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Child 'Climate Cops' a Bit Too Green

British site encourages kids to spy on parents' energy habits

By Lev Weinstein, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 2, 2008 7:30 PM CDT

(Newser) – A new website from British energy company Npower is encouraging children to spy on their parents—to save the environment, Mark Ontkush writes on Treehugger. After completing a series of “missions” on the Climate Cops site, kids are kitted out with the necessities for keeping careful tabs on the energy-consumption habits of local adults, and are encouraged to track the folks' “energy crimes.”

The website is already generating accusations of pint-sized fascism, with its encouraging of kids to create a “Climate Crime Case File” through their snooping, to “report back to your family to make sure they don't commit those crimes again (or else)!” Infractions range from the somewhat-reasonable leaving the tap running to the befuddling keeping hot food in the fridge.

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ClimateCops.com (ClimateCops.com)

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Barring the patently nonsensical suggested actions, the terrifically-horrible part is the implied moral lessons from this type of thing. - Mark Ontkush

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Child 'Climate Cops' a Bit Too Green