Bloodhound 1000mph World Speed Record attempt goes carbon neutral. Piffle.

Richard Noble’s Bloodhound Land Speed Record attempt will now be carbon neutral thanks to sponsorship by Carbon Neutral Investments (CNI).

People like Richard Noble – leader of the Bloodhound Project aiming to break the 1000mph land speed record – are made of the same stuff as Spitfire pilots and Biggles, with a gung-ho approach to the inherent dangers and an inability to contemplate failure; British Bulldog Spirit at its best.

So it seems almost sad that a proper Boy’s Own adventure like the Bloodhound SSC – a 133,000bhp rocket and jet powered racing car – should bow to trendy PC sensibilities by announcing it’s a ‘Carbon Neutral’ project.

The spurious claim of carbon neutrality comes courtesy of sponsorship from Carbon Neutral Investments (CNI), a company dedicated to eradicating carbon footprints by off-setting carbon used in one place with an investment elsewhere to ‘balance’ the carbon output.

CNI invests in worthwhile stuff like Wind Farms on behalf of its offset clients to enable them to claim their project is good because any carbon they emit is balanced. A bit like saying ‘Well, I might have murdered two people  but I’ve got two children so I’ve balanced it all out’. But the daftest thing is that we still believe man is wrecking the planet with the piffling amount of CO2 we contribute to the atmosphere.

Still, probably best to ignore Bloodhound’s daft carbon neutral claim and focus instead on the whole Boy’s Own adventure aspect.