The writer's strike is over, the Oscars will go on, and of course the celebrities need wheels to get them to the red carpet. General Motors is obliging with a fleet of "fuel-friendly" vehicles, including gasoline-electric hybrids, fuel cell vehicles and those that can run on ethanol, when it can be found.
Celebrities love hybrids as much as they love winning Oscars. They arrive at events in Priuses, they pay cubic dollars for electric sportscars, and a few of them are even driving BMW Hydrogen 7 cars around California. They're greener than Kermit, and admittedly, a celebrity in a Prius is probably chewing up fewer resources overall than a celebrity in a Hummer H2.
But have you seen their houses?
Have a look sometime, when Vanity Fair or Entertainment Tonight gets a camera inside the gates. The average big-name movie star drives that Prius home to a 10,000-square-foot climate-controlled house, with a pool, and with acres of irrigated grass and gardens, many of them in the desert.
I drive a full-size, eight-cylinder truck. But my house is about 900 square feet. I have no air conditioning, I don't water my lawn, I don't use pesticides, I compost every scrap of even faintly organic material right in my back yard, I get my water out of a well and I don't have a pool.
No, I don't own a hybrid.
But I think that in the grand scheme of things, we're just about even.
