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Actor Kiefer Sutherland is fighting imaginary terrorists the green way. Producers of 24, the FOX drama that chronicles Sutherland's Agent Jack Bauer as he races to capture crooks over a nail-biting 24-hour period, are buying carbon offsets to compensate for the global warming emissions they're releasing with every car crash and explosion.

Carbon offsets are credits that carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters (whether individuals, companies or utilities) buy toward clean-energy programs to make up for their own greenhouse-gas emissions. FOX Chairman Rupert Murdoch has said he wants to make his network carbon neutral by next year, and as part of that, producers on 24 have purchased credits toward Indian wind-power plants that they say make up for 1,291 tons of carbon-dioxide, a little more than half a season's worth of emissions, the New York Times reports. FOX also hired consultants to measure how much CO2 the production is emitting, and is using 20 percent biodiesel fuel (made from plant stock or animal fat) in trucks and motion sensors that switch off the lights in unoccupied rooms, according to the newspaper.

“No one is kidding themselves that viewers want to see Jack Bauer stop in the middle of an action scene and deliver some line about the environment,” Dana Walden, chair of 20th Century Fox Television, told the Times. But knowing about the carbon-neutral effort, she said, might give viewers “a more gratifying viewing experience, even if it is at a more subconscious level.”

The idea of going carbon neutral by purchasing offsets is controversial. It can be difficult to track whether the credits really translate into clean-energy generation, the Times notes. The House of Representatives last week dropped a plan to buy offsets after deciding that there was no way to verify that the exchange would produce "absolute neutrality," the Washington Post reported.

Kiefer Sutherland by watchwithkristin via Flickr

6 Comments

1. 1. modepaul 11:50 AM 3/3/09

   It seems ironic that Rupert Murdoch is outsourcing FOX's environmentalism to India.

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2. 2. apal 04:26 PM 3/3/09

   Carbon offsets solve nothing. Beside the carbon dioxide doesn't cause global warming, warming causes carbon dioxide to increase over a periods of hundreds of years as is clearly shown in the history of our planet. Only undeducated fools buy the "global warming" crap. There is no real evidence for global warming, and lots of evidence that Al Gore and his minions are way off the mark, and are essentially making Gore richer. Read the data!!!!!

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3. 3. Biodiversivist 10:05 AM 3/4/09

   apal is being sarcastic, I hope. If not, he is an example of the extreme ignorance that grips America's general populace. Nobody in their right mind refutes that the planet is warming. The only arguments left are what to do about it.
   
   Biodiesel has been found to be worse for GHG than regular diesel if made from stock grown on arable land. It displaces food crops to jungles.

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4. 4. cap-n-trade 11:37 AM 3/4/09

   Why not purchase United States based carbon offsets that are third party verified and registered on an exchange?

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5. 5. jthomas426 01:39 AM 3/10/09

   Although facts are not allowed to disrupt the agendized truth, "climate change (a.k.a. "global warming") has become the largest and newest "world religion". Emotions are running deep on both sides of the argument. And, adherents are polarized as a result of having only the most meager data. For example, who among us can amass enough data and write enough computer modeling programs to objectively forecast the atmospheric effects of man-made emissions?
   
   From a lifetime of observation, change in the atmosphere happens  sometimes thought to be caused by volcanic eruptions, sometimes thought to be caused by solar flares  but change happens . . . both colder and then warmer. Whether long-term warming is truly happening is a serious question whose ramifications have not been adequately investigated. However, the Federal Government is giving vast sums of grant money to researchers who will follow the dictates of the grant in support of man-made climate change. While it may help the economy to create jobs, while it may promote a new surge in equipment manufacturing for newly-formed climate change industries, I wish it was solidly rooted on truth instead of hope.
   
   Instead of calling other people stupid and uninformed, question your own motives for taking a position on either side in this religious debate. Is Rupert Murdoch simply kissing butts of the Climate Change High Priests?

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6. 6. jthomas426 01:40 AM 3/10/09

   Although facts are not allowed to disrupt the agendized truth, "climate change (a.k.a. "global warming") has become the largest and newest "world religion". Emotions are running deep on both sides of the argument. And, adherents are polarized as a result of having only the most meager data. For example, who among us can amass enough data and write enough computer modeling programs to objectively forecast the atmospheric effects of man-made emissions?
   
   From a lifetime of observation, change in the atmosphere happens – sometimes thought to be caused by volcanic eruptions, sometimes thought to be caused by solar flares – but change happens . . . both colder and then warmer. Whether long-term warming is truly happening is a serious question whose ramifications have not been adequately investigated. However, the Federal Government is giving vast sums of grant money to researchers who will follow the dictates of the grant in support of “man-made climate change”. While it may help the economy to create jobs, while it may promote a new surge in equipment manufacturing for newly-formed “climate change industries”, I wish it was solidly rooted on truth instead of hope.
   
   Instead of calling other people “stupid” and “uninformed”, question your own motives for taking a position on either side in this religious debate. Is Rupert Murdoch simply kissing butts of the Climate Change High Priests?

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this