Australia has officially gone nuts

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has this charming and entirely not morbid game.

Australia is quite renowned for its wonderful climate. I think the ABC people have spent too much time appreciating it (it's ozone depletion I tells ya!). What moron thought it was a tactful thing to do to create a game for children which tells them they should drop dead (or as the graphic implies, explode)?

Running through the Australian averages, that hedonistic lot, living to the ripe old age of 19 (that is the average life expectancy down under, isn't it? We rarely see anyone older in all that Aussie programming we get up here.) should actually be dying at around 9 years old because it's then when they've used up their share of resources. I'm not quite clear what the magical resource ration is or how they came to that number.

So this game, aimed at "educating" kids, probably around the age of 9 or 10, is telling them they have to end their lives for the good of the planet. Assholes!

If they wanted to put something about calculating carbon footprint, why couldn't they be polite and make it something like this? Phrasing it in terms of when you need to commit ritual suicide is just sick!

Now on to the their (ab)use of "science".

Questions 1 & 2 are about getting around. What is your common mode of transport and how guzzly is it? Simple questions. Simplistic even. Too simplistic. The BP calculator allows you to specify multiple modes of transport and how often you use them, giving a more accurate picture of your transportation habits. Hell, ABC don't even allow you to specify a usage. And don't give me bull about "it's for kids" because the next question about flying asks for distances. And besides, if you're collecting information to tell users when they should die, you had better damn well take the time to get right.

On question 7, it's the usual where's your electricity come from question. Click on the dog and he'll tell you about Australia's electricity. Did you know that residential electricity accounts for 84% of that country's greenhouse gas emissions? Well, maybe if Australia would goddamn use some of the goddamn uranium sitting in the goddamn ground, that goddamn number wouldn't be so goddamn high. Hint, hint. Oh yeah and the dog says that renewables has nearly zero greenhouse impact, which is more pork than the goddamn Aussie pig.

Question 8 is about garbage. More porkies being told here. First is that we need to reduce landfill to avoid methane emissions. Modern landfills harvest methane as an energy source. A renewable energy source since there's always more organic waste. And no bull about a landfill crisis. Anyone trying to say that a country the size of Europe with all of 20 people living there has a landfill crisis is clearly detached from reality. The other thing is that recycling means less energy consumption than making things a new. Sporadic truth. Some things are less energy intensive to landfill and replace with new materials. Some things are less energy intensive to recycle. It varies with the substances involved and the external factors too. This blanket "all recycling is good" is just dogma. Some is good, some is bad.

So ABC says the average Australian carbon footprint is around 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. BP says the average is 14. So which one, or possibly both is pulling the number out of their arse? Well all this rests on assumptions, which you can pick at your discretion. I'd go with BP. Yes, they're an oil company, but they employ engineers who know things, whereas ABC employs journalists who don't. Easy choice really.

Now I raise my right hand and recite this oath:
I, on my honour, do solemnly swear to never moan or rant about Green sanctimony in the United Kingdom again. And whenever I get the urge, such as whenever Caroline Lucas appears saying completely stupid things on Question Time as she did last week (like public transport in the country. What an idiot! Yeah it's really possible to devise a practical and environmentally beneficial bus service in Aberdeenshire), I will revisit that link and be reminded that it could be worse. I could be living in Australia.

(Okay I didn't really take the oath, because moaning and ranting is what blogs are for.)