You’re probably aware that The Academy Awards were held yesterday, and you most likely noticed that the host (Ellen) made a couple of Al Gore jokes. You probably remember the little bit Gore did with Leonardo DiCaprio, where Gore pretended to be announcing that he was going to run for president but was cut off by the orchestra. Funny, right? Well, not really, but the rest of the show was pretty boring, so I took my jollies where I could get them.
Like Will Ferrell’s hair. What the hell?
The only thing more copious during the show than the Oscars themselves were the references to Oscar.com, which supposedly held all the answers to the “green” event planning that was referenced by DiCaprio and Gore. While watching, I mentally made a note to myself to look it up, curious about what kinds of changes had made the ceremony more sustainable.
Thing is, it doesn’t really say anything useful. It’s just more of the same stuff that Gore and the National Resources Defense Counsil (NRDC) have been saying all along, and the site didn’t really say what changes the actual event had made. More relevant was the NRDC’s Oscars press release about the event, but when I read the article all I really got out of it was, “The rainforests are disappearing because you don’t drive a Prius, so you should totally buy one.”
I don’t mean to complain, but aren’t people generally sick of hearing celebrities whine about their hybrid cars already? What would have REALLY impressed me is if all of the celebrities had arrived in diesel cars and trucks that had been converted to run on vegetable oil, or ethanol, or even BUNNIES, for crap’s sake. I don’t believe that hybrids are the ultimate answer, since they still use gasoline, and because at the end of each hybrid’s life a large battery will get dumped into a landfill. Sure, the concept of reducing our dependence on oil sounds nice, but until people really start to think about how they can do that, driving their hybrid at 50 MPH in the fast lane while drinking a Starbucks Frappuccino and talking on their cell phone seems like it’s an easy way out: Buy a Prius, feel holier-than-everyone, and then shut your environmental brain off.
If you do have a Prius, congratulations. But keep going. Continue to think of ways in which to reduce emissions and keep your stuff out of the landfills. And to the swarms of the famous and semi-famous that cascade down the most famous red carpet in the world, I say: Until you think about where the million dollars’ worth of diamonds around your neck came from and whose lives they cost, I don’t care what you rolled up in.
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