IN HOLLYWOOD, non-consumption is now conspicuous. Celebrities are wearing their new eco-sensibilities on their unbleached organic sleeves. Our own Sting (Gordon Sumner) has been quietly green since founding the Rainforest Foundation in the 1980s — let’s face it, virtually the Jurassic era. The designer Katherine Hamnett has been conscientious for a decade. But other A-listers are coming more noisily to the party.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, wants to convert his diesel Hummer to run on hydrogen. It’ll need a lot of it, but then he is a politician, and they practically run on hot air. Arnie’s not so keen to publicise the five other SUVs that he owns — which perhaps he should terminate in favour of a bicycle.

Meanwhile, the likes of Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Scarlett Johansson, Salma Hayek and Orlando Bloom are parading their Toyota Prius hybrids as proudly as last year’s celebrity mothers paraded their newborn babies.

Charlize Theron even turned up to the Emmys in her hybrid motor last year. The Prius has become such a status symbol that it costs more to buy second-hand than new in parts of California: stars don’t like being on a waiting list.

And the days of the stretch limo could be numbered. The new name on every PR’s lip is the “Ozo Car” (as in “get me the juice bar, the facial spray, and the Ozo”). This is the “limo that says you care” — a hybrid Toyota with an Apple iBook in the back, chauffered by out-of-work musicians who are so much cooler than Parker.

Let’s just hope that they don’t turn the air conditioning up to preserve their perfect hair-dos in a sweltering American summer: otherwise the coolest new car will still be heating up the planet.

Ps

Talking of high-maintenance celebs, someone should tell Bono’s adoring fans that the vocal eco-warrior once had his favourite trilby hat flown (first class of course) and taken by taxi to his hotel in Italy, for a concert. That gives a new meaning to the U2 song, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own, which won song of the year at last week’s Grammys Awards.

But hats off to K. T. Tunstall, who is to make all her albums carbon neutral after supporting enough forestry to offset the CO2 emissions resulting from her debut album, Eye to the Telescope, which has sold over half a million copies.

“When they’re big I shall hug them,” she says of the newly planted trees. The girl who made models with empty washing up bottles and toilet rolls as a child claims that “the worst thing I’ve done to the environment is to wee in the sea”.

K. T., you’re forgiven.

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