This is how I first heard about the TV show in question. It was circulated on the mclibel mailing-list that I belong to. The web address at the bottom has links to both the show's transcript and critiques. Louis Proyect ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 05 Dec 1997 18:07:43 GMT From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky Subject: Controversy over Furedi cult tv show Furore after UK television programme labels Greens as racist by Mark Lynas 1 December 1997 London, UK Environmental and social campaigners in the UK have reacted furiously to the screening of a television programme which presents them as backward-looking racists who are campaigning to prevent a rise in living standards for people living in developing countries. The programme, called 'Against Nature', was screened on the commercial broadcaster Channel 4 to a prime-time audience. "Characterising environmentalist ideology as unscientific, irrational and anti-humanist, this acerbic and polemical three-part series turns Green ideas on their head," says the blurb for the series. But furore has erupted over the programme-makers' claims that modern-day environmental movements have their roots in Hitler's Nazi party. "The most notorious environmentalists in history were the German Nazis. The Nazis ordered soldiers to plant more trees," reads the 'Against Nature' transcript. However, environmentalists - who are often active in peace-orientated and anti-Nazi struggles - are horrified by this comparison. "It is absurd to say that the present environment movment has its roots in Hitler's Nazism," says Aditi Sharma of the World Development Movement. "The argument is that Hitler was vegetarian and liked planting trees. But he also built the first motorways and constructed a huge industrial base for his war machine." The programme has also been accused of making basic scientific errors. "Scientists also point out that nature produces far more greenhouse gases than we do. When the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted, within just a few hours it had thrown into the atmosphere 30 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide - almost twice as much as all the factories, power plants and cars in the United States do in a whole year. Oceans emit 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, every year," says the transcript. But in fact, say environmentalists, scientists are unlikely to make either of these claims. Sulphur dioxide is not a greenhouse gas - in fact it has a cooling effect on the earth's atmosphere. Similarly, although oceans do release carbon dioxide in large quantities, they actually absorb far more - making them carbon sinks in reality. "This programme was billed as provocative but it is neither provocative, challenging nor even interesting but simply wrong," says leading environmental journalist and author George Monbiot. "It presented confused and unfounded pseudo-scientific arguments, and accepted at face value the claims of corrupt state governments, the World Bank, and compromised scientists sponsored by big business." The programme took India's huge Narmada Dam project as a case study - arguing that Northern campaigners were trying to stop the dam to protect biodiversity and tribal peoples, and that in the process they were denying to thousands of poor Indians their right to clean water and electricity. However, the facts of the case are somewhat different, according to campaigners. "The Narmada dam has been sold as providing clean water, but in fact none of the official plans even mention drinking water - its main purpose is to provide electricity and water for irrigation," says Aditi Sharma. The programme claims that: "Green pressure on the World Bank has led to funding for the Narmada dam being withdrawn. Consequently, work on the dam, which began in the early 60s, has all but stopped." The reality is that while the Narmada Dam has currently been put on hold, this was due to an Indian Supreme Court ruling. The court's decision followed a successful campaign - which included hunger strikes - by the locally-based Save the Narmada movement, in which Northern environmentalists played at most a peripheral role. 'Against Nature' also claims that Western environmentalists are campaigning against industrial development in poor countries. But according to Sharma, "it is the poor, not Western environmentalists who are leading the fight against social and environmental destruction caused by large dams, logging concessions, or the operations of multinational companies." George Monbiot claims that the 'Against Nature' programme is itself racist, because it portrays poor people in the South as victims, and ignores the role that they play in changing their own lives. "In assuming that environmental constraints in the South are solely the result of environmental campaigning in the North, it displayed a dismissive ignorance of the vast peoples' movements in Southern countries that could fairly be said to amount to racism," he says. Environmentalists are now planning to take up the 'Against Nature' case with broadcast standards authorities in the UK. Says George Monbiot: "Channel 4 has a statutory duty of balance, both within its programmes and right across its broadcast output. This is the first series on the environment there has been on Channel 4 for over four years. It was misleading, untruthful and utterly unfair. The channel has spectacularly failed to fulfil its duty on both counts." A Channel 4 spokesperson was not available for comment, when contacted by OneWorld Online directly. However, an 'Against Nature' posting on Channel 4's discussion forum says: "All over the developed world, people are living longer and are better educated and better fed than ever before in the history of humanity. But many environmentalists believe that we are treading the wrong path and that industrial growth and progress are the causes of human misery rather than the solution. They want us to limit economic growth, saying it is unsustainable and ruining the planet." The 'Against Nature' producers continue: "Millions of people in the developing world want higher standards of living. Why shouldn't they have them and who are we to try and say no to their aspirations?" For more information: http://www.oneworld.org/news/reports/dec1_channel4.html Louis Proyect
