Burning up the planet

It's been no great secret over the past year or two, but The Independent has finally caught up with this:

A top adviser to Tony Blair on sustainable development and the environment has been accused of undermining government policy on curbing aviation pollution after it was revealed that he makes a 500-mile round trip by jet from Birmingham to Edinburgh each week.
Richard Wakeford, a senior civil servant in charge of the Scottish Executive's environment department, commutes to work in Edinburgh every week from his home in Gloucestershire producing an estimated 90kg of carbon dioxide.
Over the four years of his contract, Mr Wakeford is likely to travel as many as 94,000 air miles getting to work, accounting for approximately 17 tons of carbon dioxide. The figures do not include his weekly 100-mile round trip to Birmingham airport from his home outside Cheltenham, or the 20-mile round trip between Edinburgh airport and the headquarters of the Scottish Executive.
He refused to move to Scotland when he became department head nearly two years ago for "family reasons".
Mr Wakeford was chief executive of the Countryside Agency and a member of the Sustainable Development Commission which advised the Prime Minister on action to reduce CO2 emissions, including calling for more radical measures to curb airport development.

One wonders why he was thought appropriate for the job in the first place. And never mind the tons (or tonnes) of carbon. How does Mr Wakeford manage to fulfil his duties on a three and a half day week? He is seldom in the office before Monday afternoon and rarely on a Friday.