“All the sanctimony without all the effort”

Thus sums up Buck Strickland his love of carbon offsets in last night’s new episode of “King of the Hill.” Buck, owner of Strickland propane and Hank Hill’s employer, is expecting to get into hot water over illegal dumping, since, as one panicked staffer says, “People hate people who hate the environment.”

Hank calms Buck and his colleagues down, saying, “We just need to show people we don’t hate the environment.” Problem is, Hank means it — starting an office carpool, banning bottled water, and refusing to turn on the air conditioning. Buck, of course, doesn’t like this, and complains loudly. Hank tells Buck, regretfully, “You made a mistake and, well, fixing it is not gonna be fun.”

When Hank tells his neigbors about Buck’s displeasure, his neighbor Dale Gribble says, “Buck could always take the easy way out and just buy carbon offsets. They’re all the rage in Hollywood.” Hank asks Dale what those are. Dale responds, “They’re like a get-out-of-fail-free card for people concerned about the environment, but not concerned enough to actually do anything.”

It only gets better from there. The entire episode (“Earthy Girls are Easy”) is available onine here (with free player download).