Are You a "Planet Slayer?"

Answer this delightful online kids quiz from the Australian Broadcast Corporation to find out at what age you should "die" for emitting more than your share of greenhouse gases. 

Direct your children here to play.  

Disclosure: For the sake of the planet, I was evidently supposed to be dead by age 15 months.  

Comments

[J]

....

[Darth Aresen]

Death Star in Range in 7 minutes.

[Jozef]

I should die at age 3.2... I was hoping it would award me the "Planet Slayer" title; that would be soooo cool....

[Naga Sadow]

Darth Aresen,

Just use your Sith powers to make the sun go super nova. Saves on Death Star fuel.

[Reinmoose]

That's so f'ed.
I beat a lot of ya'll
11.4 years old I should have been executed

[No Name Guy]

WTF? They don't count "nuclear" as a renewable source of home power?

[Zeb]

"Planet Slayer" should be a heavy metal themed theme park or novelty restaurant.

[Elemenope]

WTF? They don't count "nuclear" as a renewable source of home power?

Well, because it isn't, in any reasonable sense of the word "renewable".

Unless you are privy to a physics-busting super secret way to make more Uranium. In that case we're all fucking ears.

[No Name Guy]

Elemenope, don't we have a ridiculous amount of uranium to the point where it is essentially renewable, if not literally?

I mean, the sun is going to run out eventually, too, but no one says solar isn't renewable.

[TallDave]

Mine said I should have been aborted in the first trimester.

[Naga Sadow]

This is pointless. The benevalent space aliens will provide us with clean, renewable energy any day now. I heard from a guy who knew a guy that had a tape with Bush negotiating with the space aliens.

[Taktix®]

I'm at 4.3 years.

What I don't get is question #10. I was just a bit over average until I got to the money question, which sent me up way high. How the hell does spending money pollute?

I can't even fart anymore without someone calling me a CO2 Pig. This sucks...

[TallDave]

Meanwhile, MASA scientists report global warming and increasing CO2 levels are good for the Earth:

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=569586

The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass - almost 110 million square kilometres - enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.

Why the increase? Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, a gas indispensable to plant life. CO2 is nature's fertilizer, bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients. Plants take the carbon from CO2 to bulk themselves up - carbon is the building block of life - and release the oxygen, which along with the plants, then sustain animal life. As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: "Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century."

That sound you hear is James Hansen driving a bulldozer into Ramakrishna Nemani's office.

[Apaulogist]

Uh, Nuclear is better than renewable.

Ever heard of a "breeder reactor'??

I have one in my sock drawer.

[lunchstealer]

Unless you are privy to a physics-busting super secret way to make more Uranium. In that case we're all fucking ears.

Sure! You just have to have a super-heavy star go through all its hydroge, helium, carbon, etc. Then you have to get said star to blow up, and then just go get all the nice new uranium.

[emmajane]

If there's a sudden epidemic of grade school suicides in Australia, I know why.

[No Name Guy]

According to the calculator, if I walked or biked everywhere, shared a small apartment with four people, never use a car, never fly, spend under $10,000 a year, and make sure whatever electricity I do use comes from solar wind or hydro, I could live forever...in poverty!

[TallDave]

"Planet Slayer" should be a heavy metal themed theme park or novelty restaurant.

Thank you waiter, I'll have the BBQ chicken with South of Hades hot sauce, and the steak Reign in Blood rare.

[lunchstealer]

err - s/hydroge/hydrogen/

For the record, they should be coming to kill me at age 3.5.

Meanwhile, I would like to encourage the ABC to go and fuck themselves with something uncomfortable.

[MP]

BTW, the magic number is 2.3 tonnes of CO2. At that number, you're free to live forever! At 2.4, they shoot you at 96.2 years old.

[Citizen Nothing]

"A sudden epidemic of grade school suicides."
If the Web site is to be believed, that really would be the best ending possible.
Or maybe all the Aussie kids should raft over to work in Indonesian sweatshops. That would be a less radical way to drastically reduce their carbon footprint (while ensuring the rest of us a steady supply of cheap Nikes).

[Taktix®]

In Soviet Russia, carbon pollutes you!

[SugarFree]

1.4, depending on what average means.

And whatever the fuck a "kilometer" is.

[Kwix]

Taktix,
According to Professor Whazzisname from the site,
every Aussie Dollar you spend generates 1.6kg of CO2 somewhere in the product's supply chain, and that accounts for 80% of your personal CO2 emissions. What this means is, Aussies should be purchasing cheaper, less efficient cars to save the planet.

Lucky for me, I use greenbacks so I don't have to worry about it.

[Steve Verdon]

I should have died at 2.3 years of age. Of course, I live in an area that has a high standard of living. Not that I expect the "scientists" behind this farce to understand this.

Oh and nevermind the double counting of stuff.

[Joel]

Is this a fucking joke? That pig exploded! Messily! They want kids to take this thing?

BTW, I should have died @ 25.1 yrs. Neener Neener. The test seems to like it when you live off-grid and recycle.

Gonna go retroactively kill myself now, bye. Guess I shouldn't have told them about the car.

[Colin]

Funny, I got 19.9 years -- and I wouldn't consider myself remotely green.

[No Name Guy]

I have a feeling if we discovered cold fusion tomorrow, they'd find a way to make it non-"green".

[Nigel Watt]

WTF

[Reinmoose]

According to the calculator, if I walked or biked everywhere, shared a small apartment with four people, never use a car, never fly, spend under $10,000 a year, and make sure whatever electricity I do use comes from solar wind or hydro, I could live forever...in poverty!

Except the catch is that if everyone did this there'd be no such thing as solar, wind or hydro electricity

[SugarFree]

There's nothing "anti-human" about telling little kids they should have died in infancy, nothing at all.

Anyone watch this little PBS porno? If Greens had the courage of their convictions they fucking kill themselves. Instead they hang around like a fart in an elevator, people who find no joy in life desperate to make sure you don't as well.

[Episiarch]

"Planet Slayer" should be a heavy metal themed theme park or novelty restaurant.

Or a chain of restaurants owned by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King.

[Joel]

I took it again out of morbid curiosity and gave all the "right" answers. The key to eternal life, it seems, is those "ethical investments." The earth loves ethical investments.

[Taktix®]

Kwix,

Sorry, I must have forgotten to ask the McGruff wannabe what the "science" was.

Isn't it funny that propagandists use round numbers when they makeup their bullshit statistics? Exactly 80%, huh?

Science my ass...

[Michael Pack]

I scored 3.6.If it would have included my wood stove and cigars I'm sure it would be in the minus bracket.

[Taktix®]

Anyone watch this little PBS porno?

It was on the history channel, and I think the idea was to emphasize just how much we maintain our society on a day to day basis, and how quickly it would vanish. Neat visuals too.

A lot of people seemed to take that show as a fantasy about wiping out people, but I didn't see it that way...

[Team America]

Missing Question:

"Are you a serial killer?"

Subtract the carbon footprint of the average person multiplied by the number of people you bumped off.

"Save the planet. Start a thermonuclear war!"

[TheOtherOne]

What got me is that it says I should have died at 8. Um, excuse me, but at age 8 I would have scored *much* greener on your little test. (Mostly walking, more people in the house, solar power, not much meat, etc.) I only started using "more than my share" of resources (as best I can figure by their questions) about 10 years ago.

Did they factor THAT in to your calculations? Even with a "well, sure, but you've used more than your share for the last decade", what's their magic year/age for me now?

And seriously, how did they decide what was "fair" or appropriate?

[T]

I took it again out of morbid curiosity and gave all the "right" answers. The key to eternal life, it seems, is those "ethical investments." The earth loves ethical investments.

Yeah, I can counteract the extra 60 or so tons I get from my spending by spending it ethically. As if that's gonna happen. I used up my share of the planet at age 3.1 apparently. So I've used up more than 10 times my share by now. 10 of you will have to forgo your share of the planet. Off to Mars with you, deadbeats!

[Taktix®]

How come my share never has any raisins?

I always get the crappy share!

[Reinmoose]

Did anyone else go poking around the rest of the site and check out "This is your Lifestyle?" It was affectionately subtitled "see how much you suck"

[MP]

Except the catch is that if everyone did this there'd be no such thing as solar, wind or hydro electricity

Just remember, there was no anthropomorphic warming during the rise of hunter gatherer societies. That's thus clearly the optimal state for humanity.

[J sub D]

What a crock of excrement. I live a goddam low energy lifestyle and I only made to age 9. Retards wrote this program.

[Brian24]

I should have been dead at 18 months! Awesome.

Anybody care to explain why the test says that taking a taxi is greener than taking the bus or train, which is greener than walking or biking (!?)

[Naga Sadow]

More than my fair share? My fair share is whatever I can afford. Period!!!

[MP]

Did anyone else go poking around the rest of the site and check out "This is your Lifestyle?" It was affectionately subtitled "see how much you suck"

Oh man that's awesome. Did you see the part where the hot blonde says "Silly Greena, sweatshops are just gyms for the poor!". Awesome.

[SugarFree]

Taktix?,

But it was made to capitalize on the success of The World Without Us which the author admits started out as an environmentalist daydream, so reading a bit of that into it is not a crazy notion.

Good catch on History Channel though, it just seemed like PBS...

[Warren]

A rehash of what Lomborg calls "the litany". The "you should be dead before you were potty trained" aspect is beyond stupid.

[Paulidan]

Renewable energy makes no sense at all.

Basically we are to sacrifice the use of a scarce resource for a non scarce resource because we might run out of the scarce one.

This is nonsense because if the renewable one does exist we could just burn the scarce one first and then the renewable one.

But instead of doing that utility maximization we are instead supposed to set aside the scarce resource, don hair shirts, and flog ourselves for the rest of time for even thinking of taking utility from scarcity.

And your #$%#$ life is nonrenewable. Someday your body will run out of whatever it runs on and you will die and everything you are and have done on this earth will be nothing.

So use it while you have it.

[J sub D]

Y' know, a whole buch of Muslims are going to be offended because of the whole pig thingee/analogy used here. The Australian Broadcast Corporation better start battening down the hatches for the approaching Islamic shitstorm.

😉

[Paulidan]

Apologies, one more thing:

The sun is not renewable because the sun will die.

Hydroelectric is not renewable because all the water will disappear when the sun dies.

Wind is not renewable because the earth will be destroyed and there will be no more surface to blow on.

[Warren]

I especially like the "Spending money is bad, er unless you're, you know, giving it to us, because that's the bestest thing anyone could ever do."

[Taktix®]

Y' know, a whole buch of Muslims are going to be offended because of the whole pig thingee/analogy used here. The Australian Broadcast Corporation better start battening down the hatches for the approaching Islamic shitstorm.

Yeah, I don't imagine PETA would approve of the public execution of a pig either.

[Warren]

Paulidan,
"Renewable energy" is horseshit. There's no such thing. The second law of thermal dynamics forbids it. If energy could be "renewed" practically all we know about the laws of nature would have to be abandoned.

[Dread]

Meanwhile, I would like to encourage the ABC to go and fuck themselves with something uncomfortable.

I'd like to suggest the exhaust pipe of a running 18 wheeler.

Either that, or if they'd like to eliminate their own carbon emissions, they can use a lit stick of TNT as a dildo.

[Jamie Kelly]

Jesus, I made it to 23.5.
I answered honestly. I throw my newspapers away. I toss my aluminum cans. I drive to the 7-11 two blocks away. I toss cigarette butts out the window. I kick bunnies. I rape goats. I use 50 squares of asswipe per sitting. I have a Sting voodoo doll that I torture with a Bic.
What the fuck?

[MP]

"Renewable energy" is horseshit. There's no such thing. The second law of thermal dynamics forbids it.

What are your preferred labels for differentiating between usage of old carbon stores vs. everything else? I think "Renewable energy" captures this differentiation nicely.

[SugarFree]

Jamie Kelly,

I'm about the same way. My pig only got close to exploding when I answered the "spending" question.

[grylliade]

Elemenope, don't we have a ridiculous amount of uranium to the point where it is essentially renewable, if not literally?

Not really. Without breeder reactors, our uranium reserves are only good for 17,000 EJ of energy (compared to 290,000 EJ of coal, 18,000 EJ of oil, and 16,000 EJ of natural gas). Breeder reactors bring that up to 1,000,000 EJ, though.

Assuming a person in a developed country uses ~10 kW of power (US usage is ~11 kW), the world would need ~5 EJ a day if everyone were living at US standards of living using present technology. Proven uranium reserves would only be good for about a year at present usage; likely reserves would last ~10 years. Using breeder reactors and fuel reprocessing brings that up to ~550 years, essentially renewable. But given that there are only two breeder reactors operating at present, you can't really describe nuclear power as renewable just yet.

As a side note, fusion reserves are ~18 billion EJ for Li-D fusion, or around 1,000 trillion EJ for D-D fusion. 🙂

[Jamie Kelly]

there will be no more surface to blow on.

hehehehehehehehehe... hehehe ...
/butthead laugh

[Dread]

You need to make and spend more money.

Apparently Gaia only loves you if you're dirt poor, naked, and foraging for food in bushes.

[Reinmoose]

So appaprently if you pay a higher rent because you live in an area where you can walk/bike to work instead of having to use your car, you should die sooner.

[Warren]

What are your preferred labels for differentiating between usage of old carbon stores vs. everything else?

If you want to talk about CO2 then talk about CO2, pretending that there's a difference between the CO2 released from burning oil and the CO2 released from burning food is bullshit.

"Renewable" is a humbug word.

[Nigel Watt]

If you want to talk about CO2 then talk about CO2, pretending that there's a difference between the CO2 released from burning oil and the CO2 released from burning food is bullshit.

Wrong. CO2 released from burning food is balanced out by CO2 taken back up in the spring when new food is grown. CO2 released from burning of fossil fuels has no such short-term balance.

[David]

I should have died at 3.4 years - mostly (it seems) because of the spending thing as well.
Another child-indoctrination/scare tactic that I have to keep an eye out for...

[TallDave]

The earth loves ethical investments.

So does Al Gore. He's a big investor in lots of these green companies that will go bankrupt if global warming doesn't pan out as a political issue.

It's nice to know making sure Al can maintain several mansion and fly in a private jet is the priority here.

[Warty]

I really wish Iwe could post pictures on this blog. GOD LISTENS...to Slayer!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theremina/200692550/

[TallDave]

Without breeder reactors, our uranium reserves are only good for 17,000 EJ of energy (compared to 290,000 EJ of coal, 18,000 EJ of oil, and 16,000 EJ of natural gas). Breeder reactors bring that up to 1,000,000 EJ, though.

Don't forget thorium! Lots more energy there.

There is probably more energy available for use from thorium in the minerals of the earth's crust than from both uranium and fossil fuels

http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/90.html

And it tends to be found in liberal democracies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

[Francisco Torres]

I could live forever...in poverty!

That is the point -- that you must live in abject poverty in order to be "Green".

Environmentalism is an ascetic religion, do not forget that - it asks people to make vows of poverty, chastity (to control population, of course) and to make "good works", like recycling, using like zero resources, eating only vegetables that do not scream in pain, wear organic clothes, et cetera.

What? You did not think it is a religion?

[TallDave]

As a side note, fusion reserves are ~18 billion EJ for Li-D fusion, or around 1,000 trillion EJ for D-D fusion. 🙂

p-B11 (proton - boron-11) fusion is where it's at. No neutrons, and you can run the three alphas it produces into a plate and generate DC current directly without a thermal cycle! That could cut energy costs by 90%.

Bussard's Polywell fusion design looks to be the most promising route to p-b11 at this point.

http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/index.php

[Warren]

CO2 released from burning food is balanced out by CO2 taken back up in the spring when new food is grown. CO2 released from burning of fossil fuels has no such short-term balance.

For this to be true, you have to believe the burning a gallon of oil paves over an acre of land preventing it from "taking back" the CO2.

Green dogma is complete horseshit. Any grade schooler should be able to spot the fallacies. Yet most of their crap is swallowed whole

It's enough to drive one to drink. Now that is a perfectly legitimate use for alcohol.

[TallDave]

For this to be true, you have to believe the burning a gallon of oil paves over an acre of land preventing it from "taking back" the CO2.

I think the argument is more that the carbon in food/biofuels comes from carbon recently pulled out of the air, while the carbon from oil was buried millions of years ago.

[Rimfax]

Elemenope, don't we have a ridiculous amount of uranium to the point where it is essentially renewable, if not literally?

Consider that a natural nuclear reaction produced 100 kW of power for hundreds of thousands of years and the ratio of fissionable uranium235 to unranium238 dropped by less than half. This occurred in one uranium deposit in Gabon. So, at least 4 terawatt hours (14.4 exajoules) from one uranium deposit and that's only counting the raw uranium235.

[WLC]

I should have died at 14.5. I guess I owe them 24 years (bwahahahaha! Fuck that)

[Nigel Watt]

For this to be true, you have to believe the burning a gallon of oil paves over an acre of land preventing it from "taking back" the CO2.

Um, no.

[Dave B.]

I think the argument is more that the carbon in food/biofuels comes from carbon recently pulled out of the air, while the carbon from oil was buried millions of years ago.

I thought the argument was that the carbon in food/biofuels is pulled back out of the air to create more food/biofuels, and carbon burned from oil does not go right back into the ground to become more oil. When you create new carbon sources, it doesn't matter if they get consumed by plants, because those plants would otherwise be absorbing carbon from other dead plants. There's a net increase that you don't see with food and biofuels.

[Nigel Watt]

I thought the argument was that the carbon in food/biofuels is pulled back out of the air to create more food/biofuels, and carbon burned from oil does not go right back into the ground to become more oil. When you create new carbon sources, it doesn't matter if they get consumed by plants, because those plants would otherwise be absorbing carbon from other dead plants. There's a net increase that you don't see with food and biofuels.

Yeah, that's what I was saying.

[Rimfax]

14.4 exajoules is about 360 gigaliters (95.1 billion gallons or 3 billion barrels) of oil.

[Rimfax]

There was a recent Wired article arguing that we should be landfilling old growth trees in order to efficiently sequester carbon. I'm skeptical, but it was an interesting argument involving the amount of carbon that a tree consumes at different stages of its life.

[Alex, Slayer of Planets]

Looks like they missed their chance to execute me at 4.6 years old. Now nothing can stop me from killing Gaia! Hahahahaha!

[lemuel]

Wow, I am allowed to live until I am 28,5.

3 more years to go.

Fuck, I must be really poor!

[M2]

It says I can Live forever! Thank G-d for the bus!

[JW]

2.3 years. What's that? About 7% of Logan's Run?

What I love is that I was so-so until I got to the spending part. The pig inlfated like the Hunderberg and then KA-BLAM!!

Who run Bartertown?

[JW]

erm...Hindenburg

[SF Math Nerd]

2.3 years. What's that? About 7% of Logan's Run?

10.95% of the book, 7.66% of the movie

[mediageek]

This seems appropriate.

[Rhywun]

I got stuck on question 10 - "How much money do you spend all up each year?"

What the hell does that mean? How much do I spend? And don't tell me that average Aussie only spends $10,000 a year. I put my figure in and the pig almost blew up.

Stupid.

[Furio]

Stupida fucking game.

[John C Jackson]

i'm a planeteer
you can be one too
saving our planet
is the thing to do

[TallDave]

Mine said I should have been aborted in the first trimester.

Oops, no I misread that. It said my grandparents should have beeb aborted in their first trimester.

[joshua corning]

Galactus has a cousin!!

[joshua corning]

I have a feeling if we discovered cold fusion tomorrow, they'd find a way to make it non-"green".

We passed an initiative in Washington state to make Hydro non-"green". The PUDs now have to make a certain amount of electricity using either solar or wind to complement our non-"green" hyrdo power.

Seriously at least 51% of the voters in my state are fucked in the head.

[Paul]

This is almost too rich for words. We (humanity) are pigs. I was sent to the slaughterhouse by our sloganized tee-shirt wearers at age 3.5.

I like how they assume that 'organic' food is better for the environment.

It's stunning how fast we went from this to this.

Prices of biodiesel have almost doubled to about $6 per gallon, and many experts blame biofuel production for driving up food prices worldwide. Prominent scientists have questioned whether growing crops for biofuels produces more greenhouse gases than it prevents.

Now Metro Transit, the region's largest consumer of biodiesel, is "taking an indefinite pause" in buying the renewable fuel, said general manager Kevin Desmond.

"We're taking a hard look at it in terms of both its price and the science," he said.

[Ska]

Stupida fucking game.

Best> Sopranos. Line. Ever.

Thank you, this thread finally came to fruition.

[GILMORE]

I lied to the tune of 'greener than i really am'

I still died at three.

Anyone notice that the #1 'indicator' of anti-green-ness was how much money you spent overall? I has a skinny pig until i put in my expenditures (i live in NYC! Christ, my rent makes me a planet slayer alone! My bar tab makes me Gozar the Destroyer.)

[Josh]

Based on that bullshit site, they should have plugged me at 3.3 years of age. The irony of it is that I don't really live an "extravagant" lifestyle. At least I am still doing my part to fuck up the world though.

Speaking of "helping" the world, it is really too bad my gas grill died. I would love to toss an oversized steak on the grill while not thinking about the poor. Then when I have lightly browned my oversized steak, I'll crank up the flames to burn something toxic, pumping that shit into the atmosphere. Of course, it gets hot here, so I'll have to crank up the house's AC on max and leave the windows open. Need to keep cool outside while recreating the fires of hell with the grill.

[R C Dean]

2.1 years. I was a little mystified by "how much do you spend?" Does that include taxes? If not, why not? I like to think my taxes go to such Gaia-stomping uses as buying fuel for an armored division.

[TallDave]

There was a recent Wired article arguing that we should be landfilling old growth trees in order to efficiently sequester carbon.

Wouldn't it be better to make houses and furniture with them?

[tzaraat]

12 years: the secret to survival is being poor, frugal, and somewhat resourceful.
Question 8(recycling): recycling is difficult when neither your city nor any businesses in it offer the service. Maybe my mileage could cancel out when I take my recyclables to the collection center?

Did anyone check out the "Math Behind the Science" for question 5?
"The more people you share with, the less energy costs you'll have, because housemates share cooking, tv, stereo-time, and the occasional bath."

Oh, I see where this is going.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Carbon foot binding!

[Randolph Carter]

Anyone else notice that if you have business travel via car/plane, it jacks up your piggy rating? Why is business travel more hurtful to our beloved Earth Mother? Because it means you're employed?

[Art-P.O.G.]

I *believe* homeless and chronically unemployed people tend to have relatively small carbon footprints, indeed.

[R C Dean]

And what kind of twat counts "ethical investing" as part of your spending, anyway?

[Isaac Bartram]

It sort of makes sense, R C, since with most of the schemes these twats consider "ethical investing" you'll never see your money again.

[DJ Voton]

I was really hoping that, by this time, someone would have written "Ha ha, this is a hoax, like those cellphone popping popcorn videos on YouTube." I mean, the exploding pig..."See how much you suck!"..."You should be dead by age 3.5"...Australians let their kids play with this thing?
On the other hand, Australians apparently think Steve Irwin and his even more bonkers daughter are suitable for children, too.