Queen Elizabeth’s horse won a stakes race at Ascot. She arrived, watched the race, presented the trophy and left with little fanfare. To compare and contrast, President Bush’s 747 aircraft, Air Force One, landed under heavy security at Heathrow shutting down one of the world’s busiest airports and disrupting, delaying or cancelling the travels of 40,000 people.

Imagine the carbon footprint impact of 130+ cancelled and 200 otherwise disrupted flights on the day of his arrival and a similar number for his departure the next day. Her Majesty is so unobtrusive; one could trip over her at Ascot and still miss her in the crowd. When George Bush visited Buckingham Palace a year ago, the Blackhawk helicopter carrying his Secret Service detail landed in the Palace gardens destroying several valuable, some would say priceless, trees.

Her Majesty’s security detail is modest, professional and discreet. W’s armour plated limousine and vehicles arrive before him on military aircraft to escort him through and around European capital cities. Huge armour plated SUV’s are kept constantly idling in the event they need to move immediately.

Heathrow outgrew its two runways 30-years ago. Most airports handling this much passenger traffic use four to six runways. An airplane lands or takes off every 58 seconds, and as they approach over the City of London, the site of four or five 747-400 jets stacked up and zigzagging side-to-side to slow and create space for landing continues un-abated and is a ballet meant only for the strong of heart and stomach.

So in his last 204 days of legacy building before heading permanently to the ranch in Crawford, Texas, the Brits, who already think him a buffoon, can add this to his list of so-called “green redneck” credentials. American comedian Jeff Foxworthy describes so-called redneck behaviour as a blissful lack of sophistication, true rednecks know not what they do or that others would even consider it funny. They are what they are.

Now George should know better and considering his lack of standing in the world here are a few green tips…

1. Next time why not land at quieter, more remote Stansted Airport or an RAF airbase and motorcade or chopper in to the Horse Guard Parade Grounds behind Number 10? That may take a few moments from your goal of ending the Iraq War, taking out Iran’s nuclear arsenal, fostering a lasting Middle East peace in Gaza and tackling climate change/global warming but we can better prepare for you that way and keep ground and air traffic disruption to a minimum. While not as bad as the Air Force One haircut your predecessor had delaying thousands at LAX, it is a close second and not needed whilst trying to repair your reputation.

2. If you land at Stansted the Express train service is very cool. 20-minutes to downtown London and from there the motorcade can take you the rest of the way. It may surprise you to learn that Gordon Brown and David Cameron use the train all the time to visit Wales and Scotland. The trains are much more comfortable than Metroliners, but then you would not know about Amtrak except as a budget line item.

3. Stay home? You don’t even like to travel outside of the US, you are the least travelled of any modern president and hey this is the telecommuting age. Show your tech savvy and use those big screens and video cameras in the Situation Room to save the environment. You may not be able to look into a leader’s eyes like Putin this way but think of how much you save? It might als keep you sharper and more sceptical.

But then the cost of Jet A being what it is today, would it be cynical to suggest this was a gift of several thousands of gallons of fuel to your oil benefactors?

Yeah, that would be cynical.