Charitable folks might be inclined to classify it as satire, while those much less exposed to that wonderful virtue are likely to take a passing look at this stuff and emit a wry "Tcha".

Karbon, on one of his rare holidays, flew home to meet his dad in his private executive jet. How much he wanted to talk about his new jet and enlighten his dad on the evolution of human transport since the time the old man had ridden a rickety bicycle to office!

At the airport, he took a large SUV to his house, located about 20 miles away.

After a few empathetic queries about his hectic life, his eco-conscious ninety-year old dad quizzed Karbon whether he travelled alone in the car from the airport to home or if he had shared the ride with someone.

Despite being imbued with an insider knowledge of his dad's penchant for environment, Karbon could scarcely believe that the old boy could dare to imagine that the CEO of the world's largest company would share a cab. But dads, his mind tweeted, will be dads.

“Dad! I travelled alone in the cab. I can just about afford it, you know”

If he expected an appreciation of top class humour, he found it in real short supply. Instead, his dad eyed him in a manner that a moralistic father duck usually reserved for a consistently errant child duck, and geeeeeezed, “Karbon! You know how much CO2 emissions you could have saved if you had bunged in two blighted blokes in that beast you call a cab! That colossal machinery would have weighed a ton and half, and jostled just you and the cabbie - I estimate a total human mass of 150 Kg - for 20 miles. Sonny, you joyfully emitted gobs of CO2 to transport a rather good lot of metal - and rubber and plastic - didn't you.”

To say Karbon was stunned with this revelation of highly unfavourable material ratios would be trivializing a profundity. He had never thought of this. His math-wired mind whirred - by Jupiter, almost 90% of emissions from airport to house was for transporting metal, and, his precise grey cells assuredly added, some plastic and rubber!

The old boy had a point, as always.

At least he should have shared the cab with the two goggle-eyed geezers he had bumped into at the airport.

One saw desolation radiating from all over Karbon - how sorely he had disappointed his mutton who had until then taken his son for a virtuous leader!

But great CEOs are wired to move on quickly

Thus, like a gust of cool air breezing in suddenly on a torrid afternoon, a swarming feeling of relief quickly replaced Karbon's momentary melancholy, when he realized he had mercifully not gushed about..

...his 1000 mile travel on a 10-seater private jet weighing 30 tons - alone.