I’ve noted previously the thin green line that separates parody from reality, but I have to say that the folks behind this website have taken unintentional self-parody to an all new level. The site, which appears to be associated with the Australian Broadcasting Company, asks kids to calculate their family’s level of greenhouse gas emissions.* Based on these answers, the site calculates “when you should die” in order to not use “more than your fair share of Earth’s resources.” If you put in the “average” answers for all of the questions, you will be told you should die at age 9.
The use of these sorts of scare tactics is hardly new. When I was in the Boy Scouts, we had a weekend retreat one time that was devoted to environmental issues. This guy spoke to us about how he and all the other adults were using up all the earth’s resources, and that by the time we got to be adults there would be nothing left, but he and his adult friends didn’t care, because they’d all be dead by then anyway. Bwahahaha! Needless to say I was suitably freaked out by this. Also needless to say, I managed to reach adulthood while somehow avoiding the imminent environmental apocalypse of which he spoke. Since then I’ve always been filled with a profound sense of skepticism when I hear people talk about environmental doom and gloom (a skepticism reinforced by the fact that the guy who spoke to my Boy Scout troop was hardly unique). Still, it’s amazing that folks would be quite to baldfaced about it as they are at this site.
(HT: Coyote Blog)
*While the quiz does ask questions about driving, food, flying, etc., it turns out that one’s death date is mainly determined by how much money one spends. If you spend more than a subsistence level on “ordinary stuff” you are doomed to an early death, though you can prolong your life somewhat by spending money on “stuff that’s better for the environment” and “ethical investments.”
So, I am apparently 12 years past my die-by date. That is not encouraging.
Heh. 5.8 years old. Of course, that makes perfect sense considering the disordered and hate filled agenda of the environmentalist movement. It’s not about ordered stewardship of Creation, though some Catholics try to rationalize it as such. It’s all about hatred of the family, the common man, and the natural law. The self-important wannabe elites think they know what’s better for the common man than he does and are driven to shape the world in their own image. They follow every trend in absurdity and use scare tactics to push their agenda.
Take this exercise as an example. First, the premise shows where their priorities are and how they view life – “when should you die”. Your existence and life as a person is of no consequence, but what is of consequence is the environmentalist’s view of how things should be under their authority. The life of men is held in contempt, as a plague upon the god (Earth), except of course, themselves, those they care about and their partners in hatred.
Second, they have a horribly disordered view of the dignity of man and family. Notice how if you live with a family you should die earlier? Also, if you’re poor, you should die earlier. If you are single, living in a flat in a big city, and have the luxury of a bunch of disposable income to blow on expensive organic food and invest in “green companies” (maybe something as stupid and corrupt as a company that sells carbon credits), you are fairly okay in their book and deserve to live long to lonely death.
For the purpose of my point I will give a little more personal info than I would normally care too, but I think the example is appropriate. I live in an old suburb of Detroit (it borders the city). I work less than three miles from home, my wife homeschools our children – and we have two special needs kids. I have a total eight people living in a 960 sq ft home. I have just one vehicle, a 13 year old full sized van (an absolute must with my family size) that gets 13 mpg.
I’m very conscientious about my energy consumption – not because if a kid leaves a light on in the bedroom I think the oceans will rise and sweep us away, but because I can’t afford to be peeing money away to the power company and taxes. I don’t and won’t buy organic food. Is it better for us? Probably. Would it do anything to keep the oceans from sweeping us away? Very much doubt so. Would it be an act of good stewardship of the blessings I have received to buy organic? Absolutely not! Good stewardship dictates that I buy what we need as cheaply as possible. I buy store brand stuff on sale, make trips to budget stores like Aldi’s every month or two to stock up on staples. To live and house my family it takes every penny I have, plus borrowing some; to buy organic and invest in Al Gore’s shyster scheme is beyond my ability.
I have many personal faults, vices, and personal disappointments, but as I step back and try to look at my life (lifestyle?) objectively, I think I am living a life that is in accord with what we’re called to do. And while the scare mongers and elitist tyrants may believe that people like myself and my family are a plague on the Earth and shouldn’t live to see their sixth birthday – I know the Truth: Life is sacred, even theirs. That man has stewardship of Creation, but Creation is to serve man. Christ became Man Incarnate, not Rock Incarnate or Tree Incarnate. And that the family is both the foundation and ends of a just society – any scenario, worldview. or political ideology that doesn’t reflect that in theory or reality is an error or simply positively evil.
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Outstanding post, Rick.
It would be funny if it were not for kids actually believing this stuff.
Who could be worse busybodies than teachers ? Enviro-guilt gives the Catholic guilt of old a run for its money. What I don’t understand is why these fanatics haven’t offed themselves yet.
I think I’ll take a joyride in my SUV.
Ah dayum, I should have died at the age of 3. If it weren’t for our recycling it probably would have told me I never should have been born :P
Do none of you see a valid point being made on the “when you should die” website? I find that hard to believe.
“Do none of you see a valid point being made on the “when you should die” website? I find that hard to believe.”
Sure we do. Only we kinda take offense at the “You scum deserve to DIE!” attitude, as well as the fact that they’re aiming this at kids.
Dominick Donahue
The war paradigm at work: we are enemies of the earth to be destroyed when the time is right.
Only we kinda take offense at the “You scum deserve to DIE!” attitude, as well as the fact that they’re aiming this at kids.
There is no “you deserve to die” attitude.
I think sites like this make people uncomfortable because they poke at our one-third world sense of privilege. Looks like it worked on several of you, judging from smug comments like this:
I think I’ll take a joyride in my SUV.
My kids will learn early on that the way we live has a life-and-death impact on others. If you all think kids should grow up blind to reality, perhaps you should rethink having children.
I “should have died” at age 15.
There is no “you deserve to die” attitude.
The point of the test, in its own words, is to determine “when you should die.”
You’re leaving words out of the description.
The opening page says:
“Prof. Schpinkee’s Greenhouse Calculator
find out when you should die!”
The site certainly doesn’t value human beings. It just views them as users and spewers.
What about how people contribute? Do they bring love and happiness to others? No sign of trying to measure that. You’re human. You deserve to die. That’s the message.
Spot on, Christina. Well said.
And how do you die? Explosion!
I’ll admit, the exploding pig graphic with the tail in the pool of blood is amusing in a dark sort of way.
However, in addition to the “you should die if you use too much” vibe it gives off (unless you have the secret Michael I decoder ring), it uses some highly faulty economic assumptions — so it’s not even a vaguely accurate way of calculating what your real greenhouse gas impact is.
And apparently, at 29, I’ve already lived 14 years past my scheduled death. (Maybe I better make sure I lock the doors and keep the guns loaded tonight in case they come for me.)
Whenever I drive my Honda Pilot, god kills a puppy. Then again, I’m a cat person.
BLACKADDER — You are still leaving out part of thr description.
The rest of you also seem to have a problem with basic reading. BASIC.
You also refuse to read the site with a Catholic mind — i.e. understanding their message in a social context. You have not picked up on the words “your share of the world’s resources.” Instead, you think you are entitled.
Michael Iafrate,
Pardon me, but I think you are failing to understand this with a Catholic mind. The premise of some fixed “your share” is flawed for a number of reasons. One it starts with a materialist based world view and carries that through in terms of everyone should be alloted a certain portion – a fixed amount – of the earth’s resources and no more. It takes no consideration of things like needs (a chronic medical condition that requires a treatment that uses “excessive” resources). God will judge us based on what we did or didn’t do with His blessings and graces, not whether we used more than some arbitrary but fixed amount of world’s resources. Our “share” is precisely what we need plus what we might have or use in a morally acceptable fashion. No one truly needs a computer to live, therefore by their thinking you and I are hogging resources by carrying on this conversation – and they are too by the creation and hosting of that page.
But their premise has more than moral flaws, it is flawed across the board on a material level. From considering that co2 equals destruction of the world, and that they can somehow divine what amount of co2 can be tolerated, then try to divvy that up into a known “share” for each individual. It’s an insanely stupid presumption and reveals far more about the mindset of those people than anything about the nature of the world’s resources.
Now Michael, two specific but general groups of people come immediately to mind that I have read your advocacy for. The poor in Latin America and Appalachia. I know you are sincere and I respect your concern – I may disagree on diagnosing the causes or prescribing a fix, or on how to view the matters as a whole – but the point is I know you care deeply. Here’s an exercise for you. Go to that death calculator and fill it out as if you were a poor Nicaraguan or Appalachian and see what you come up with. I did it answering as if I was dirt poor living in Latin America and they blew me up when I reached 22 years old. I mean, pleeeease. How can anyone say that those people could possibly be using more than their “share”? The problem is that they do not have their share! Anyone who at a minimum is not having their physiological needs met is not receiving their “fair share” – yet in the world of materialism, pseudo-science, false-altruism, arrogance, and tyranny, these people too are a plague on the earth.
In my mind, this is all just one more manifestation of the Culture of Death.
“You have not picked up on the words “your share of the world’s resources.” Instead, you think you are entitled.”
No, we just think that, if we’re using too much of the world’s resources, we shouldn’t die for doing that, or be told we should die for doing that.
As for reading the site with a Catholic mind – I did too! I even took a look at Greena, their dumpily-dressed Warrior Princess, and checked out the Planet Slayer game, where (depending on whether you shoot car tires or picket signs) you either save the planet or destroy it for an overdressed “Ms. X-On.” And there’s the lifestyle measurer – “see how much you suck!” as the opening credits say. What’s more Catholic than reading the whole of a website in context?
I’ve decided I’m being too harsh on these people. They just want to have some smart-alecky fun with the rest of us.
Dominick Donahue
(Who “sucks a bit,” according to the aforementioned website)
People who exercise should die sooner — they’re using more than their fair share of oxygen by breathing too much.
A good quote fro one blogger: “Never have I seen such a pure combination of Marxist-style zero-sum economics with science-challenged warming alarmism.”
Is there a Kommissariat that decides what one’s ‘share’ is ? Maybe not yet, but under Obama there will be, I’m sure. My ‘share’ is whatever I want it to be. This whole hysteria is really just a new incarnation of Communism.
“People who exercise should die sooner — they’re using more than their fair share of oxygen by breathing too much.”
Brilliant.
No, we just think that, if we’re using too much of the world’s resources, we shouldn’t die for doing that, or be told we should die for doing that.
That’s not what the site says, if you actually know how to read.
Rick — Are you saying that there is no sense at all in which we can say that North Americans are using more than their share of the earth’s resources?
From the start of the game: “When you’re done, click on (skull-and-crossbones symbol) to find out what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your fair share of Earth’s resources!”
Granted, that’s not the same thing as telling you to pop some cyanide pills, but the message is clear: Earth would be better off if you were dead.
Dominick Donahue
(who, besides “sucking a bit” and not knowing how to read, would like to smash TVs and video game consoles, ration out computers/cell phones to the nation, and ban A/C in houses north of Kansas to decrease electricity consumption to a fairer level…just so you know.)
Michael would make an excellent prosecutor of Counter-Environmentalist crimes. Trials complete with self-indictment. The accused has to show a photo of his SUV to the aghast jury, the prosecutor exclaims, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this man wants to kill your children with his lethal and luxurious urban assault vehicle. AND he lives in a big house. Truly, he insults god and man!” the audience hisses. There won’t be trials by jury of one’s peers, all juries will consist of Seattle residents found shopping at Whole Foods. Different triangles will be attached to the offenders’ clothes, indicating their eco crime(s).
…but the message is clear: Earth would be better off if you were dead.
No, the message is clearly: Earth would be better off if we switched to a more sustainable lifestyle.
Gerald, always the the jokester with nothing real to say.
Okay, I took another crack at this game…filled out the most anti-environment positions, claimed to guzzle gallons of gas and fly around the world, but then claimed that I invested 40% of my money in eco-friendly companies and organizations, and spent the rest on “ordinary stuff.”
The game told me I could live forever.
Draw your own conclusions about the message of the game.
Dominick Donahue
No, the message is clearly: Earth would be better off if we switched to a more sustainable lifestyle.
I do understand the message about the need for a more sustainable lifestyle, but there much better ways to convey that message.
This idea may be too simplistic and everything but creative: Instead of asking the question “when you should die?”, it should ask “how much you are contributing to global warming?” or something like that and calculate (well, guesstimate) your greenhouse greenhouse emissions based on your lifestyle and provide a percentage of the total greenhouse emissions from your country, continent or world emissions. This way, we can get a different perspective on our lifestyles and the need to change them.
Overall, I agree that the message is needed, but the delivery needs to change.
claimed to guzzle gallons of gas and fly around the world, but then claimed that I invested 40% of my money in eco-friendly companies and organizations, and spent the rest on “ordinary stuff.”
The game told me I could live forever.
Hahahahaha!!
My god, I just gave all the “wrong” answers basically in the whole test, and then just put that I spend all my money in “C ethical investments” and I suddenly became the most environmentally, already a pig, there could ever be.
So that’s the lesson kids! Grow to have a lot of money and then give it to some sort of business that has “green” slapped to it and you will be environmentally conscious!! Good luck!!