Carbon Cops
Carbon Cops is a new show on the ABC at 8pm on Tuesdays. I thought it might be too similar to SBS’s Eco-House Challenge, but it has a different format, more like “Green Eye for the Carbon Guy” than the long-term challenge of the SBS show. The show sends in two “Carbon Cops” to audit a family’s energy use, help them make their house more efficient, then challenge them to cut their carbon emissions by 50%.
This week’s family, the Barries, thought their emissions would be average, or better than average, but found out that they create more than 4 times the emissions from an average Australian family. They switched their lights, made their fans more efficient, used a compost bin instead of the “insinkerator” (what the kids call the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink), walked to school and shopped locally. I thought the father didn’t change much of his lifestyle - I would have liked them to recommend teleconferencing or video-conferencing to him. But maybe his job wouldn’t allow it.
They found they weren’t going to meet their challenge target because of the father’s previous air-travel - but they got around this by using carbon offsets for his travel and car. I’m a little concerned that they just bought their way out of that problem, but it would have been a disappointing show if they hadn’t met their targets! They also switched to GreenPower, which is a great move. At the end of the show little graphs show the reductions of emissions and the money savings.
I thought the show was more serious than Eco-House Challenge, possibly because they don’t show the personalities of the family since there’s a new one each week. If that’s the case, maybe the presenters will grow on the audience. The website is pretty good, with fact-sheets for each episode, a carbon-emissions calculator, a quiz and summaries of each episode.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:04 pm
The CO2 emissions calculator, especially for burning wood in closed or open heaters, does not seem right. Probably should not rely on the calculations.
July 4th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Agreed, Phil - I think it’s the fashion for every green site in Australia to have a carbon calculator these days
so the bosses make the website makers put them up regardless of how accurate they are.