TV shows ‘should have more plots on climate change’
CLIMATE change should be the focus of more TV shows and drama plots to help save the planet, The British Academy of Film and Television Arts said yesterday.
An analysis of words used in programmes found ‘dogs’, ‘sex’ and ‘Brexit’ used thousands of times more than those related to environmental issues.
‘Climate change’ appeared just 3,125 times – on a par with ‘zombie’, ‘bikini’ and ‘goldfish’. Dogs, however, received 105,245 mentions, Brexit 68,816 and sex 56,307, prompting demands from Bafta that ‘sustainability messages’ be weaved into programmes.
The charity analysed 128,719 non-news programmes across the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky between September 2017 and September 2018.
Of the 25 environmental words tracked by the charity, those which contribute most significantly to a person’s carbon footprint like ‘energy’ received scarcely any airtime.
While ‘drugs’ (48,999), ‘football’ (63,359), ‘ Queen’ (45,501) and Trump (38,825) attracted plenty of mentions, ‘solar power’ was used just 193 times, ‘wind power’ 180 times and ‘clean energy’ just 136 times. Meanwhile, food-related words such as ‘ vegan’ and ‘vegetarian’ appeared around 3,000 times.
The Subtitles to Save The World report claimed that the climate and the environment ‘are not integrated into programming in any meaningful way’.
It added: ‘Climate is largely only mentioned when talking about the environment rather than brought into the conversation of other topics.’
The research comes as Bafta helped to launch Planet Placement – a guide designed to help industry bosses ‘weave sustainability messages’ into programmes on our screens to ‘ help make positive environmental behaviours mainstream’. Bafta chairwoman Dame Pippa Harris said there is a ‘real opportunity to use powerful human stories to connect audiences with the world around them’.
She added: ‘We need to understand the links between climate change and society, and act strategically to ensure we do everything in our power to avert the climate crisis.
‘Though it may seem that our future has been taken from us, history is still being created. It is time to write a different script and share it with the world.’
The academy’s head of industry sustainability, Aaron Matthews, said: ‘We cannot rely solely on the current affairs and natural history programmes, we must think creatively and look for other ways to bring sustainability messages to our screens that are both optimistic and inspirational.’
Lynette Huntley, the chief of staff at Channel 4, said: ‘This fascinating piece of research will help us identify what more we can do to challenge perception and inspire change around sustainability.’