On the ABC children’s television website, there is a page for a show called Planet Slayer, involving a girl called Greena and her dog Schpinkee who save the world by defeating evil woodchippers, using “non-chemical cleaners” and being vegetarian. [I always wonder when something is billed as "non-chemical"...what IS it made of then? The space between electrons?]
Well, I’m not keen on preachy, pious and didactic pieces of propaganda to begin with, regardless of what particular “barrow” is being pushed. And hey, if the premise of the show is correct, surely no one should even be watching TV in the first place? It uses precious electricity.
But the WORST THING is Prof. Schpinkee’s Greenhouse Calculator, which carries the motto “Find out when you should die”. The idea is that you calculate your “carbon usage” to find out when you should die, apparently predicated on the idea that when you have used up your “carbon quota”, you should die and cease to be such a burden on the Earth. I’m not kidding. Here is a screenshot of the Instructions:
I am a person of reasonably modest means. I live in a small house, I drive a car which doesn’t guzzle gas, I don’t waste energy. Surely, thought my mother and I, I should do fairly well on this test? My mother was told that she should “die” at the age of 2.4 years. Apparently I am more “green” than my mother. I should “die” at the age of about 5.4 years. Marginally better, but not much.
As far as I can ascertain, the main reason why I did badly on the test, despite my modest lifestyle, is that I didn’t spend at least 25% of my income on “organic” food or “green and recycled things”. (Don’t even get me started on organic food and the question of whether it is actually more environmentally friendly and healthier than other food!) I freely confess that I spent my entire income on ordinary living expenses. And I earned too much – a little above average, but still too much. Never mind that we spend the vast majority of our income on mortgage repayments.
Incidentally, if you fill out all the “right” answers (bike riding, vegetarian etc), you are told that you can live forever. Humph! Never mind that I can’t be a vegetarian (even if I wanted to be) because of my severe allergy to nuts and I can’t ride a bike very well because of balance problems arising from my premature birth. I am a blighted human being who should obviously just ask to be “put down” to stop being such a burden on the Earth.
What an evil, evil little application! Just imagine that some impressionable child comes along to the website and finds out that his family should have “died” at the age of 4.3. That is just despicable. It actually reminds me of an incident which occurred when I was 6 years old, involving a Religious Education teacher telling me that my parents were going to hell because they were heathens. (Incidentally, being a logical type, I worked out if she was right, I’d rather be in Hell with Mum and Dad, but if she was wrong, who cares, so either way, I may as well reject her religion with impunity).
These are the kinds of things which just should not be put to a kid. Or to anyone really. The notion of calculating that someone should die because they consume too much carbon is immoral and revolting in the extreme.
(Via Tim Blair – who didn’t even make it to 2 years)
UPDATE: I see that this issue has made it to the MSM, with a Victorian Liberal Senator, Mitch Fifield, raising the issue. The main offensive aspect of the site is not that it portrays people as pigs (although I concede that this may offend those whose religious beliefs regard pigs as unclean). It is that it suggests people should die if they use too much carbon.
19 Comments
“Planet Slayer” sounds like my old early-90s addiction “Captain Planet” (also on ABC, if I remember correctly) gone horribly, horribly well ,,, off the planet …. at least, while it too was slightly corny and preachy , that was more along the practical lines of “put on a jumper before deciding whether you need to turn the heater on”, “recycle your old newspapers” and “if you have a garden, try composting your kitchen scraps or building a worm farm”.
It worries me terribly if “Planet Slayer” is now apparently billing itself as the equivalent children’s environmental show for the noughties. Oh dear, do I feel elderly now ….
There’s a part of me that wants to do the stupid quiz in such a way that my carbon footprint would see me preemptively aborted.
Must. Avoid. Temptation. To. Take. The. Piss.
That’s just mind-bogglingly awful. How the feck did something so wrong get the green light?
Floz, bring back Captain Planet – far preferable to this one!
SL, I was actually suprised Tim Blair was in positive figures… Obviously the concept of never living at all was just going too far?
Laura, I’ve NO IDEA how this got the OK…it’s just so, so wrong.
I’d change schools if the teachers were pointing my kids to that stuff. Can I change ABCs?
That is well and truly OTT even for the minions at the ABC.
If you wrote that as a piece of satire NO one would think that it was credible
As a mother of a toddler, I’m usually a fan of Auntie. Playschool rocks the casbah; Sesame Street is fine; although the Wiggles irritate me to tears, they’re certainly better than Hi-5; and I love shows like Young Dracula (to which I became addicted).
I’ve never actually seen this show on air, which is a good thing. The screams of rage would probably have irritated the neighbours. However, I could look at episodes on the ABC website (hence my summary of what the show promotes).
I would also change my kids’ schools if my kids were being fed stuff like that. It’s appalling. And Iain, certainly it surpasses even the worst satire!
Just did the quiz and I got a 15.1 years to live!!!
I actually agree on your summary of aunties children’s content, But I must say that as a red blooded bloke Hi 5 does have some attraction…and young Dracula rocks!
I would have thought you’d do far better than I, Iain – I think that according to objective standards you’d live in a pretty sustainable and ecologically friendly way. I still haven’t gotten around to installing a water tank, although I do mean to at some point. It has to be better than collecting shower water in buckets. Actually I did install a “water friendly” shower head the other day, so that’s a start. Still not enough to take me off the “you should die” list though.
Ha ha ha – my husband also said “I don’t mind Hi 5″ and I said, “that’s just cos you’re a guy”. I think it’s really aimed at dads, not kids.
Just on Patrick’s ABC point, I must admit I’m slowly coming round to the TV licences system over here. At least it’s possible to opt out of the system, as no recurrent funding for the BBC is taken from the taxpayer – you opt to ‘buy in’ by paying the licence fee. I don’t own a tv (and so don’t have a tv licence). Most Oxford students don’t. Brasenose has a collective licence, though – big enough to cover the JCR, MCR and SCR – as well as Sky.
This has a few useful effects. First, if you’re keen to see something on the Beeb, you can use iPLayer (which allows you to download any program within a 7 day window). Second, if there’s a major sporting event on, you watch it in company, in a pleasant environment, with friends. I do find television horribly isolating viewed alone. Finally, when there is something truly wretched on the box – like this ‘Planet Slayer’ fiasco, at least your taxes don’t contribute to it automatically.
LE I may have tank water but I just hate those water saver showers where you around desperately trying to get wet enough to get the dirt off and don’t start me on trying to rinse out shampoo from long hair with one of them GRRR
But before you think about a water tank please check that your roof does not have any lead flashing as that Is very bad when it comes to collecting rainwater.
Cheers
Won’t be drinking the water – just using to water the plants and do washing and the like, therefore lead won’t be a problem.
My water saver shower seems to work fine re washing the shampoo out of the hair, but I have experienced other ones which are appalling. Admittedly, I cut my long hair after having my first child, so there’s not much left to wash.
On ‘yer trike LE. http://www.pashley.co.uk/products/picador.html
(sorry I don’t know how to post photos here)
Obviously you’re just not trying hard enough.
The message ‘if you’re not contributing to society you should be dead’ is a pretty sinister one to be giving to children. Don’t we have trouble enough with teenage suicide rates?
HA HA HA HA! I didn’t know that they made such things. That’s cool. Still, I imagine that it’s somewhat slower than a conventional bicycle…and people may laugh and point at you as you ride.
We certainly don’t want to give kids the idea that they’d be better off dead. It’s appalling. I wonder to whom I can complain?
I could say Media Watch, but that would truly be a joke – albeit a pretty lame one.
Hmm. Apart from the extreme sloppiness of the questions, it could have been worse, giving instead “how many people you should kill to make up for your greenhouse/global hectare profligacy”.
That would be pretty bad – although I think it’s on a par with telling people they should have died at age 4… Saying that you do not deserve to live is not on, any more than saying you should kill other people.
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