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Kids Encouraged to Die Early to Lessen Carbon Footprint

By Adam Myers ⋅ June 3, 2008 ⋅ Tags: carbon footprint, carbon neutral, go green

What’s your carbon footprint? Not that there is fundamentally anything wrong with it, but the cult like status of the carbon neutral crowd is amusing to say the least. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Planet Slayer website undoubtedly takes the cake for lunacy. You see, one section of the website invites children to take a greenhouse gas quiz to determine how much of a pig they are. At the end of the quiz, the pig explodes, and ABC tells children at what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your fair share of Earth’s resources!

Victorian Liberal senator Mitch Fifield today questioned the accuracy and appropriateness of some of the imagery and content on the website.

“I know there’s a little bit of goth in all of us, but this might be taking it just a little too far,” Senator Fifield said of the quasi life-expectancy calculator.

“Do you think it’s appropriate that the ABC portray the average Australian as a pig and is it appropriate for a website obviously geared towards kids to depict people who are average Australians as massive overweight ugly pigs, oozing slime from their mouths, and then to have these pigs blow up in a mass of blood and guts?”

Incidentally, after taking the quiz it was determined I should have offed myself before the age of 5. The big detractor? Eating meat it appears!

“The site has been developed to appeal to children and its been done in an irreverent way … to make it engaging,” [ABC managing directory] Mr [Mark] Scott said.

“It’s not an attempt to write public policy … it’s an attempt to educate school students on the impact of the modern Western lifestyle on carbon emissions and the whole issue that we are dealing with.”

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