Jack Bauer gets a new mission in upcoming season

Details are still sketchy, but certain clues have been leaked about the plotline of the upcoming season of the hit TV series 24. According to the anonymous source:

• The administration of Wayne Palmer and Noah Daniels is out, and the new president is ideologically similar to Al Gore.
• The definition of terrorism has been expanded to include actions by individuals, corporations or other organizations that "unnecessarily" increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
• CTU, naturally, has been tasked with enforcing the new regulations in the Los Angeles area.
• Early-season incidents include hero Jack Bauer kneecapping an SUV driver and interrogating a homeowner who failed to offset his air conditioner usage.
• Midway through the season, Middle East radicals murder all of the students in a biological attack on an elementary school, but because the attackers manage to pull off their operation with a minimal carbon footprint, the incident ends up being left for local law enforcement to handle.
  

I have reason to believe that the information given above may not be entirely credible, but I do know that 24 -- producers, cast, crew -- has enthusiastically joined the CoGW. In a press release on the show's official website, we're told about all of the things that will be done to establish the show's green credentials:

Beginning with production on Season 7, “24” intends to implement the following carbon emission reduction techniques and important initiatives:

• Introducing the use of biodiesel fuels to power generators and production vehicles;
• Running all on-stage production activities on “green power”;
• Rewiring an entire stage to use electric, rather than diesel-generated, power;
• Integrating fuel-saving and low-emission hybrid vehicles into the production fleet;
• Creating a series of PSAs about the issue starring Kiefer Sutherland and key cast members;
• When appropriate, incorporating the issue of global warming and the importance of carbon emission reduction into storylines;
• Accruing enough carbon reduction savings through these and other innovations to render production of the entire final episode officially “carbon neutral.”

How exciting! They'll even pretend to become carbon neutral via the scam of carbon offsets! No telling how they intend to offset the electricity expended by fans watching the show (seems like a bit of a conflict of interest there).

By the way, Kiefer Sutherland has already filmed an AGW public service announcement, and Fox helpfully links to it in the press release. In order to establish a tenuous link between the original premise of the show and the show's new crusade, Sutherland begins:

Global warming is a crime for which we are all guilty.

Get it? Crime? 24 is about criminal activity! Global warming is criminal! Got it. Jack Bauer is the perfect spokesman for the cause, then.

So, maybe the show won't drift as far as the scenario given at the beginning of this post, but given the ideological commitment of everyone involved in the show, I wouldn't be surprised if we see something like this in the near future.

(Thanks to Newsbusters: 1, 2)