Does the future look bright?
PICK OF THE DAY KEVIN McCLOUD’S ROUGH GUIDE TO THE FUTURE Channel 4, 9pm
WHILE many of us fear for the future of our planet, Kevin McCloud remains passionately optimistic that technology is going to save humankind.
“No one can predict the future,” he says. “We drive too much, fly far too much, eat too much and shop insatiably, then throw half of it away.
“We’re in a mess,” he adds. “Science and technology aided and abetted this, but I think it can get us out of it.”
In this light-hearted look at the big issues and some fascinating tech solutions, Kevin sends three cynics around the world to investigate.
And there are none so pessimistic as comedians Jon Richardson and Phil Wang and broadcaster Alice Levine.
After facing everything from driverless cars and lab-grown meat to avatar robots, will they come around to his way of thinking?
“I’m certainly not optimistic about the future of the planet because I don’t like people and I don’t trust them to sort the problem out,” says Jon, who heads to America.
Meanwhile Alice is in Japan and worried she’ll be cloned.
And in China, Phil says he knows the planet is in trouble but he doesn’t want to be the one to save it. “I don’t want to go vegan. I don’t want to stop flying,” he says.
As they begin their exploration, Phil eats a fried spider, Alice meets a man who married a hologram and Jon finds out how a chicken named Ian could feed the world.
A thought-provoking and funny insight into an unknown future.