While many people probably assume that Hollywood is a magical, environmentally friendly Utopia where actors pull up to the fully biodegradable green carpets at their movie premieres in vehicles specially retrofitted to produce all-rainbow emissions, a UCLA study has found that the entertainment industry trails only petroleum manufacturing in terms of disgorging unfiltered, New Ice Age-beckoning, Al-Gore-sterilizing evil into the air of 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."

We hope that the industry will be sobered by these findings and take immediate steps to correct their irresponsible ways before we all slowly choke to death on the lung-clogging smog created by a pile of smouldering, freshly crashed Ferraris on a Michael Bay set. The first step, it seems, is throwing some star power at the problem: There would be no better way to raise awareness of the scourge of Hollywood-related pollution than a commercial starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, in which the environmentally responsible stars stand by the side of a lonely road as a smoke-belching production truck rumbles by, with the camera capturing a single, quivering tear slowly rolling down each of their cheeks as the duo witnesses the Teamster behind the wheel ejecting a balled-up Carls Jr. wrapper onto the asphalt by their feet.

• Hollywood smog an inconvenient truth [AP]