common sense for the common good

Acting A Fool

November 14th, 2006 by Vihar Sheth
Posted in Entertainment, Environment, Responsibility

An interesting study was released by UCLA recently that shows how environmentally unfriendly the movie industry is. An article about the study can be found here.

Some of the eye-opening stats from the article include:

  • . . . the industry created more pollution than each of four other sectors — aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels and semiconductor manufacturing — the study found. Only petroleum manufacturing belched more emissions. Holy acid rain cloud, Batman!
  • The makers of the film “The Day After Tomorrow” paid $200,000 to plant trees and for other steps to offset the estimated 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions caused by vehicles, generators and other machinery used in production.
  • And production teams for “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” arranged for 97.5 percent of set materials to be recycled, including some 11,000 tons of concrete, steel and lumber. All the steel was recycled and 37 truckloads of lumber were reused in housing for low-income families in Mexico.

The article states that because film and TV do such short-tem production it’s difficult to implement environmentally friendly practices. Bullshit. Try harder, that’s all I have to say. If people are too lazy to care then they need to be forced to adhere to certain standards for the greater good. I’m sure all the libertarians are getting their panties in a bunch but they’ll live. People wouldn’t pay taxes if there weren’t a penalty, nor would they follow traffic laws. Mandate compliance. The movie industry should have no problem even self-regulating as it is one of the biggest supporters of environmentalism.

While some of the examples above indicate behavior is moving in the right direction, the study claims, “these practices are the exception and not the rule, and that more could be done within the industry to foster environmentally friendly approaches.” All the news isn’t bad though:

Lisa Day, spokeswoman for Participant Productions, which worked on offsetting carbon emissions from the making of “Syriana” and “An Inconvenient Truth,” said she was a little surprised by the study’s findings. “I think the industry as a whole does look at itself,” she said. “The studios have done a lot in terms of waste reduction. I think that energy is the new thing the industry is looking at and what impact they have.”

The solution to the movie industry’s “pollutive” ways is clear: George Clooney and Al Gore need to procreate.



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