“Even though barter is the most common way of exchanging goods and services on the island, to get by you should still go to one of these two banks and get a ‘karbon credit card’, a credit card that can be recharged and is based on the quantity of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere because of a product or service. The karbon has been the official currency of Vörland since the euro fell into disuse and the economy bound itself to carbon dioxide.” So reads part of an entry for a Benetton Colors magazine spoof blog. For issue 271, the magazine, investigates climate change and sustainable development through the lens of a fictitious Scandinavian island and how it deals with global warming (in 2057). Apart from having to travel to-and-from the island via hot air balloon, the reporter encounters the aforementioned Kabons card. An idea actually mooted this time last year by British environment minister, David Miliband. Wonder if knows that at least the Vörlanders embraced his concept? Will the rest of us ever quite get a sense of what we recently saw written as; “Stuff = Energy = CO2?” Meaning that the debris of modern day accoutrements with which we surrounds ourselves all required vast amounts of energy to bring them into our lives, and for most of us that energy was not produced by benign renewable means. We’ve all been spending Kabons, but it’s only now that the bank is asking us to pay our outstanding debt. ::Benetton Colors