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Australia Cultural responses

June 21, 2007 – ABC unleashes “Carbon Cops” on the world. ACAB – All Climate Activists Barf…

On this day, June 21 2007, in the midst of one of the periodic waves of public agitation about climate change, the Australian Broadcast Corporation launched “Carbon Cops.” No I haven’t watched it. This website is enough of a wrist-slasher to manage, without subjecting myself to this sort of futile censorious neoliberal Calvinistic horror.

“Carbon cops Lish Fejer and Sean Fitzgerald are on a mission to change habits of Australian families by measuring their carbon emissions.”

TV shows on global warming leave most viewers cold. Carbon Cops may change that, writes Michael Dwyer.

WHAT if our planet was under siege by some omnipotent celestial foe, but television stations were unable to acquire footage compelling enough to galvanise the required response?

That appears to be the inconvenient truth confronting green TV shows. In a medium that thrives on explosive hits, the merely smouldering issue of global warming is proving about as gripping as watching trees grow.

This year we’ve already seen two well-intentioned environmental awareness shows come and go – or rather we haven’t, judging by the ratings for SBS’ Eco House Challenge and Channel Ten’s Cool Aid: The National Carbon Test.

Now the ABC braves the precarious balance between worthy and watchable with a six-part domestic challenge series titled – with an admirable lunge for some of that hot, sci-fi/CSI intrigue – Carbon Cops.

Anon, (2007). Carbon culprits cop a dose of reality. The Age, 21 June.

Why this matters. 

God, this sort of preachy atomised and atomising scolding shite, that makes people feel guilty about relative trivialities, and hails them as consumers but never as citizens, is part of the reason we are so doomed. We need people who cut their own carbon footprints but who spend most of their time and energy expanding their political footprints and those of other people who give a damn. That requires functioning social movement organisations that don’t fall over (implode) the first time something goes wrong.

What happened next?

It didn’t last. It never does.