Is movie-making a 'clean industry?'

Kathryn, a reader of this blog, sent in this link to an intriguing AP story. It ran on Yahoo this week:

Study Finds Hollywood Can Be Filthy
Tuesday November 14 5:43 AM ET

Special effects explosions, idling vehicles, teams of workers building monumental sets all of it contributes to Hollywood's newly discovered role as an air polluter, a university study has found.

The film and television industry and associated activities make a larger contribution to air pollution in the five-county Los Angeles region than almost all five other sectors researched, according to a two-year study released Tuesday by the University of California at Los Angeles.

Although Hollywood seems environmentally conscious thanks to celebrities who lend their names to various causes, the industry created more pollution than individually produced by aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels and semiconductor manufacturing, the study found.

Only petroleum manufacturing belched more emissions.

"People talk of 'the industry,' but we don't think of them as an industry," said Mary Nichols, who heads the school's Institute of the Environment, which released what researchers called a "snapshot" of industry pollution. "We think of the creative side, the movie, the people, the actors we don't think of what it takes to produce the product."

To read the full story, click here.

Photo: Val Horvath/The Times. Not for republication.