Red flag over green goal
YOU may be surprised to hear this but I’m actually quite green. In the environmental sense, I mean.Among many examples I could list, but which might make you want to slap me for being smug, I recycle stuff like crazy. But I guess you’ll already know that from reading this column each day and admiring how responsibly I recycle the same six jokes.
However, do you know the nicest thing about having ecologically friendly-ish habits?
It’s that I don’t feel so guilty when I shout at shows like SHOP WELL FOR THE PLANET? (BBC1, 8pm), a new thing where Chris Bavin and chums are showing families how to lead greener lives.
From what I can see, the only prerequisites for a family to feature on this show are (a) a real desire to become more ecologically aware, and (b) to be far too nice to answer back when someone from the BBC turns up at your house and starts telling you what to do.
This first family, from Essex, who firmly tick both those boxes, are shown all sorts of ways they could go greener, from doing the laundry less wastefully to switching to eco loo roll.
Fair enough. But what’s so frustrating is that no one questions the long-term viability of these alternatives.
Week in, week out, will mum Alison really continue painstakingly concocting her own household cleansing products, the way they get her doing here?
Will the mineral washing pellets, which certainly work well on their first use, still be working well on their 70th? That’s how many washes you’re expected to get from them.
And how effectively will the alternative teeth-cleaning products actually clean their teeth?Worth asking, surely.
Most annoying, however, is when the talk turns to cars.Alison’s 14-year-old diesel coupe is clearly not ideal. So she’s given an electric car to try.And, great, she loves it.
But hold on. Is anyone going to ask how much it would cost her to buy this thing?
Eventually, yes, Chris gets to that. Sort of.
“For the same amount you paid for your current car,” he tells her, “you could buy a four- or five-yearold version of this car.”
Right, so still no mention of the actual sum of money. But Alison’s coupé, if new in 2007, would have cost at least £16,000. Does she have a spare £16,000 right now? And for an electric car whose battery is nearly halfway through its life?
The snag with shows like this is that, in their eagerness to embrace an admirable ideal, they gloss over too many of the everyday obstacles.
Ignoring those won’t make them go away. But facing up to them would at least be a start.