THE CARBON WAR

156
The Winning of The Carbon War
fuels. It depicts an oil barrel as a young woman, complete with pink hair ribbon,
lipstick and red high-heeled red shoes, who has a boyfriend who has made the
mistake of dumping her. She finds a splendid new boyfriend. The ill-advised
one freezes in the dark, absent the oil barrel in his life.
Is this seriously the best they can do?
A group of young women in the UK Youth Climate Coalition decide to
put together an immediate response. In its devastatingly understated humour
it immediately strikes me as a perfect illustration of how the communications
battle is likely to play out as the carbon war enters its endgame.
A series of young women speak direct to camera.
“My ex was a fossil fuel”, admits the first. She and others then explain why
they have dumped their fossil fuels.
“One day he was up, the next down. So volatile.”
“He didn’t exactly scream long term to me.”
“Before I knew it, there would be some new disaster that he would never
take any responsibility for.”
“He said he was going to clean up his act, but it was a total lie.”
“Whilst it might make life quite convenient” (this one is washing dishes
as she speaks reflectively to camera), “and he might go on about how I could
never live without him, actually” – she pauses for effect – “there are plenty of
alternatives.”
And that is how I close my LSE talk, on that killer sentence, from a splendid
young amateur actress, campaigning for climate action.
There are plenty of alternatives.
London, 5 th March 2015
In the headquarters of the BBC, I sit talking with veteran environment correspondent,
Roger Harrabin. I am accompanied by my Solarcentury colleagues
Frans van den Heuvel and Sarah Allison. We want to explore with Roger whether
there are ways that solar energy can be better covered on television.
Hundreds of journalists and producers sit at long tables in an open-plan
hall, staring at screens and tapping at keyboards. There are other floors just
like this, visible through the glass that the whole building seems to be made
of. All the BBC’s many outlets are based here: television and radio, national
and international.