We’ve just had Energy Saving Day.
Backed by environmental organisations like Greenpeace and energy suppliers such as E.On, E-Day was designed to get people to conserve a bit more energy by doing nothing more than switching off at the mains socket unnecessarily connected electronic devices.
The [National] Grid’s final figures showed national electricity consumption for the 24 hours (from 1800 Wednesday to 1800 Thursday) was 0.1% above the “business-as-usual” projection.
Despite being a member of both Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, I was unaware it was happening. Nobody I know seems to have known it was happening.
Perhaps that’s in part because of the BBC:
The E-Day concept started life as Planet Relief, an awareness-raising BBC TV programme with a significant comedy element. But in September the BBC decided to pull the project, saying viewers preferred factual or documentary programmes about climate change.
The BBC dropped the project because of “poor audiences for Live Earth”, an anodyne and soulless concert at Wembley Stadium last July hoping to emulate Live Aid but instead featuring C-list popsters such as Bloc Party and Paolo Nutini.
So because the BBC failed to “entertain” last summer it decided not to bother to “inform” or “educate” yesterday, despite the current media interest in all matters environmental.
Own goals like this lend validity to the argument against the existence of a licence fee-funded Corporation, particularly when last night’s BBC1 line up included programming as unadventurous as EastEnders and Ashes To Ashes, BBC2 offered only Torchwood and Catherine Tate and BBC3 – daringly forsaking a Two Pints Of Lager repeat – broadcast Freaky Eaters and another helping of EastEnders.
It’s a particularly sorry state of affairs when the Daily Mail, of all publications, has led on the environment for three consecutive days this week, today carries an article on the environment from the Prime Minister and is taking the credit for Marks & Spencer’s decision to charge a token amount for carrier bags in its food outlets.
In the immortal words of The Go-Gos: “Has the whole world lost its head or is it just me?”