Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Literal Carbon-footprint

A giant black foot silhouette you wear to show your (lack-of?) dependance on fossil fuels
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Create a special environmental awareness day where people would wear a footprint shaped black mat strapped to the soles of their shoes. Depending on your lifestyle choices, you would be awarded more or less "Carbon points" and either be forced to wear a larger footprint, or be allowed to wear a smaller, more trendy and hipper, small carbon footprint.

So if you have a well insulated home, drive a hybrid, use public transportation, etc you would qualify for a footprint barely larger than your real foot. But the SUV-driving, coal burning, smokestack types would be forced to walk around with gigantic meter long footprints.

The footprints themselves would be made of real carbon, maybe soot from smokestack scrubbers mixed with a natural resin binder..

Alpharaul, Jul 14 2008

What a low footprint might look like. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Heel
[phoenix, Jul 15 2008]

[link]






       //The footprints themselves would be made of real carbon//
AHA! so the Bad Guys are actually sequestering more carbon in their big floppy feet!
Own Goal!
gnomethang, Jul 14 2008
  

       /drive a hybrid/   

       Life cycle cost, my friend, life cycle cost.
Texticle, Jul 14 2008
  

       How are you going to enforce this such that us gas-guzzling Jag drivers wear the big footprints?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 14 2008
  

       //So if you ... drive a hybrid ... you would qualify for a footprint barely larger than your real foot.//   

       What if you don't drive at all?   

       Yes, it is possible.
Wrongfellow, Jul 14 2008
  

       //What if you don't drive at all? ... it is possible.// Sure, its possible. Like if you have a chauffer that drives the car for you.
CaptainCrunch, Jul 15 2008
  

       I have a friend in Pennsylvania who lives in a none insulated trailer, burns coal for heat and drives an F-450 dump truck to work. I think he'd be thrilled to know he either has to stay home for a day or get to walk around in giant black clown shoes crushing shit for a day.
MisterQED, Jul 15 2008
  

       I thought that the 'carbon' in 'carbon footprint' was short for carbon dioxide.
Spacecoyote, Jul 15 2008
  

       These annotations appear to bear out the cliché that most environmental damage is done by the very rich ([Maxwell]'s jag) and the very poor (trailer park man).
pertinax, Jul 15 2008
  

       //I thought that the 'carbon' in 'carbon footprint' was short for carbon dioxide.//   

       It is.   

       Luckily, stripping the carbon out of carbon dioxide (an energy-requiring process that can actually create more CO2 than it removes) provides a slightly less amorphous way of viewing the thing.   

       It'd be more fun, maybe, to have people run around with glass jugs full of CO2. Just don't trip and fall - if enough people do, they'll suffocate the very short.
shapu, Jul 16 2008
  

       I think this is a great idea. On the other 364 days, I could use the thing as a car cover.
MikeD, Jul 17 2008
  
      
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