while individuals scrimp, the world burns and chops

Feeling virtuous about the carbon offsets you've purchased for your transatlantic flight?

In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?

The Independent - Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming - May 14, 2007

Switched to clean-burning natural gas?  Too bad oil fields around the world simply burn "useless" natural gas directly into the sky.

150 billion cubic metres of gas is burnt off or `flared’ every year - before it even leaves the gas fields.

That’s $20 billion worth - enough to supply the whole of the United States for three months. Flaring sends 350 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – more than cancelling out the proposed annual reductions under Kyoto.

TVE - Billion Dollar Bonfire

BBC - Billion Dollar Bonfire

The World Bank, not exactly a historical friend of the environment, does at least perhaps recognize wasted wealth when it sees it.  The have a programme called Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR).

http://www.worldbank.org/ggfr