Climate Change as entertainment?

After Dodington Parish Council showed Al Gore's climate change film "An Inconvenient Truth" locally, we asked Steve Webb to try to get it shown on network television. He's received a reply from the BBC's Deputy Director-General as follows:

"While I am sorry to disappoint Councillor Hulbert and his colleagues on the Council, I must report that at the moment the BBC has no plans to broadcast this film. I understand however that it is considered likely that it will indeed receive an airing on national television in due course"

We suspect this means that someone like Channel 4 got in first.

However according to the newspapers the BBC is planning a big show provisionally entitled "Planet Relief" for January 2008, maybe with Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross. Instead of asking for donations, the idea is to get people to switch off all unwanted gadgets. The floodlighting on major landmarks will also be switched off. They hope to be able to switch off a major power station with the electricity saved.

There has been criticism that this is not the sort of activity that the BBC should be involved in. The editor of the BBC's own Newsnight programme, Peter Barron said it was "not the corporation's job to save the planet" ( Daily Mail, 27 August )

But isn't this one reason why we have public broadcasters? To "inform, educate and entertain", as their mission statement says?

Anyway, if this sort of show isn't to your taste, you could still join in - switch off the TV instead and save a bit more energy!

P.S. It must be better than yesterday evening. At midnight BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 were all showing films at the same time - not a scrap of original programming on terrestrial TV.

Start local and save the world?

Paul Hulbert and Mike Gregory at Abbotswood
with energy saving light bulbs

Dodington Parish Council has arranged a FREE showing of Al Gore’s film about global warming “An Inconvenient Truth” at St Nicholas Church, Abbotswood, Yate on Saturday 12 May at 7 pm.

The former Vice-President’s award-winning documentary discusses the global problem of climate change and what we as individuals can do to reduce our impact.

Parish Council chairman Mike Gregory said “The environment is a major theme of our work on Dodington Parish Council. If we each do a little bit to ‘walk more gently upon the earth’ we may be able to avoid the consequences of global warming”

Cllr Paul Hulbert, chairman of the council’s Environment Committee, commented “The keys to this issue are local action and raising awareness. The next generation won’t thank us if we just ignore this major problem. We have to do something now to tackle it. We hope to see lots of local people at St Nick’s to start the ball rolling”.

There will also be information available on the night on ways to reduce carbon emissions and become more energy efficient, including an opportunity for people to pledge to take action.

The film is being shown thanks to support from St Nicholas Church, the Thornbury Picture House and South Gloucestershire Council. Tickets are limited, so people are asked to ring Dodington Parish Council on 01454 866546 to make sure of getting seats.