14 DAY TRIAL // Fox company executives will announce today that the popular show “24” will be the first television series to turn completely carbon-neutral. The decision comes after officials at the network analyzed scenes involving car chases and explosions, and deemed that the amount of greenhouse gases they emitted was unacceptable, seeing how global warming and climate change posed such immense threats throughout the world. It's not exactly clear how they would replace these scenes, but the initiative is worthy of praise.
“If we’ve needed a car chase, we’ve had a car chase. Our obligation is first and foremost to the fans. If we have budget cuts and need to save money, then we’ll have fewer car crashes,” Howard Gordon, an executive producer for “24,” explains. He also adds that the company had to settle for a compromise instead of reducing its carbon emissions completely, in that Fox bought carbon offsets.
Basically, the network will pay wind farms in India to produce sufficient clean energy to compensate for the 1,291 tons of carbon dioxide it purchased. According to estimates, these quantities are enough for roughly half a season. But efforts on the part of Fox will have to be accelerated, as Rupert Murdoch announced last year that he planned to make News Corporation entirely carbon-neutral by 2010. This means that Fox will also have to follow suit, all of its shows included.
Apparently, the cast, the crew, and most of the contractors from “24” share information electronically and drive around about their businesses in hybrid cars, in a bid to reduce their impact on the environment. Fox announced that actors from the cast, including Kiefer Sutherland, who played Agent Jack Bauer, would transmit today messages for the audience, encouraging people to take similar steps and avoid consuming and traveling more than they needed to.
“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.” But the end-results of the show, following the changes, will be “a more gratifying viewing experience, even if it is at a more subconscious level,” Dana Walden, who is a chairwoman of 20th Century Fox Television, shares.