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TheAntiTerrorist Handbook

Now available on Amazon and Amazon.co.uk from Velluminous Press

Excerpt from TheAntiTerrorist Handbook

The Breathing Tax

"Temperature went up significantly up to 1940, when human production of CO2 was relatively low. In the post-war years, when the industries and all economies in the world really got going, human production of CO2 just soared, and the global temperature was simultaneously going down. In other words, the facts did not fit the theory.

I do believe in Global Warming, but I don't believe that humans' CO2 is causing that warming."

- Professor Tim Ball
Department of Climatology
University of Winnipeg

Picture the scene: You've left the house, forgetting you've only got five units of credit in the carbon bank (owned by the Rothschild family, coincidentally) which is communicating with the RFID chip in your right hand—the one you queued up to get inserted back in 2010, remember? It's a good thirty-minute ride back home where your Family Carbon Credit Charger™ is situated, and you know that once your five remaining Carbon Credits® run out, you're going to light up like a Christmas tree on the Carbon Debtor Detector Unit™ within one of the hundreds of Carbon Police vehicles patrolling the city.

You begin to take shallower breaths and hold them for longer. You're getting a little dizzy but you know that if you can make it to the Pay As You Breathe® City Carbon Credit Top Up Unit a couple of streets away, you'll be just fine. The Pay As You Breathe® rate is three times higher than the direct debit rate, of course, and you resent having to pay that much for something that was free only two years ago, but thinking about that upsets you, and getting agitated is only going to have you breathing harder, so you push it to the back of your mind and pick up the pace in order to get there before your remaining three credits run out. You can just about make out the City Carbon Credit Charger™ in the distance, despite the fact your vision is now beginning to blur due to lack of oxygen. You make it with half a Carbon Credit Unit® to spare and let out a huge sigh of relief, which, of course, uses up the rest of your credit. You then spot a passing Carbon Police patrol car as it turns on its light-bar and does a screeching u-turn in the middle of peak traffic. You touch your right hand to the receptor pad on the City Carbon Credit Top Up Unit® but instead of charging your credit, it flashes a message advising you to remain where you are and await assistance. Sure enough, the patrol car stops right alongside you and a Carbon Revenue Collection Agent steps out and approaches. "Afternoon, sir, I see you've just run out of carbon credit. Please pop your hand on the unit there, charge up and I'll pretend I didn't see it this time. After all, we're not monsters, you know."

You've seen that seemingly compassionate smile before, when your friend Bob was in the same position last week. And you remember the multiple tasering he got when it was revealed that he'd had his chip deactivated by a back street mobile phone vendor.

You hold your breath and nod emphatically while rubbing at the receptor pad like your life depends on it. The resulting high-pitched beeps arouse the agent's suspicion and he scans your hand with his Citizenwatch 5000™, to discover that you have several outstanding parking tickets and your credit has been suspended. "I'm afraid you're going to have to accompany me to the station, sir. Do you have anyone we can inform of your incarceration?"

You wish you'd stayed at home and paid those bloody tickets, instead of demanding proof of claim that the tickets actually applied to you, a non-'person', living man-on-the-land, but all of that is forgotten as you slowly lose consciousness whilst hyperventilating in the back of the Police car. Just before you pass out, you hear, "Sir, you are now in contravention of the Exhalation Act 2011. You have the right to remain silent..."

Bearing in mind that we humans exhale carbon dioxide at a rate of 450ml per minute, and we're supposed to be cutting down our output to save the planet, it stands to reason that the carbon tax should be extended to breathing, surely. Or at least it stands to reason as a politician might see it.