From a Fox News online report:
LOS ANGELES -- Jimmy Kimmel is going bicoastal as a TV talk show host. The host of ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" will fill in for a vacationing Regis Philbin on "Live with Regis and Kelly" in New York while still hosting his namesake show from Los Angeles. During the week of Oct. 22, Kimmel will fly back and forth across the country daily, co-hosting with Kelly Ripa in New York each morning and taping his own show in Los Angeles each night. That's two cross-country flights a day for five days. "I am a little bit insane," Kimmel told The Associated Press. "It will be difficult, but that's how committed I am to entertaining America. And parts of Canada." Kimmel plans to prepare for his nightly show while flying west and hopes to catch some sleep during his overnight flights east. The cross-country element adds spice to the show, he said. "For whatever we lose from not being able to prepare for a long time, I think we'll gain in stories and stunts as it happens," he said. "People can tune in and watch me collapse on air." If there's a good guest on "Live with Regis and Kelly," he said, "I might force them on the plane and make them come back to L.A. with me."
Kimmel is "framing" this stunt as funny--but I could reframe it as just plain excessive use of airlines at a time when we are increasingly concerned about CO2 emissions. Now, I'm no saint on this front: I fly, but when I do at least I buy offset credits. Kimmel, in contrast, signals no awareness that his daily bicoastal jaunts raise any environmental issue at all. On the one hand, I get sick of global warming being debated on the level of personal behavior all the time--what we really need most of all are political solutions. But when it comes to this Kimmel story, I guess I'm not amused....
