Obama Zombies: How the Obama Machine Brainwashed My Generation (15 page)

Yet, overall, in their efforts to "green" campuses, American colleges and universities combined to buy close to "1.1 billion kilowatt hours of green electricity," which is enough to power eighty-seven thousand homes for an entire year, according to the
Chronicle of Higher Education
.
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Ironically, every time "green" power is purchased, colleges are merely paying higher prices for energy, because they have no way of knowing whether the energy they buy is actually alternative. This again underscores just how goofy all this hyperemo
tional eco-claptrap truly is, and why only an Obama Zombie would not take the time to actually research and think.

Here's how it works: When a wind turbine produces renewable energy, it sends electrons into the electricity grid, where green energy blends with nongreen energy. Thus, colleges that buy energy produced at a wind farm don't actually purchase the electrons that came from that wind farm. Instead, as the
Chronicle
clarified, "they buy standard electricity and then pay a
premium
for wind renewable energy credits, providing an incentive for utilities to build more green power facilities."
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(Emphasis added.) New York University, for instance, bragged that it bought 118 million kilowatt hours of green energy, but in reality, the school received "credits" for wind power while the campus was being serviced by a standard electricity grid.
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The Obama Zombies have been swindled by those evil energy companies that have the audacity to provide humans with life-sustaining energy yet again.

Much of this would be funny if it didn't directly affect parents' and students' wallets. Green energy isn't cheap. In fact, it's considerably more expensive than traditional energy sources, including coal, oil, nuclear power, and natural gas. There's a reason why wind and solar "account for less than 1 percent of total net electricity generation" in the United States. A single percent!
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There's more. In 2007, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) calculated the total dollar amount the government spent to produce energy. These supposed alternative sources of energy received around $16.6 billion, which came in the form of direct government subsidies and loans as well as tax breaks.
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Because these "alternative" methods aren't viable on their own, we the taxpayers are forced to foot the high bill. The EIA found that solar energy receives $24.34 per megawatt hour from Uncle Sam, while wind gets $23.37
and "clean coal" rakes in $29.81. By contrast, as the
Wall Street Journal
observes, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas 25 cents, hydroelectric 67 cents, and nuclear power $1.59. In other words, wind is subsidized fifteen times more than nuclear power, even though nuclear power fuels 20 percent of this country's electricity production and wind less than 1 percent.
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Nevertheless, the only way a college can be completely carbon neutral, as many college presidents have promised, is to buy so-called carbon offsets. This of course is the scheme that pays other people to lower their carbon emissions or to plant trees to make up for your carbon production. There's nothing like outsourcing your eco-sins for cash.

Everything we do is driven by energy production, but it's quadrupled on a university level, as colleges involve housing, feeding, teaching, and entertaining tens of thousands of students. It's irresponsible for schools to jack up already expensive tuition rates and ever-growing "student activity fees" (as many are doing) to absolve administrators and radical professors of their liberal eco-guilt. That said, there are a few fiscally responsible college presidents who refuse to go along with the charade. The president of Pomona College, David W. Oxtoby, has stated that before he goes blowing students' tuition on buying carbon credits he would first have to become convinced that doing so would be "really meaningful, and not just a way for the rich to make their consciences feel better."
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Alas, a pinprick of sanity.

ANOTHER MAJOR ECO-BLUDGEON
involves the left's lock on youth-targeted media.

Consider the following. When Drew told Cameron that she took a crap in the forest, Cameron burned with envy. "I am so jealous right now," said Cameron. "I am going to the woods tomorrow." Drew laughed and boasted: "It was awesome." I was "hunched over like an animal" when I "took a poo in the woods."
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There you have it, folks, two of the most famed celebrities--Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz--euphoric about the idea of
taking a dump in the forest. And this is precisely the primitive world they envision for you, too.

Barrymore and Diaz's animalistic adventures were part of the MTV 2005 series
Trippin
', which the
New York Times
described as Diaz's unscripted "travelogue with a save-the-planet goal." Diaz produced the episodes (ten in all) and brought her celebrity friends along for the ecological ride: Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake, Eva Mendes, and Jessica Alba. The show's goal was to target young audiences: "elementary schools taught about the cycle of life, the fragility of the fauna and the importance of recycling, but that when children turned into adolescents they tended to lose these interests."

Thus, the need for
Trippin'
.

The
Times
correctly observed that since "young viewers' appetite for scientific knowledge is limited, Ms. Diaz is betting that their interest in celebrities will draw them to the show and help them [find] a world beyond the exurbs and X-Boxes." The paper, however, dismissed Diaz's extremism as just fun and games: "she dwells on excrement, both for laughs and for edification."
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But we're not letting Diaz off the hook that easily. While visiting Nepal, she referred to village walls covered in cow dung as "beautiful" and "inspiring." Then she took to praising "pounding mud" with sticks as "the coolest thing."

In Chile, Barrymore told the MTV audience that spending time in a primitive village sans electricity was uplifting. "I aspire to be like them more." Barrymore, by the way, at the time of
Trippin',
reportedly grossed $15 million a flick.

During the Bhutan episode, Diaz remarked that she loved how the "country's wealth was not based on dollar amount but on gross national happiness." Regarding the countryside still being relegated to undeveloped forest, she proclaimed, "That is so awesome.
I like Bhutan." On you Americans--you greedy Americans--Diaz, who reportedly makes $20 million a movie, said this: "It's kinda gotten out of hand how much convenience we think we need."
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And just when you thought it couldn't get worse, it does. It turns out that local officials actually had plans to bring some parts of Chile closer to, um, the twentieth century, never mind the twenty-first. There were proposals to turn significant portions of the forest into a highway and also build an aluminum smelter. But it turns out our Hollywood eco-princesses weren't too keen on these projects, because of their alleged harmful impacts on the environment. Diaz rhapsodized: "Each of us can make a difference. If everyone recycled the aluminum cans they used, there would be no need for new smelters. So stop being a fucking pig and recycle your aluminum cans," she chortled.

Now, if you're wondering how these celebrities found their way around the jungles of South America, you're a very astute reader. While Diaz and her team were celebrating the lifestyle of a caveman,
Trippin'
shows them flying on multiple carbon-spewing airplanes and chartering pollution-puffing helicopters and even gas-guzzling boats to reach their site locations. The cringe-inducing irony was made complete when the series also showed the celebrities being "chauffeured to the airport in a full-size Chevy SUV," notwithstanding multiple public service announcements aired on
Trippin'
trashing the use of those same big, bad SUVs.

Ah, the hypocritical life of the eco-celebrity: raking in millions of dollars per film, being chauffeured around in private jets and SUVs, vacationing in the jungle, all while praising primitive life in parts of the world that can't provide basic infrastructure and sanitation for their own people. Forget hypocritical. It's depraved, perverse, and downright cruel. But it's a perfect if small example of how Hollywood continues its radical, hypocritical environmentalism onslaught against those of us who consume but a tiny fraction of the energy that celebrity mansions and car collections suck up.

Kind of like Live Earth. Remember that? As we discussed, it was the biggest, most detailed and intricate concert, stretching seven continents, filling stadiums with thousands, and reaching millions more on television to raise awareness about global warming.

Again, celebrities who have the biggest carbon footprints of us all--with their mansions, private jets, spending sprees, vacation homes, movie productions, and concert tours--are telling ordinary folks like you and me that we need to cut down on our own carbon footprint. As those world-renowned climatologists the Red Hot Chili Peppers explained, "The climate change situation is the No. 1 problem facing humanity."

In a rare moment of journalistic integrity, even the
New York Times
was suspicious. "If less is more," the
Times
wondered, "then why is biggest better?" According to the
Times
, "this seven-continent, multimedia eco-extravaganza was colored by the very complacency it vowed to combat: No matter how dire the problem, the solution can be small and painless."
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The
Times
pointed out how the emcee at Giants Stadium, musician David Holmes, was "discussing alternative eco-products while balancing an Apple computer on his lap." Um, David, how on God's
green earth do you think your laptop was produced? Wasn't through wind power, brother . . . and it definitely wasn't at the hands of a barefoot Chilean boy rubbing sticks together in his hut.

NBC, which is in the tank with the green agenda, televised the Live Earth concerts. And, as expected, their "reporter,"
Today
's Ann Curry, asked softball questions, such as the one to Trudie Styler: "Why do you care so much?" Hey, Ann, a better question, maybe to Kanye West and Ludacris, might have been: "Your lyrics gratuitously praise big cars, fat wallets, extravagant homes, bitches and hos, excessive partying, and big guns, and you tour the globe on concerts. Why do you think you're in a position to lecture the rest of us about cutting back?" If only Ann Curry were a real reporter. Then we might get an answer.

"So much star power assembled in so many places," notes the
Times
, "to assure fans that all they need do to save the planet is change a light bulb, choose paper over plastic or, as Cameron Diaz recommended, turn off the shower while shaving their legs."
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The
New York Times
wasn't the only news outlet to point to the extravagant hypocrisy of Live Earth. The London-based
Daily Mail
estimated that the total footprint of Live Earth was 31,500 tons of carbon emissions, given all the energy consumed while traveling to the concerts and powering the productions. The paper's investigation revealed that "far from saving the planet, the extravaganza generated a massive fuel bill, acres of garbage, thousands of tons of carbon emissions, and a mileage total equal to the movement of an army."
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Add to that the estimated television audience and the carbon footprint exceeds 74,500 tons! In case you're curious (which you should be), the average Briton's carbon footprint is around 11 tons . . .
per year
. An interesting way for left-wingers to address a planet that is on the precipice of environmental Armageddon--to blow past a year's
worth of carbon footprints, by 6,777 times. Makes sense, no? Come to think of it, adulterers should try this kind of lefty logic when pledging renewed fidelity to their wives: Cheat more--not once, not twice, but 6,777 times further!

If celebrities truly bought into all the climate meltdown talk that they spew, they would stop filming movies immediately. Their lifestyles and vocations produce more than triple the carbon footprint of the average household. Madonna can forgo simulating sex onstage and Cameron Diaz can crap in the forest without the cameras rolling. Diaz, prone to gross confessions, described to Jay Leno the type of life she pictures for the rest of us: "I do follow the 'If it's yellow leave it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down.' I believe in that 100 percent."
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So, if you ever happen to be invited to one of Diaz's cocktail parties, don't be surprised that her bathroom reeks of urine.

THE FINAL TOOL
used to lobotomize aspiring Obama Zombies involves the "scientific" shell game promulgated by the left against America's youth.

If a lie is repeated often enough, it's thought to be true. And nowhere is this more true than in the false notion that a "consensus" of scientists is that man is responsible for warming the planet. It's not true. But Obama Zombies don't want a real debate. They want an Al Gore slide show that leaves folks feeling all warm and fuzzy about saving polar bears.

U.S. senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma has himself assembled a growing list of more than 650 top scientists from around the globe who have challenged the global-alarming hysteria proffered by the liberal machine.
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Consensus? What consensus? Slowly, even the reliably liberal media are noticing.
Politico
conceded that a "growing
accumulation" of atmospheric data could signal that the "science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation,"
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and the
New York Times
's environmental reporter Andrew Revkin acknowledged that "climate science is not a numbers game (there are heaps of signed statements by folks with advanced degrees on all sides of this issue)."
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