Everything Is Gonna Burn. We'll All Take Turns. I'll Get Mine Too.

Earth Day was this week, and so I've been thinking about bein' green and stuff. And I had this idea to write a post about how the movies, certainly one of my favorite art forms, could stand to shrink their carbon footprint. Watching the Transformers special features (Mostly a yawn, but I was bored), several people speak in reverential tones about Michael Bay and how cool it is that he likes to blow up actual cars instead of simulating a car blowing up in a computer. It's not clear to me why Michael Bay thought his CGI robots needed to be wrecking real cars, but there it is. Bad for the ol' carbon footprint. A Civil Action filmed a scene right around the corner from where I used to live. I walked up and saw the trucks lined up for blocks. Literally--there had to be at least 20 trucks and trailers lining the sidewalks for a day and a half so they could shoot a scene that is barely an eyeblink in that movie. Remember that helicopter shot in Mystic River where the camera zooms over the park to where the body is? I live right down the block from that park, and that helicopter was in the air for a full day getting a shot that takes maybe 15 seconds in a 2 hours plus movie and adds nothing at all to the movie, except for my evanescent thrill at being able to go, "Hey, look, it's Franklin Park, where I walk the dog! There's the stadium!" I shudder to think how much fuel it takes to keep a helicopter in the air that long.

So yeah, the movies could stand to shrink their carbon footprint. Maybe CGI is the way to go--I'm sure it puts some carbon in the air, but could it possibly be as much as driving twenty trucks around or flying a helicopter all day?

But, you know, we could all stand to be greener. I, for example, could curb my gadget addiction. Did I really need a Wii? Noo. But I riily wanted one. The Kindle I suppose will eventually be carbon neutral--don't know about the manufacturing process, but I'm saving the binding and shipping energy for a lot of books, so that's gotta be good. But still. I love me some new gadgets, and maybe it's a bit silly for me to run around unplugging all the cell phone chargers because I'm worried about energy vampires when I just went out and bought an electronic geegaw that I don't need. (But which is really fun!)

As Elton John said, but then again, no. Yes, I could certainly be greener. But at least I'm doing the stuff that's easy for me--taking public transportation, living close to work, composting, recycling, not eating meat and turning off lights and unplugging cell phone chargers. The fact that I can't be perfect doesn't mean I should do nothing. People always like to have these gotcha moments--as a vegetarian for the last 17 years, I've had my share of gotchas from guilty meat eaters. "But you wear leather and eat cheese!" they say with this triumphant tone in their voice, when what they really mean is, "the fact that you can't do everything justifies me doing nothing!"

So I'm a hypocrite and a lazy selfish consumerist to boot. But I'm trying. And I'm pretty sure if we all did the things that are easy for us, that would help. Turn off a light, drive less, do something, fer Chrissakes. It's important.