opinion: carbon calculator, week 6

 

Week 6 in the continuing series of what is missing from Carbon Calculators.  

There is a list of the things that those calculators don’t ask, thereby eliminating them from their algorithm. These are the things that are sometimes the meat of the matter, so to speak. By altering these things, you could affect your true footprint in ways unimaginable and truly make our planet sustainable.

 

THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

Most people are looking at this category and wondering how in the world does my watching Iron Chef America, or Desperate Housewives, or CSI affect climate change, aside from the energy use of your individual TV’s.  

This is a very wasteful industry.  And, while many industries are wasteful, this is one that you can directly impact its change.  While many people in the industry claim to be doing what they can to reduce their footprint, the fact is that it is not enough.    Of the 1500 current films and television shows in production, I know of three that are trying very hard to reduce the waste created by filming.  Many others use plastic bottles upon plastic bottle, with very little recycling.  The energy used with the lighting, air conditioning, travels to locations, generators, trailers, fuel trucks, and the list goes on, is unquantifiable.  If you want a quick example, please go to an article I wrote a while ago about the specific waste I witnessed first hand. 

And that is just for the television shows and movie productions.  Multiply that by the amount of commercials that get produced, news shows, sports programming, and much more.

Another area of the film industry that will hurt the environment is the purchasing of new televisions.  There is an increase in purchases with the new digital regulations. While many feel this switch is a good thing to keep up with the technology, the downside is the waste created.  Not only are thousands of perfectly good televisions being dumped in landfills, they are often getting replaced with plasma screens.  These televisions are made with nitrogen triflouride, which is a greenhouse gas with 17,000 times the heating power of carbon.  So with each television you buy, and many homes have multiple, you are contributing to climate change.

This is an area, in which all of us working together, has the most impact.  By turning off the television, you can change the amount of shows that go into production; the less tv shows, the less waste.  You can demand that the industry go eco-friendly by not watching those shows with a large footprint.  And finally, you can demand that the entertainment industry release data on the true carbon footprint of each production and studio.  Many claim to becoming carbon neutral… that is just a fancy way of doing the same old thing, creating the same old waste, but buying offsets so you don’t feel bad.

The truth is that the film industry is really suffering right now.  Shows are getting bad ratings, SAG may be striking soon, advertisers are not getting a strong return on investment.  Believe it or not, this may be a really good thing for the environment.