Global Issues: Environment ~ Channel 4’s What the Green Movement Got Wrong -  Green Fiction?

Last night Channel 4 aired ‘What the Green Movement Got Wrong’. According to the Channel 4 website: “A group of environmentalists across the world believe that, in order to save the planet, humanity must embrace the very science and technology they once so stridently opposed. In this film, these life-long diehard greens advocate radical solutions to climate change, which include GM crops and nuclear energy. They argue that by clinging to an ideology formed more than 40 years ago, the traditional green lobby has failed in its aims and is ultimately harming its own environmental cause. As author and environmentalist Mark Lynas says, ‘Being an environmentalist was part of my identity and most of my friends were environmentalists. We were involved in the whole movement together. It took me years to actually begin to question those core, cherished beliefs. It was so challenging it was almost like going over to the dark side. It was a like a horrible dark secret you couldn’t share with anyone.’”

Clcik here to see it on ‘4OD’

Today’s papers have some critical comment.

In the Guardian, John Crace’s review starts ‘Channel 4 seems to think hippies are in charge of global economic policy. That’s heavy, man!’ While George Monbiot says that Channel 4’s latest anti-environmentalist polemic, What the Green Movement Got Wrong , fits all too easily with corporate thinking. He argues:

Channel 4’s latest anti-environmentalist TV polemic, What the Green Movement Got Wrong, fits all too easily with corporate thinking, writes George Monbiot. The film, which is presented by Stewart Brand and Mark Lynas, airs blatant falsehoods about environmentalists. Brand argues that, by failing to embrace the right technologies, greens have impeded both environmental and social progress. His account is infused with magical thinking, in which technology is expected to solve all political and economic problems. This view, now popular among green business consultants, is sustained by ignoring the issue of power. The real climate challenge is not getting into new technologies but getting out of old ones. This means confronting some of the world’s most powerful forces, a theme with no place in Brand’s story. Technological change is important but it will protect the biosphere only if issues such as economic growth, consumerism and corporate power are tackled.