How Environmental is Hollywood?
Filed under: Tech Stuff, Politics
Celebrities all over the place are going green. Every day there is a new eco story popping up. Cate Blanchett has become an environmental stickler in her home, with efforts that include installing 2-minute timers on on her shower. (This attempt is, no doubt, helped by the fact she has stylists and the like to keep her looking fresh.) There's Sarah Michelle Gellar who rides a pink bike around, and uses reusable bags for Whole Foods discounts. And some, like Adrian Grenier, coach others on how to be more green, like his tutorials for Paris Hilton. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees these stories and spots the imbalance between an actor's work and their personal causes.The Telegraph posted an article yesterday calling Hollywood out on being one of the biggest polluters in soCal, whilst performing "eco-friendly gestures [that are] simply showy stunts that make little difference." It sites a two-year study performed by the University of California at Los Angeles, which found that production aspects like explosions and idling vehicles are only beat by the oil industry in regards to polluting emissions. But there's also the garbage -- the sets that get built and destroyed and everything else that's necessary to create a faux world.
Warner Brothers is finally starting to recycle sets, which is a plus, and other productions try to balance their negative environmental impact with positive action -- the Evan Almighty production planted "2,000 trees to 'zero out' its greenhouse gas production." But as Ed Begley Jr. says: "If you're going to drive around in a big ol' Hummer and then buy carbon offsets to mitigate that, that's like getting drunk on the weekends and throwing some money through the window of an AA meeting and thinking you're doing something." What do you think? Do the environmentalist acts of actors mean anything when they're in a resource-sucking industry? What can Hollywood do when it relies so much on energy and materials?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-03-2007 @ 2:42PM
Cath said...
Celebrities get lambasted for doing anything, however negligible or for whatever reason, that would benefit the larger community. Celebrities who stand for corporate welfare and greed get elected to high office. Go figure.
I frankly don't care about what is motivating a person to promote some good cause. What matters is that such acts bring to the attention of an attention deficit society solutions to problems that would otherwise go unmentioned in today's corporate press. If we can get away from the pettiness and instead focus on being results-oriented, we can move on from this non-issue into something substantive.
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10-03-2007 @ 2:49PM
Tricky Dick said...
Eco-friendly celebs are growing in numbers. As are eco-friendly civilians. There is a benefit to our being so, in that we can continue to enjoy the earth in a a more pristine way. What the critics say is true, our over spending on material items and dumping them in countries we can't see, only goes to feed the illusion of an unconnected world. Less value on material goods would decrease the levels of overall consumption, dumping, and production of hazardous materials. If celebs can get a few others to think about this, well fine. But does it pose a real challenge to the materialist propaganda that flows from their mass-consuming Hollywood lifestyles and the notoriously materialist Hollywood industry itself?
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10-06-2007 @ 12:48AM
Kevin T18 said...
You write for a living and the title for your story is "How Environmental is Hollywood?" Isn't it as environmental as any other environment? I believe you were looking for "How Environmentally Friendly is Hollywood?"
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10-04-2007 @ 2:35AM
Stormy70 said...
Carbon credits are the modern day Papal indulgences for rich people. We don't accept hypocrisy from our preachers, so I don't give eco-preachers a pass for their hypocrisy. Everyone can talk a good game, but until Hollywood is video conferencing instead of jetting around in their private jets, or buying a tiny home, then I will consider them compromised.
The Environment is just another phase for these people.
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10-04-2007 @ 4:19PM
Dan said...
Actors make a living by saying other people's words and crying on cue, so why would anyone care what they think or do?
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