Sunday, March 04, 2007
COOL AID
Whoa! Sorry I’m late, but that pile of tyres in the yard just would not ignite. Let’s see what’s happening on Channel Ten’s Cool Aid shame-a-thon ...
UPDATE. Host Sandra Sully: “A carbon catastrophe! Who wants to be called that?” ME!
UPDATE II. The gruelling carbon test to which our celebrities are subject appears to have been designed by a vegan named Caitlin.
UPDATE III. Correction. It’s not a carbon test; it’s a carbon audit. You know, like the audits run by Scientologists.
UPDATE IV. The intro music after an ad break features these lyrics: “Look out, look out, the sky is falling.” Seriously.
UPDATE V. Toni Collette drives a hybrid! Of course. She became a fan after hiring one while she was in LA ...
UPDATE VI. Now Dr Karl Kruzzlewizzle is on. They should ask what he drives: it’s a V8 Monaro. Dr Karl is a petrolhead.
UPDATE VII. Sully: “We’ve seen how loaded with carbon morning showers can be ...” Try using water, Sandra.
UPDATE VIII. Appropriately ill-lit, Malcolm Turnbull is carrying on about energy-efficient lightbulbs. Live from an outside broadcast at Tamworth, someone called Felicity just mentioned that bulb-changing volunteers had celebrated with a sausage sizzle - but a few minutes earlier, Caitlin had explained that meat-eating was BAD.
UPDATE IX. Big Al is a “greenhouse guru” who asks that we “don’t be part of the problem. Be part of the solution.”
UPDATE X. Moon-tanned Caitlin admonishes the band Evermore for drinking imported beer. Take that, Habib!
UPDATE XI. Footage (from LA!) of a hydrogen car revealed that head restraints had been removed so talent could be filmed from the rear seat. Unsafe! Reckless!
UPDATE XII. That Corinne Grant sure is a polished TV performer.
UPDATE XIII. Scary footage of Port Adelaide being swamped by a projected water rise of six metres. Well, scary if you live in Port Adelaide. The rest of Australia would be delighted.
UPDATE XIV. Now Sandra’s in Tokyo interviewing monster-consumer Al Gore. Al: “This climate crisis is completely different to anything we’ver faced before.” Yep; it’s fictitious. Sandra (admiringly): “Your family is carbon neutral.”
UPDATE XV. Al wants Australia to sign on to Kyoto. He’s MEDDLING IN DOMESTIC POLITICS!
UPDATE XVI. Peter Garrett is on ... and he’s wearing the saggy blue shirt of legend. Can’t afford new clothes, Pete?
UPDATE XVII. Did wild-eyed Tim Flannery just say there’d be no polar ice-caps within five to fifteen years?? Not sure I heard that correctly. This is accurate, however: “It’s likely to be too late for the polar bear.” Better tell that to the indigenous communities who hunt them every year, Flumbo. Another line from Dr Gloom: “It’s just so depressing at the moment.” A great TV moment: the Doc points at a snow leopard and says: “The snow leopard needs snow to live.” Except for that snow leopard, apparently. It’s doing fine in Sydney’s zoo.
UPDATE XVIII. Toni Collette: “You can’t afford to be ignorant.” That’s never stopped Toni.
UPDATE XIX. Having flown to Tokyo for five minutes face-time with Gore, Sandra presents the next carbon-audit question: “How much do you fly?” Also, people who eat red meat every day score three bad-carbonation points.
UPDATE XX. Whippy: “Heyyyy….Dr.Karl Schnitzelgruben just pointed out that if you turn appliances off…they use NO POWER. Amazing.”
UPDATE XXI. Musical interlude from Evermore. It’s the Global Warming Variety Show.
UPDATE XXII. Habib: “Why does Labcoat Lulu seem to have hickies all over her scrawny neck? Or are they Global Warming blisters!”
UPDATE XXIII. Pretty Erin goes to a book launch, accompanied by carbon harridan Caitlin. Meat is condemned, again.
UPDATE XXIV. It costs $22 to see a Toni Collette show? Jesus. By the way, it turns out Toni is the performer of that “sky is falling” crap.
UPDATE XXV. Quote of the night, from Carbon Cait: “People are a lot better off going to Toni’s gig than buying products they don’t really need.”
UPDATE XXVI. Sandra demands that even if you’re a minimal carbon producer, there’s always room for improvement. OK, babe: no more Channel Ten for me.
UPDATE XXVII. Now Port Melbourne is being swamped.
UPDATE XXVIII. Flannery - a tilter - in that priestly garb he’s so fond of: “My nightmare scenario would be in 20-30 years, vastly rising sea levels would cause thousands of people to be displaced ... we are causing the problem ... vote for someone who cares about this.” Another Great TV Moment - Flannery gestures to the sky and mentions “this pollution”. None is evident.
UPDATE XXIX. Sandra: “By 2050, this is what a six metre storm surge could do to Sydney. Yes, Sydney is underwater.” Could be worse, says Sandra; some scenarios predict a 30 metre rise!
UPDATE XXX. Dr Karl dismisses warming sceptics because none of them are climatologists.
UPDATE XXXI. Nilkarf: “ I can’t wait to make enough money to get a farking huge gaia-raping monster. I’ve been quite happy tootling around in little 4 cylinder toys, but enough is enough. If our planet is dying, then I’m going out in style. Time to piss off the zealots the way they are pissing me off.” YOU GO, GIRL!
UPDATE XXXII. Readers report impressively high carbon scores. Well done.
UPDATE XXXIII. Asked if Ten had any old polluty computers lying around, Sandra answers: “There are none.” Ha! She’s such a kidder.
UPDATE XXXIV. Garrett takes us on a tour of Parliament. His presentation style would be suited to a kids’ educational TV show. For very young kids. At least Malcolm Turnbull is pitching his lines to an audience aged around, say, 14.
UPDATE XXXV. Caitlin (in a fetching off-the-shoulder black number) rates the celebs and their output: Toni Collette is second-worst of all.
UPDATE XXXVI. To get Toni off the hook, a second audit is presented - with carbon outputs from flights removed. Hey presto! Toni is now the cleanest and bestest! Sandra: “Toni’s been green for a long time.”
UPDATE XXXVII. Sandra hypes Toni, whose ghastly overall carbon output has immediately been forgotten: “A woman who takes her climate change seriously ... she actually has a hybrid car.” Toni: “I love nature and I love life ... I have a pretty green lifestyle.” No, she doesn’t; we just saw the damn numbers. She’s a hog.
UPDATE XXXVIII. Toni performs her little song (not acoustic, as it happens): “Look out, look out, the sky is falling ... people laughing in the face of danger [that would be us - ed]... the streets are bleeding, the rivers flooding, and the boats are sinking, the lights are fading ... we can’t sleep, we can only weep.”
UPDATE XXXVIV. The whole sickening farce is over. My air-con has been running all this time. And the wine I’m drinking comes from far, far away. Tomorrow: must seek out an earth-chomping second car, something colossal.