I suppose if the purpose of this is to say that we need less television advertising, I can go along with that. This is probably good news for the Ty-D-Bowl Man, who has been threatened by catastrophically rising and falling water levels all his career. – Anthony (h/t to Smokey)
TV ads cause carbon carnage
July 22, 2008 09:10pm
Carbon emissions are particularly strong during high-rating programs such as the final episodes of the Ten Network’s Biggest Loser, which produced 2135kgs per 30 second ad, So You Think You Can Dance at 2061kg for every 30 seconds, closely followed by the Seven News 6pm news at 1689kg and Border Security at 1802kg.
TrinityP3 managing director Darren Woolley said emissions are calculated by measuring a broadcasters’ power consumption and that of a consumer watching an ad on television in their home, B&T Magazine reports.
“We look at the number of households and the number of TVs, and then the proportion of TVs that are plasma, LCD or traditional, and calculate energy consumption based on those factors,” Woolley said.
TrinityP3 is formalising a standard carbon footprint measurement of advertising, which it claims will be the first of its kind.
“Most companies have been obliged to think through their strategies on reducing carbon emissions and they need to remember that their marketing strategies do have an environmental impact that needs to be included. This is not something that is easily able to be measured,” Mr Woolley said.
“Reality television is interesting as the more viewers and voters that tune in, the higher the carbon footprint. The more people vote, the more it adds to the CO2 in the atmosphere.
“When Big Brother launched in Australia in 2001, advertising in the program contributed over 1200kg of CO2 into the environment. By series eight this year, the decreasing number of viewers decreased its carbon footprint by 50%.
“However, the Biggest Loser is the biggest loser on the environment with a massive 57 tonnes of CO2 per hour produced by the advertising that ran during the final,” he said.
Oh dear God. Are you sure this didn’t come from The Onion? These loons have gone beyond self-parody into the realm of performance art.
Is this intentional? Are these psychos killing this theory by themselves? Not every human being who believes in AGW is dumb enough to support this story.
As a viewer, I encourage environmentalists to create television sets which turn off during commercials. As a consumer, I encourage television stations to run together related commercials on products which I am presently shopping for. As a free marketeer, I encourage environmentalists to buy as much TV commercial time as they wish and broadcast whatever color uses the least amount of power. As a television operator, I tell environmentalists if they get rid of commercials and there are only 40 minutes of show per hour, I’m damn sure that I’m not going to turn off the TV for the 20 minutes that it is black. Maybe they should persuade tax-funded TV stations to stop broadcasting between shows — instead of their running several minutes of filler material; or better yet, stop spending tax money on broadcasting.
Oh wow. Here we go again
Flowers4Stalin — “Not every human being who believes in AGW is dumb enough to support this story.”
Guess again. Statistically speaking, half of us are below average.
Sold!
Does the average power usage when there is lots of loud noises and bright lights go up perhaps?
And the overall difference in power usage probably is 0.001% of the overall power usage, but if measured in kg for every tv in Australia sounds like a lot.
If 10% of the population watches the news and emits 1.7 tonnes of carbon, this is less than 1 gram of carbon per viewer.
Global warming is the cause of everything bad and massive taxation of productive people and economies is the solution to everything bad. The sooner the we “deniers” realize this, the better it will be for the rest of the world.
television reduces carbon dioxide emissions.
consumption is very low compared to people otherwise driving around with their cars or almost any other activity.
Here we go again ~ Give me a break!
So, if I’m watching TV and there’s a commercial for a Ford, the carbon charges would accrue to me for the entertainment portion of the show as far as the power usage of my TV. Also, the broadcast station gets charged for its operation. Now, if the advertiser {Ford} also gets charged for the time the ad runs, does the TV station get a credit? Do I? And if I purchase a Ford product as a result of the ad, does Ford also get an added charge because of the ad’s influence? Etc., etc., etc.
Let me shoot for something simpler and more relevant ~ how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Give me a break!
You guys wouldn’t believe the level of sheer blithering idiocy being demonstrated on the “global warming” aka “climate change ” issue in Australia right now. The gibbering monkeys of the media and politics are all prancing around admiring the emperors new clothes. Not even spokespeople for heavy industry have the guts to speak up.
I have an idea. How about the only ads on television become Al Gore ads! Why? Because Al Gore pays carbon offsets for everything he does, and alerts the sheep-er, I mean, the public about capitalistic catastrophe, so there is no environmental damage from the all holy wise one! That would cool the whole planet down by a degree! Now we all know everyone here would love that weather, because it is normal!
Given that the media, including television, gives far greater coverage to the AGW point of view, pro-AGW TV carbon emissions must surely dwarf sceptical TV carbon emissions. For shame! 🙂
Actually, statistically speaking, half of us are below or at the median. 🙂
“Not every human being who believes in AGW is dumb enough to support this story.”
So they get to pick and choose whichever bits they want to believe, despite how many statistics they have to support the claims.
Hmm, that is a curious way to behave: “Well, I believe the IPCC when it says that CO2 is going to raise the temperature of the planet by 20 degrees this century, after all they have a consensus of 2500 scientists. But I don’t believe the IPCC when they say that sea levels show no sign of having risen, and will not rise by very much over the century. After all, not all of those 2500 scientists are in agreement, and half of them aren’t actually scientists. Instead I’ll choose to believe Al Gore who says that the see will rise by 10 metres, yet he continues to own a beach front property.”
So if shows like Big Brother have a higher carbon footprint because of more people watching and voting etc, have they bothered to take into account what those people would be watching if Big Brother wasn’t on? Last time I checked there was a finite number of people on the planet, and a finite number of TVs. So those people,if not watching big brother, would be watching something else.
On top of that, did they bother to check the CO2 footprint of the production of the shows/ads? Big Brother is live, with no editing overhead, or script writers, or anything else associated with a regular 1 hour show that takes a week to film etc. So it’s overall CO2 footprint is probably far lower.
That’s why I say public pressure ought to be applied to newspaper publishers to stop their hardcopy printing. The newspaper industry leaves a giant carbon footprint from
deforestation,
erosion,
transport,
paper milling,
printing,
circulation,
distribution etc.
If newspaper publishers felt real pressure to abandon their hardcopy prints, they’d probably start believing the real science, and whistle another tune.
You can start today by cancelling your subscriptions.
I’ve done this already with our local newspaper here, citing the huge carbon footprint their paper leaves, footprints which they bemoan in editorials on a daily basis. They were a little surprised to say the least.
Us sceptics often complain about the lack of media coverage our position gets. But, if the media’s own message turns against them, the media might take us sceptics more seriously.
Concerning TV, I stopped watching years ago.
One has to be awfully hard up to squander time watching the rubbish they have.
This is a very valid statement and is a well known phenomenon in the UK.
Whenever the adverts start everyone goes into the kitchen to make a cup of tea which involves a 3kW electric kettle QED
Is the carbon footprint of a company that measures carbon footprints added to the carbon footprint of the company that hires them?
The Australian government is running ‘carbon pollution’ ads. What’s amazing is that I’d never heard of the term until 4 weeks ago and I actively follow the GW so called debate.
Anyway, I was active on a popular forum at the site above and responded to a couple of people saying carbon pollution causes global warming.
I told them carbon is indeed a common pollutant. However, it cannot possibly cause GW, because it’s a solid.* If you mean carbon dioxide , then say so, because there are thousands of carbon compounds.
And if carbon is a pollutant because its one component of carbon dioxide, then oxygen must be twice as polluting, because there are 2 oxygen atoms for every carbon atom in CO2.
* Actually, carbon could cause GW by changing the albedo of ice and snow, but it’s a safe assumption that anyone parroting the government ads wouldn’t know this.
Mike Borgelt (23:34:31)
That’s what y’all get for electing Kevin Rudd. And what we get for letting Boxer et al for having power. And so on, and so on, and so on. Now that I think about it, Their message has been spreading like that old shampoo commercial.
Seriously, I’ve thought for a while, as others here have said, as the evidence piles up, and the holes in their theory get bigger, they get more and more hysterical so they can get the controls in place while the public is still ignorant.
Have to fight back, and thanks to Anthony, Spencer, and many others, we have information to use when talking to people.
CO2 is our original sin.
I actually love this report. The TV stations are the main spreader of AGW idiocy. This hits them right in the pocketbook. The shoe is on the other foot.
Mike Bryant
Don’t forget the newspapers. They are spreaders of AGW nonsense, yet are big CO2 contributors. Cancel your subscriptions. Who needs a newspaper when you can just go online?
Tell your paper:
“Thanks for informing me about AGW, now I’m cancelling my subscription!”