WE NEED CELEBRITY GREEN ROLE MODELS, NOT CELEBRITY GREEN ADVICE

After yet another Canadian celebrity appeared on a television screen to tell me about “the million ways to live green” I thought, hmm….I’ll bet he’s not living green with his reproductive organs, let’s try a Google search. Sure enough, he’s the proud and recent father of two kids who will enjoy the perks of his lifestyle as a jet-setting athletic superstar.

Gill Deacon is the hit-man, or hit-woman, for the CBC on Green Living, having authored a best selling book on the subject. She has a lot advice to dispense, including what kind of environmentally friendly lubricants one should use in love-making. In that she must indeed be an expert, as she has given birth to five kids and is pre-menopausal still. I know, I know, “Do I as I say, not as I do”. The trouble is, not one of these wonderful exponents of Green Living ever mention the impact that the children they conceived are having or will have on the environment. Especially in relation to the relatively miniscule relief that following their cosmetically feel-good green tips are going to give it. What did the Stockholm Institute say? One newcomer to Britain (immigrant or native-born is immaterial) wipes out 80 lifetimes of responsible recycling?

What we need from these celebrities are not “Green tips” but Green role models. People who will get up and celebrate the prospect of another five decades of sperm-less ejaculations or having their tubes tied, who show their love for children through adoption rather than breeding, and confine their adoptions to children from countries of high consumption. We need celebrities who will live like Ralph Nader and a TV network that will run a weekly show called “Lives of the Spartan and Famous”. And it would be fitting if that celebrity was of Hispanic ethnicity to prove that, like me, higher fertility rates are a part of one’s cultural or religious heritage that you can choose to leave behind.

Let’s face it, we are pack animals. We follow the leader. We are hero worshipers by nature. We look for moral leadership, and in a sense, that is what leadership is, moral. It is not viable simply with the execution of power. Short of sainthood, we require that leaders show us the way by their example in at least one important quality. For environmental leaders, that quality must be environmental responsibility. In 2009, someone who sires or births more than two children cannot claim to be environmentally responsible and surely must be dethroned from any credible position as spokesman for the cause. A preacher who preaches chastity but is seen “ducking into the whore-house” brings everything he says into disrepute and ridicule. Would you listen to a man in a blood-stained butcher’s apron who advocated vegetarianism?

Tim Murray
January 1/09

Media Reinforces Ignorance And Denial of Human Overpopulation
I feel the same way about the media as I do about most environmental organizations, scientists, economists, political parties, and humanitarian charities: they are supposed to help humanity but because they avoid the need to reduce human numbers, they do us more harm than good by encouraging us to dig ourselves into a deeper ecological debt.CBC News December 30, 2008 12PM: An entertainment reporter said "Is Katie Holmes pregnant? If not, she will be soon if Tom Cruise has his way. Tom cruise told reporters that he likes being a father so much that he wants 10 kids."The media is just encouraging the public to reproduce by glorifying the idea with celebrity endorsements saying that having lots of kids is big fun. The public already buys expensive brand clothing, big houses, and cars that they can't afford just to mimic celebrities and big corporations would be delighted if they also have children that they can't afford.How often has the media told us stories not only on entertainment tabloid shows, but also during the news with the theme that celebrity icons are choosing to have lots of children compared to stories with the theme that celebrity icons are choosing to be childfree by choice for environmental or other reasons? Entertainment reporters have made it clear that Britney Spears, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Lance Armstrong, Angelina Jolie, etc are breeding like flies but when do they give us good environmental news by telling us about a celebrity icon who chooses not to burden our environment by reproducing?

Brishen Hoff