an outspoken advocate of environmental causes and animal rights. He is a vegetarian who won't even wear leather shoes. But now he's being criticized for having a hybrid Japanese car flown to him in Britain rather than having it sent by ship. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. The car in question is an 81,000 pound (US$158,000; euro102,000) Lexus LS 600h, a luxury sedan that offers both high performance and a reassuring "green" patina because it uses a hybrid system that relies on an electric motor at low speeds.
Best of all, it was to be a gift from the Lexus car company, which sponsored McCartney's 2005 tour of the United States.
But environmentalists quickly pointed out that the use of a cargo plane to deliver the car to England completely offset any environmental gains resulting from the car's use.
"It's like driving the car 300 times around the world," said Gary Rumbold, the director of the British branch of co2balance, which helps businesses and individuals gauge their carbon emissions footprint. "It seems like somebody at Lexus made an error in judgment. They wanted to get something to McCartney promptly, but it backfired. They should have waited a few weeks and sent it by ship."
Rumbold later said he was exaggerating and released detailed figures indicating that the actual impact of flying the car to Britain was equivalent to driving the car around the world six times. Still, he said it would have been far less damaging to have shipped the car by sea.
Rumbold also questioned whether a high performance car such as the LS Lexus 600h -- with a powerful 5-liter V-8 engine and a top speed of 155 mph (250 kph) -- is ctually the best use of promising hybrid technology.
It was not clear if McCartney knew the vehicle would be sent to him via air freight rather than by ship. Rumbold said it seems likely the singer was an innocent victim of a mistake made by Lexus executives.
