Tough times for Hollywood climate change celebrities: The L.A. eco night club has closed

It is tough to be a Hollywood climate change celebrity nowadays. The only real L.A. eco night club, Ecco Ultra Lounge, has gone out of business, in spite of offering "eco-friendly cement, free valet parking for Hybrids, and a solar-paneled roof".

Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Daryal Hannah and the rest now have take their private jets to London in order save the world by partying in the proper environment:

Club4Climate is setting the bar for these future thinking establishments. Located in London, this club starts its message even before a patron passes through the front door. If you walk, take public transportation or bike to the club (and can prove it) your cover charge (normally 10 GBP) is waived. But don’t think you’re getting in that easy. Before anyone can enter they must sign a pledge to be actively eco conscious in all of their future decisions.
Once a club goer has made it through the front doors the real eco nature of the club can be seen; the dance floor. The nightclub floor is suspended on springs that hover centimeters above a set of piezoelectric crystal blocks. When the dance floor is forced down by the dancers it compresses the crystals creating an electrical charge. This charge is sent to batteries that power over 60 percent of the club.

In spite of the long jet flight, the trip to London has its rewards:

When dancers have worked up a sweat they can head over to the bar and refresh with organic drinks in polycarbon cups and then relieve themselves in bathrooms that use recycled water. With this club located on Pentonville Road, there is no reason not to be eco fabulous.

Probably the "recycled water" from the "bathrooms" is also used for the drinks. Ordinary guests could - if they are lucky - in this way enjoy almost the same cocktail that a green celebrity already once enjoyed ...

Hollywood "eco-luminaries" fighting global warming, sponsored by H & M

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Global Green, "an organization dedicated to fighting climate change", has organized its Annual Pre-Oscar Party at Avalon Hollywood. 

According to the paper "celebrities and eco-luminaries" arrived at the party in Chevy Volt electric vehicles, sponsored by the Swedish cheap fashion company H & M. 

H & M  gives us some more information in its press release: 

Last night, Sophia Bush, Emmy Rossum , Orlando Bloom , Miranda Kerr and Helen Hunt were among the guests who joined H&M and Global Green USA to celebrate their partnership and the kickoff of H&M's global garment recycling program at Global Green's 10th annual Pre-Oscar party.  H&M, as a proud sponsor of the event, featured an exclusive H&M Conscious* lounge which highlighted H&M's key sustainability initiatives including their fashionable Conscious clothing collections.  An ivory organic cotton three-piece suit from H&M's Spring 2013 Conscious Exclusive collection was worn by Sophia Bush on the green carpet. 

Here is what "the proud sponsor" chose not to tell the Hollywood "eco-luminaries":

H&M has come under fire after a Swedish broadcast claims the high-street retailer isn’t doing enough to prevent sweatshop-like conditions at a subcontractor’s factory in Cambodia. The television documentary, aired by TV4′s Kalla Fakta (“Cold Facts”) program on Wednesday night, alleges that Cambodian workers producing clothing for the company are paid so little they have to borrow money to buy food. -

The minimum wage for Cambodian garment workers is $61 per month—or 25 percent of what constitutes a living wage in the country, according to the Clean Clothes Campaign, a Netherlands-based labor alliance dedicated to improving working conditions in the global garment industry. The group blames chronic malnutrition, coupled with close quarters, for the near-epidemic of mass faintings occurring across factories in the region.

“Low wages come at a high cost,” says Jeroen Merk, a research coordinator at the Clean Clothes Campaign. “Last year, over 2,400 workers passed out in Cambodian factories due to malnutrition as a direct consequence of low salaries. But H&M, one of Cambodia’s main buyers, continues to refuse to pay a living wage to its workers. This is unacceptable.”

After reading this, one can only hope that the "Conscious Exclusive collection" suit worn by by Sophia Bush was not made in Cambodia, by workers who passed out due to malnutrition! 

As to the "global garment recycling program", one has to hope that H & M does not use the same procedure which they applied in New York a couple of years ago:

On 6 January 2010, it was reported that unsold clothing and other items in one New York City store are cut up before being discarded, presumably to prevent resale or use

PS

The Hollywood Reporter also interviewed Oscar-nominated actress Helen Hunt, who was on the Pre-Oscar Party host committee, about what she has been doing in order to fight global warming:

THR: How can Hollywood help?

Hunt: We can help shine the light on both the climate science and the solutions, including through events like this. I also think we can all take action ourselves where ever possible. I spent last Saturday with my daughter doing a beach clean up with Heal the Bay

Hollywood´s newest global warming propaganda film "Happy Feets Two" flops badly

Happy Feet Two is the flop of the season. Who would like to see a penguin urinating on the camera?

Hollywood seems to have been thinking  that global warming fairy tales are still great money makers during the Christmas season. However, things did not turn out that way. Happy Feet Two, the sequel that "tells how one little penguin rallies his colony trapped by shifting ice due to climate change", has turned out to be the major flop of this Christmas season, a real global warming disaster:

After its first 10 days, the Antarctic-set toon had grossed just $43.8 million -- a little more than the $42 million that the Oscar-winning Happy Feet tap-danced to during its first three days in 2006. Unless business picks up overseas, where it has yet to open in most territories, director George Miller's $135 million production -- Warners split the cost with Village Roadshow -- is headed for the big chill. 

Read the entire article here

And it not only Warners and Village Roadshow that will loose something on this failed production:

Due to the poor performance of "Happy Feet Two," 600 of the 700 employees at the digital production studio behind the animated movie have reportedly received their walking papers.
Employees at Dr. D Studios, which is based in Sydney, have been told they will be laid off in the coming weeks, according to IF.com.au.


Robin Williams, the Hollywood activist, who plays a fat penguin in Happy Feet Two,  has finally revealed why he believes in global warming. If you think it is because of the official IPCC scientific "consensus" or Al Gore, you are wrong:

Robin revealed that he was very impressed by his super hot co-star Sofia Vergara.

Robin told thehothits.com, "The moment she walks in the room, you believe in global warming. It's incredible. It's immediate."

It is of course a pity that audiences will not have a chance to share Mr. Williams´s experience, as Miss Vergara only appears as a voice in the film. Could that be one reason why the film has flopped?

These two reviews give some additional reasons:

Happy Feet Two continues the tradition of Antarctic penguins repetitively crying out horrific noises. Instead of shout-outs to Edgar Allan Poe, however, these penguins cry out dated pop songs. The horror, the horror.
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One thing that continues to pop up in reviews of animated movies in recent years is how little new movies are relying on toilet humor. Apparently, the makers of Happy Feet Two have decided to rectify this situation. Within minutes, there is a scene involving a penguin urinating on the camera. The scene then cuts away to a reaction shot, then cuts right back to more urine! It is absolutely horrible. Admittedly, there is only one more scene involving toilet humor in the movie, but it involves a character’s head being defecated upon by skuas. It is also incredibly horrible.

Read the entire review here

The problem with that, of course, is that "Happy Feet" wasn't all that great in the first place. It was cute, sure, but despite its Best Animated Feature Oscar, it wasn't a huge step forward for the medium. Even worse, it was a self-contained film with no need for a sequel.
That's made exceedingly obvious to anyone seeing "Happy Feet Two," because it's boring, unnecessary and not exciting. What's worse, aside from the stellar animation, the film has absolutely nothing going for it, from its bland plot to its already-dated music.
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"Happy Feet Two" won't be winning many awards; in a just world, it wouldn't win any.

Read the entire review here

Libya is burning - UN´s Ban Ki-moon goes to Hollywood

While Libya is burning and hundreds of brave pro-democracy demonstrators are killed by Gaddafi´s thugs, Ban Ki-moon, the failed UN secretary-general, takes time out in Tinseltown. The UN is clearly desperate about the fact that its global warming flagship project has hit the rocks. The warmists´ last hope is that Hollywood will save the show with some new scare stories.

Now the beleaguered multi-national agency, fresh from a disappointing round of climate negotiations in Cancun, wants something more concrete: actual story lines in movies, television and social media drawing attention to the dangers of global warming.
The push comes at a time when public concern over climate change has plummeted in the polls and Congress has rejected federal legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
“Usually I speak to prime ministers and presidents, but that has its limits” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who arrived in Los Angeles on Monday for a high-profile Tinseltown outreach effort. “Movie producers, directors, actors — they have global reach.”
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The day-long gathering will feature panels titled “The United Nations and Hollywood for a Greener and Better Planet,” “Making Global Warming a HOT Issue” and "Empowering Women and Protecting Children for a Safer World.”
Panelists include such top U.N. brass as the Indian economist Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; a Nobel-prize winning group of scientists; and Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who heads the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and chaired the Cancun talks.
The secretary-general will host a lunch and dinner for several hundred writers, directors and producers andmeet with a handful in private. And he will participate in a "Facebook town hall" with several members of the band Linkin Park, which has used U.N. videos to raise money for Haiti relief efforts.

Read the entire L.A. Times article here.

PS
I note that former railway engineer, Rajendra Pachauri also was in attendance. Maybe he is touting his less than successful smutty romance novel, Return to Almora (laced with steamy sex) for the movie moguls?. Or is Ban proposing a leading role for the Indian in a horror movie?