Cate Blanchett's 'Do As I Say, Not As I Do' Earth Hour

By Ben-Peter Terpstra

Cate Blanchett is a fine actress in the studio, but her real life performances are less convincing.

I can't believe we attended the same university. Some history:

Cate's statements	Cate's actions
One: "Most Australians realise we simply can't address our drought and water shortages if we don't reduce our spiralling levels of greenhouse pollution."	Cate is happy to promote the so-called beauty industry - and accepts contracts from multinationals. Toxic, animal-tested products, in heavy packaging? Fine. Cate makes easy money.
Two: "We're so in America's back pocket it's embarrassing. We have to claim our individualism, but also reconnect to the world in a better way. We've really isolated ourselves from Asia. I think that's politically and culturally very foolish. The problem with Australia is that it's uranium- and coal-rich, so whoever gets in needs to be really responsible."	Cate supported Australia's "individualism" by supporting the Kyoto treaty. She encourages friendly relations with Asia by dressing up as a male Jewish rock star, which I'm sure Indonesia (the world's largest Muslim country) thoroughly enjoys. More: Our pocket-conscious lady stars in US films and sells Procter and Gamble products.

Hypocrisy lives. More recently, Cate supported Earth Hour, in a propaganda advertisement. The carbon-hungry production, however, is filled with Orwellian lies, hot air and innocent props (read: trained kids). But all I need to know is that it is sponsored by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF).

Here's Christine MacDonald in Green, Inc. (p.72):

One example among many is the bottled water industry. An estimated sixty million plastic bottles a day end up in landfills, where they will linger up to a thousand years before they biodegrade. And that's only the trash problem. The bottles took millions of barrels of crude old to produce, not to mention the impact on the springs that supply the water and the environmental costs involved in shipping it from source to market. Nevertheless, WWF and CI have partnered with bottled water companies. WWF is helping Coca-Cola, which makes Dasani purified water, improve its image by teaming up on conservation projects involving seven freshwater river basins.

And "global warming" sceptics are corporate tools? Where is Cate Blanchett's mirror? Or to quote from Orwell's 1984 in slow motion: "The. Party. Is. Not. Interested. In. The. Overt. Act: The. Thought. Is. All. We. Care. About."