Jonah Goldberg writes about it in the NY Post (via RealClearPolitics)
”We have turned out the lights in the studio," NBC's Bob Costas told viewers of Sunday's Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game, "to kick off a week that will include more than 150 hours of programming designed to raise awareness about environmental issues."What would we do without NBC helping Al Gore lead the “Green fight?”
Discerning viewers with eyes keen enough to pierce the sanctimonious glare of Costas' candlelit silhouette may have noticed that the stadium's klieg lights still shone brightly.
On a typical game day, a large football stadium burns about 65,000 kilowatt hours of electricity and 35,000 cubic feet of natural gas.
The cars driving to the game spew about 200 metric tons of CO2 (and that assumes nobody's driving SUVs or RVs, which is like assuming tailgaters are eating only sushi).
There's also the electricity used to broadcast the game and to watch it. But thank goodness Costas turned off the studio lights for a minute or two.
Reading on we learn NBC had much more in store for us:
NBC's "Green Week" continued apace: Morbidly obese contestants on "The Biggest Loser" lugged piles of recyclable cans up ramps and into enormous collection bins.The entire column’s here.
Of course, the cans were delivered to the stunt by diesel truck. So a lot of energy - and sweat! - that could have been used toward fermenting homebrew tofu (or whatever energy is supposed to be used for) was wasted on viewer schadenfreude.
The winners of the challenge each received a hybrid SUV. Alas, one of the winners didn't own a car to begin with, so the net result was one more car on the road and a little more CO2 in the air.
On "Days of Our Lives," a fictional couple had a fictionally "green" wedding. And the cast of the "Today" show burned massive amounts of jet fuel sending its hosts to the corners of the globe - leaving a "carbon footprint" larger than those left near the recycle bin on "The Biggest Loser."
I could go on, but you've seen the tyranny of Green even if you've never turned on NBC.
Green is everywhere. Every magazine feels compelled to do a special "green issue," but they feel so guilty about it, they ditch their glossy paper for pulp that gives it the feel of a hemp-commune newsletter that doubles as toilet paper. Food magazines have replaced "delicious" with "sustainable" as the highest praise.[...]
Now, the predictable response to my caterwauling is that I just don't get it. Of course, Bob Costas' Dickensian studio lighting is just so much symbolism. But, they respond, NBC is "raising consciousness" and promoting "awareness."
We've heard this tone before, perhaps starting in high school, when we were told, "If we all work together, we can make this the best yearbook ever!"
And that's why, on top of all the other reasons, Green Week - and the Green Millennium it hopes to usher in - is so annoying. It plays us all for suckers.[…]
We sure do get played for suckers. In the last presidential election Senator John Kerry offered himself as “the environmental candidate.”
Kerry with five houses, three SUVs and 40-plus foot motorized yacht “the environmental candidate?”
Seems like some kind of joke, doesn’t it?
But millions of people believed it, just as millions no doubt didn’t understand NBC’s Green Week was not really about the environment, unless you mean it’s own financial environment.
5 comments:
I stayed in Hilton Hotel last night while on a business trip to Greenville, SC. I got the "courtesy call" from the front desk to see if my room was satisfactory.
WHen I complained that the wattage in the lights in the room was so LOW that I could not effectively see inside my suitcase, the caller laughed a little nervously.
I said "I guess that's the hotel's effort at conservation, right?"
She agreed.
I knew it was not her fault, or could she fix it.
But I really am weary of being denied the towels I need and adequate lighting in the many hotel rooms we travel to, because the hotel industry is now being held hostage to the Goreisms.
I spent a little time listening to NPR this Saturday afternoon.
Some show host had assembled a panel of specially selected guests who all spoke like NPR announcers. Said host then asked each guest in turn how they had begun their day.
After they'd made their confessions, the host critiqued them for their environmental transgressions, move by move and minute by minute.
The one who had driven to the river to go running with friends had apparently selected too distant a river, and the driving had sinned against the earth with its carbon emissions.
The one who had begun the day with a smoothie should have selected an organic one instead, because 'organic produce is more environmentally friendly'.
The one who walked to work, of course, won the sweepstakes.
But, having once lived in the South myself, I was reminded of some tone of discourse by this discussion. And the memories that connected were those of hearing old Sunday programs where those critiqued had also described their daily doings, and the host had suggested certain micromanagements that would bring their lives closer to Jesus.
That tone of holier-than-thou micromanagement of others' behavior, now at NPR, was a wakeup to another form of religious fundamentalism. Our tax dollars are being diverted into those activities, and knowitall radio gets no rebuttals from public entities.
I think it is the hotels way of using conservation to save money - not energy.
8:47 Gives a whole new meaning to BYOB ("Bring your own bulbs")
On our campus, they had students wearing black shirts, I guess not knowing that fascists during the 1920s and 30s were called "blackshirts." Of course, since modern environmentalism is fascist in its application, perhaps the black shirts were appropriate after all....
I guess I am one of the few dissenters on this global warming business. Remember, the earth was much warmer during the early Middle Ages. Guess it was all of those Medieval power plants.
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