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Young, blessed and couldn’t-care-less: Age of Stupid or stupid age?
photo by Michael Foley Photography (source: Flickr Creative Commons)
Here is an extra clip from Age of Stupid director Franny Armstrong’s The Stupid Show in which young citizens of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates are interviewed about environmental attitudes in their country.
This could easily just be seen as a typical ‘laugh at the rich kids’ bit of reality TV. There is nothing exclusively Emirati about how these young people feel about environmental issues and how they live their lives. After all, Paris Hilton didn’t become an international star and yes, ‘role model’, for nothing. The ‘greed is good’ mantra didn’t die with legwarmers, hair mousse and other 1980s trappings. Give most kids a huge disposable income and they will use it selfishly and to have fun.
Of course, most young people in the world don’t have massive disposable incomes or access to flashy gas-guzzlers, but countless dream of it. Capitalism encourages this while making it possible for a select few in order to keep the dream alive. What’s shown in this video strikes me as nothing more than one version of the American dream being exported to the affluent UAE. Despite the Arabic music I was hearing the Beach Boys singing ‘Fun fun fun till her daddy took the T-bird away’ in my head while watching Dubai’s young and wild joyride on Dubai’s polluted beaches and openly rationalize about their lifestyle like any good rich kid would.
The Stupid Show – Extras – Report from United Arab Emirates
by Zeina Aboul Hosn
For a look at how the UAE matches up with other countries in terms of both per capita and total carbon emissions from fuel consumption, have a look at this informative graph in the Guardian, which is based on figures from the US Energy Information Administration. The UAE tops the per capita emissions list.
Also check out Franny Armstrong and UK energy and climate change minister Ed Miliband’s live blog from the UK election trail.
by Graham Land
Tags: Age of Stupid, Armstrong, Dubai, emissions, environmental, Franny, Kids, rich, Stupid Show, UAE, United Arab Emirates
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There does seem to be an unstoppable force that produces, consumes and destroys everything (including eventually itself). The attitudes of this kid are both caused by it and feed back into it, but they are mostly a side effect of a system that makes a few people rich, which the rest of us have bought into and see no other way but to contribute to for reasons of survival, comfort or in hope of being one of the winners.
Another big issue in my opinion, Graham, is the feeling of empowerment that comes with economical growth. We cannot blame industrializing countries for wanting to move forward, we did it too. BUT I would hope they would learn from our mistakes and do it right from the start. I guess I’m just too much of a green dreamer
You may be right, Priscilla. On the other hand, at least he has some idea about Europe and environmental policy. As far as climate change, he’s right in the sense that it is the big industrialized countries that decide the fate of smaller ones. But his own country is suffering from environmental problems like pollution that are largely the fault of local industry and lifestyle.
The part where the brother says: “We don’t have to do anything for the environment, Europe is doing it…” That’s really what it’s all about. This boy did not image that by himself, that is probably just the major argument grown-ups sprinkle down on the youth there… I find it very scary to be honest.