Climate change is a very real, very serious threat – but at times the whole thing seems like it's just one big competition for pop stars to show that they care more about climate change than anyone else, and now MTV is joining in, too.
MTV Switch is a new campaign by the music station to promote awareness of climate change and urge its viewers to strive to reduce their own carbon footprints in their day-to-day life. Singers like Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Enrique Iglesias, Shaggy and Kelly Rowland will join forces with MTV Switch via a series of public service announcements and original programming to push the message of environmental awareness. What's more, MTV is so committed to helping climate change that it's dropping its wildly unenvironmental show Pimp My Ride and replacing it with a new programme called Sellotape Some Leaves To My Bicycle.
We have some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that the world finally seems to be waking up to the effect that modern human lifestyles is having on the climate and, in turn, all number of fragile systems ecosystems. The bad news is that a bunch of clod-brained pop stars haven't quite realised this yet and are refusing to stop preaching about the sodding thing all the time.
Want examples? Take your pick – Madonna thinks that shitty ballads can save the world, Spammo from Razorlight thinks that singing in a shed can save the world and Sheryl Crow, well, let's just say that Sheryl Crow doesn't wipe her arse any more. And next month all of these geniuses are going to pile into Wembley for the Live Earth concert, where tens of thousands of people will all rev up their gas-guzzling cars and travel to a huge power-slurping stadium to eat burgers out of polystyrene boxes and listen to Spinal Tap's carbon-spewing opinion about climate change, all backed by a pretty lightshow.
But don't you for a second think that that'll be the end of it, because now MTV is wading into the climate change arena too, with MTV Switch – a new public service campaign dedicated to educating its viewers about simple ways that normal people can reduce their carbon emissions. Variety reports:
MTV Switch hopes to persuade the world's youth to cut their carbon emissions to help save the planet — and "Pimp My Ride" will do its bit by giving a '65 Chevy Impala an 800 horsepower engine that will run on biodiesel. The campaign, backed by celebrities including Enrique Iglesias, Shaggy and Rufus Wainwright, hopes to reach a potential audience of 1.5 billion people. Initiative will bow Thursday on 55 MTV channels in 162 countries plus 44 online and 16 mobile offerings.
Thank God for MTV Switch – until now we spent all day walking around our air-conditioned house with all the lights on, the fridge door open and every single appliance left on standby, booking all sorts of flights that we didn't even need to go on. But now Shaggy has told us not to do any of that? Well, that's a different story altogether. How could we not pay attention to the superior intellect of the man who co-wrote Me Julie with Ali G once?
In honesty, of course we can see how well-meaning MTV Switch is. Not only will the new environmental documentaries made for MTV Switch reduce the amount of episodes of My Super Sweet 16 that MTV can cram into its schedules every day, but MTV bigwig Bill Roedy makes a very good point, too:
"The statistics are staggering. If less than 1% of our total potential viewing audience — roughly 1 million people — switches to three energy efficient light bulbs, this would be equivalent to taking 100,000 cars off the road."
Needless to say, the impact on climate change would be far greater if all of MTV's total potential viewing audience turned off their TV sets and went outside to read a book instead – but, shhh. MTV would probably prefer it if you just did the lightbulb thing.
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kippertron says
No MTV? You don’t need to tell me twice. One more second of My Super Sweet 16 and I’d have exploded in any case
Mithaearon says
Well MTV have already helped the enviorment by making their “music” channels so shite and free of music that I don’t watch anymore, thats got to be powersaving?