of service, the airlines compete by jamming more of us into planes in increasingly uncomfortable situations. Anyone over six feet tall is especially subject to claustrophobic containment. The discomfort of the chubby passenger is only exceeded by the discomfort of the neighbors. As for the middle seat, when traveling alone -- Ahgg! Who doesn't watch later loading passengers coming down the aisle, wondering, OMG, is that person going to take the seat next to me?

Senior citizens clamor for the aisle seats so they don't have to climb over others on their more frequent trips to the bathroom. Bathroom lines, (an adequate number of bathrooms means loss of a revenue seat) queue up quickly in the brief intervals when there is not a cart in the aisle selling something. Take liquids on long flights to stave off dehydration, they say. No! Go to the bathroom on the last call for boarding the plane and don't drink anything -- unless you need a little booze to reduce stress. An airline flight attendant (on company instruction) is there to hold up a forbidding hand to stop anyone from taking bladder desperation to first class. And if she misses you and you stand outside the door, why you are a highjacking threat, never mind that the risk of highjacking is less than the risk of being hit by a comet, given the extraordinary level of redundancy in security measures -- let's not get started on the waste in airline security.

So fly first class is the retort, but first class tickets are a magnitude greater in cost. For most airlines, a middle class is just a bother. They would rather raise money by having you fight for overhead space, as you now can't check a bag without a fee. When you are settled, if that's what you call it, the carts come, selling you entertainment stuff and food that used to be included in the price and sometimes stuff that is in the sales brochure in your seat pocket. Drop something on the floor? Forget it unless you are a contortionist.

Wealthy environmentalists -- those who go first class not on mileage -- have for some time been paying "carbon offsets" to profitable nonprofits, apparently as conscience money for frequent flying in style.

A Swedish environmental scholar, quoted in The New York Times on Thursday, gives some of the flavor of the thinking of this class of people. It's "... like giving money to a soup kitchen is a nice idea but doesn't end world hunger," she says.

While we might prefer that public policy would assure that soup kitchens were unnecessary, (millions of hungry families being a national shame) if we must have them, it is irrelevant that a donation to Beans Cafe does not solve world hunger. Please give extra this year. Your donation feeds some living, breathing person with a serious need.

Carbon offset money, apparently a multimillion dollar industry, is quackery, throwing a glass of water (or other liquid delivered some other way) into the wind to the profit of the environmentally uplifted.

There are many ways we can clean up the environment, but making air travel miserable and throwing money to trees that could go to hungry people are not among them.

So "Scotty, get me off this plane and beam me up, for the environment's sake."