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.
What about the ads themselves? I saw a plea today on EPSN to “stop global warming” because GW melts Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Talk about being pea-Nutty!
Talking of black marks and soles, in the UK we have had government TV ads showing “people doing everyday activities that produce carbon dioxide, such as watching TV, taking a bath and flying but leaving behind them black, sticky tar-like footprints.”
This article in the Guardian has a link to a video of the ad – cool music, dodgy science.
Loki’s castle or unexplained artic warming, another IPCC forcing not accounted for
Many miles inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found elusive vents of scalding liquid rising out of the seafloor at temperatures that are more than twice the boiling point of water.
The cluster of five hydrothermal vents, also called black smokers, were discovered farther north than any others previously identified. The vents, one of which towers four stories high, are located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Greenland and Norway, more than 120 miles farther north than other known vents.
Remotely operated vehicles photographed the scene as part of an expedition led by Rolf Pedersen, a geologist at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Black smokers have been found in many deep-sea locations, including on the Juan de Fuca Ridge off Washington and British Columbia. Despite the lack of sunlight to power life in the abyss, the vents often support unique communities of creatures that live off their warmth and chemicals. Some scientists think the vents would have been great locales for the origin of life on Earth.
Dissolved sulfide minerals that solidify when vent water hits the icy cold of the deep sea have, over the years, accumulated around the newfound vent field in what is one of the most massive such deposits ever found on the seafloor, said expedition member Marvin Lilley, a University of Washington oceanographer.
The vents are created where the seafloor spreads apart. The farther north one goes along the ridge, the slower the spreading is.
“We hadn’t expected a lot of active venting on ultra-slow spreading ridges,” Lilley said.
The active chimneys in the new field are mostly black and covered with white mats of bacteria feasting on the minerals emitted by the vents. Older chimneys are mottled red as a result of iron oxidization. All are the result of seawater seeping into the seafloor, coming near fiery magma and picking up heat and minerals until the water vents back into the ocean.
The whole deposit is about 825 feet in diameter at its base and about 300 feet across on the top and might turn out to be the largest such deposit seen on the seafloor, Lilley said.
“Given the massive sulfide deposit, the vent field must surely have been active for many thousands of years,” he said.
The field has been named Loki’s Castle partly because the small chimneys at the site looked like a fantasy castle to the scientists. The Loki part refers to a Norwegian god renowned for trickery.
Scott Covert (14:38:13)
“I wonder if Barbara Boxer is aware of the carbon footprint the wine and cheese industry has?”
I don’t know about the carbon footprint , but i’ll bet there’s an increase in methane footprint. LOL
Maybe we should all be a bit more open minded about this story.
If it means the government forces TV bosses to stop making ‘Reality’ TV shows, then surely this is a good thing?
DAV:
> Yes, and if you tend to walk barefoot through coal mines
> it will leave a black mark on your sole.
LOL!
And if you blaze long into the abyss, the abyss will blaze back into you.
Here’s a candidate for Nutty Story #4
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/29468/
Global Warming Could be Causing a Kitten Boom, Experts Say
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 :: infoZine Staff
By Alyse Knorr – Global warming and kittens. While it may seem hard to see the connection between the two – a climate phenomenon that melts glaciers and acidifies oceans, and cuddly, 4-ounce balls of fur – experts say there could be one.
Washington, D.C. – Scripps Howard Foundation Wire – infoZine
Amazing!