Charming us to Believe Climate Change

The Independent newspaper, on 17th July 2008, has an article about the new drama from the BBC, called Burn Up, where the oil-industry conspires to cover up the full extent of global warming. It says,

Christopher Hall, the producer of Burn Up, which is going to hit the screens next week, admits that "the question we kept asking ourselves was, 'How do we make a sexy programme about CO2? It's a gas, for goodness' sake!' So we see this piece as a Trojan horse: we rivet viewers with good drama and smuggle the message in that way."

Whitford, who won an Emmy in 2001 for his role as the loyal presidential aide Josh, starts by underlining the importance of sugaring the pill of the eco-message in Burn Up. "If you're dealing with urgent matters, you have to be very careful that the piece works dramatically. Nobody enjoys being served worthy vegetables – 'Eat up your civic greens or you'll feel guilty!'

Penry-Jones chips in: "Viewers don't like being lectured to. That gets very annoying very quickly, and the film-makers come across as do-gooders. Burn Up is a complex drama that respects its audience's intelligence. So much television these days is dumbed down to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

What makes Burn Up intriguing is that it is not mere banner-waving, eco-friendly agitprop. Mack, an almost irredeemably slippery lobbyist for Big Oil, is by far the most seductive figure, a devil who, once again, has all the best tunes. Whitford says: "Mack thinks that if there are any international constraints put on oil production or carbon emissions, then it will interrupt the glorious beauty of the free-market system. So he uses all the charm at his disposal to promote unfettered capitalism."

This is more propaganda. They are using television as a means to shape your mind and get us to believe in their theory of man made global warming.

For some reason it’s the oil companies that are getting the blame. It is as if they are trying to link this to how cigarette companies denied lung cancer was down to smoking.