A Modest Proposal

(See My Weekly Wisdom Column of April 25, 2009 – Go Green!)

Okay, you’ve finally convinced me that global warming really does exist. We really do need to do everything we can to conserve energy and develop new green technology to save Mother Earth.

I am going to propose some radical steps that we should have taken long ago. I don’t have any hard facts to back up the energy waste, or in this case, the savings. However, I have seen some of the statistics that others use to justify the use of the new CFC light bulbs. I have read that we waste huge amounts of energy and spew tons and tons of carbon into our atmosphere merely by leaving our computers and television sets running 24/7—albeit in “sleep” mode.

Now I have thought of two other wastes of power with the attendant spillage of carbon into our fragile environment. Here they are.

First, we have to stop broadcasting late night TV. Shows like The Tonight Show, Late Night with whoever replaced Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel Live. And all those hardcore and softcore pornography films that always seem to be shown late at night have to go. It not only wastes tons of electricity, but it also pollutes our airwaves with a lot of filth.

I suggest that we go back to a format for all stations where they play the National Anthem of whichever country originates the broadcast, and put that wonderfully nostalgic “test pattern” back on immediately after the local nightly news, sports and weather. That stays on for five minutes and then it’s “Nighty-night.”

Just think of all the electricity we would save be limiting broadcasting to 18 hours a day instead of the present 24/7.

Now, if you enjoy the late night shows–and I guess a lot of us do–then I say they put them on earlier in the evening so we can all enjoy them. After all, we all wax nostalgic over the earlier generation of television shows, like “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “Your Show of Shows,” “Texaco Star Theater,” “The Colgate Comedy Hour” and many more. They used the same theme as these modern-day late night shows, and everybody loved them. Let’s get them back!

My second proposal is even better than the first. It not only will save precious fuel, but will also get rid of some pretty obnoxious people and plots. It ties in with the first proposal, too.

We have to give up movies!

Well, maybe not all movies, but how about we stop making “B-grade” films. That would eliminate about ninety percent of the junk that is shown these days. If a film is really good, it could be produced as a DVD or Blue Ray film and sold in stores immediately upon release. The tendency is to do just that about two months after they hit the theaters anyway.

Some of the more controversial movies, horror flicks and chick flicks and other genres, seem to become boring after about an hour, so why not produce them for some of these rogue TV stations that show junk and old reruns now? (Nothing past 11:30 PM though) Producers should be able to limit the length to one hour by editing and cutting out all the crap they currently include.

Taking away the large screen movie theater would not only give us a better class of films, but it would keep all those cars and SUVs and such off the roads at night. Home entertainment is the way of today, so nobody should be forced to drive to a theater and pay exorbitant rates to see a picture.

There is the added benefit of all the gasoline we can save. And there are a lot of second-rate actors that would have to work for a living instead of giving us their poor performances.

Just think! We can actually bring back the “good old days” at the same time we conserve on energy and save the planet by putting my two proposals into effect. We might even change the moral tone of our society too.