Crowds from the clouds
NEXT time Sao Paulo has a PR job going in its tourism department, I don’t suggest Chris Packham bothers applying.The Brazilian megacity, home now to 22 million people, is one of the places Chris visits tonight for a BBC documentary, but I’m not sure his description, as he surveys it from a helicopter, is quite what they’d be looking for.
“Look at it,” he sighs, “Just an endless sprawl to the horizon.A bland carpet of concrete blocks, full of millions and millions and millions of people.”
He’s got a valid point, mind you.
It looks grim. But that’s precisely why he’s there, because it provides a startling illustration of the crisis he wants to highlight.
CHRIS PACKHAM: 7.7 BILLION PEOPLE AND COUNTING (BBC2, 9pm) isn’t here just to tell us there are too many people on the planet but to point out that the rate of population growth could have seriously scary consequences in the not-too-distant future.
Sao Paulo, just one of 30 so-called megacities around the world, has seen its population multiply more than five times in Chris’s lifetime alone, to the point where it is now running out of water.
In desperation, some residents have clubbed together and paid to have private wells dug, triggering actual water riots as the less well-off vent their anger.
Chris talks to experts, academics and, of course, the great Sir David Attenborough.And needless to say, the picture they help him paint is not the cheeriest. But he isn’t entirely devoid of hope, particularly if technology can help to meet the mounting demand for food that’s at the heart of this crisis.
Despite admitting: “I don’t hold the human race in terribly high regard, because of the enormous damage it’s done to the natural environment,” he does believe we have it in us to find solutions.
Which brings me to a somewhat jarring point in today’s column, because I’m afraid the most high-profile new programme elsewhere tonight is – oh, great – a food show. Hosted by comedian and actor Jayde Adams, CRAZY
DELICIOUS is half predictable, half bonkers.The predictable bit is that amateur cooks go head to head, overseen by three expert judges.
The bonkers bit is that the actual set is a fairytale garden full of ingredients these cooks can forage, from which they must whip up barmily inventive dishes.
Which explains why Heston Blumenthal is one of the judges.
Oh, and these judges are referred to as Gods – and dressed head-to-foot in white.
Imagine a blend of MasterChef and Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) and you’ll be pretty much spot on.