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Good News Week

Aussies Destroy Planet (Good News Week 10/11/08: What’s the Story?)

A new report confirms that Australians have an enormous ecological footprint. But then we do have such enormous ecological feet. / We need to take off our ecological Blundstones and put on our ecological thongs – or just go ecologically barefoot.

Australia is ranked fifth worst in the world in terms of our ecological damage. Come on Aussie – fifth ain’t gold in anyone’s language!

We love a sunburnt country so much – we’re going to burn the entire planet.

According to the study, we’re using up more resources than ever before. Clearly, we’re wasting all our resources inflating all those black balloons. / Those black balloons clearly take a lot of resources to inflate.

According to the study, we’re using up more resources than ever before. Clearly, Aussies are using ‘em while we’ve got ‘em…

Australians might have replaced their light globes, but they’ve all gone and bought plasma-screens.

Those energy-efficient light-globes are so dim, people are just lighting their rooms with the intense glow of their wide-screen plasmas.

Despite the well known resource-inefficiency of plasma-screen TVs, Australians are still using them. At least when the planet is a nothing but a smouldering ball of toxic waste and dead animals, they’ll be able to watch it burn. / watch it in HD.

Might as well change back to those old lightbulbs – it’s clearly not doing any good.

Although we’re on water restrictions, and despite the intensity of our drought, the report says we’re using more water than most other countries. Although, to be fair, when you’re living in a country this hot, you need the odd waterslide.

According to the report, Australians use more water per person, than most other countries. Although that’s skewed because of the amount of water we use on agriculture – if you take that out of the equation, it turns out we’re surviving on a teaspoon a day.

We’re putting up tanks and using our washing-up water to water the garden, but still our country uses more water than most others. Clearly we need to start watering the garden with beer. / showering in beer. / Soon we’ll be down to washing ourselves with our own tears.

Of course, the industries of electricity generation, transport and manufacturing together account for over 75 per cent of Australia’s energy consumption. Turns out those big footprints belong to big business.

Of course, the industries of electricity generation, transport and manufacturing together account for over 75 per cent of Australia’s energy consumption. Makes that compost heap in the backyard seem a bit small and useless, doesn’t it. / Makes that one little solar panel you’ve got seem rather insignificant.

Australians require an average of 7.8 hectares to sustain each person. But Australia’s 700 million hectares, so there’s plenty to go around. / so we should be able to take at least four times that. / so who’s using up all the rest?

Each Australian requires 7.8 hectares to sustain their lifestyle. Can I bags me some Tassie wilderness?

Australians require an average of 7.8 hectares to sustain each person. I’m going to fill mine with wind turbines.

Australians require an average of 7.8 hectares to sustain each person. We really like to stretch out. / Now, I know we’re pretty obese, but that’s still quite a lot.

Each Australian requires 7.8 hectares to sustain their lifestyles. Except for the ferals and the hippies – but they need that many hectares to sustain their marijuana crop. / but they end up using those hectares for growing dope.

Not only are we using up more resources than we can afford to, but we’re destroying biodiversity, with 27 species of mammal and 23 bird species becoming extinct due to introduced species. The most dangerous of all these introduced species, and by far the most widespread, is the white human.

Since European settlement, 27 species of mammal and 23 bird species have become extinct. But on the plus side, we’re kicking goals for cane toads and foxes! / But the feral cats are lovin’ it!

We’re using so much more resources than the world afford, that if we keep it up, by the mid-2030’s, we’ll need 2 entire planets. I bags Saturn! / Hopefully, the inhabitants are friendly. Or weak. / No wonder so much money is poured into rocket science! / Quick! Australia needs a space program! / Already, Murdoch’s laying claim to Venus. / And Rupert Murdoch is going to name that extra planet “Myanus”.

We’re using so much more resources than the world afford, that if we keep it up, by the mid-2030’s, we’ll need 2 entire planets. Which explains Rupert Murdoch’s secret “Death Star” project.

While we have a large ecological footprint, our ecological fingerprint is relatively small. We would have used that, but then the ecological police would be able to track us down.

OK, so we Aussies use a lot of hectares each. But there’s a whole heap of Nullarbor out there that ain’t much use for anything else.

Chinese people only use up 2 hectares worth of resources each. But then there are a billion and a half of them, so it’s probably best we find them another planet anyway.

Australia’s ecological footprint has gone up by over 15 percent in just the last 2 years. But then we’ve had the whole expansion of the green movement to sustain. / But then we did have to blow up all those black balloons.

The report estimates that global demand for resources outstrips global supply by 30 percent. We must be getting the rest from Mars.

The report estimates that global demand for resources outstrips global supply by 30 percent. We’re making up the shortfall with packaging.

At least we Aussies can still look down on four countries: the US, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Denmark. Huh, those Danes, eh? So wasteful! / That’s right folks, we’re all going to die, and it’s all the fault of those wasteful Danes! / Ha! Turns out those Danes aren’t so great after all.

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

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