Janet Daley
London Telegraph
Wednesday, Dec 30th, 2009
We should have known that the BBC would make some
didactic use of its revival of the great horror story,
“Day of the Triffids”. But the public indoctrination
message seems to have got a bit confused.
About half way through the first part (shown on BBC1 at primetime on
Monday night) we learned that the monstrous, flesh-eating giant
plants had, in this incarnation, been deliberately farmed for
their oil – a safe alternative fuel which, as the hero explained
while trying to extricate one his limbs from the grasp
of a rampaging triffid, had “saved us from global
warming”.
I don’t know how this struck you but in my household it
produced an explosion of hilarity and a chorus of, “Should have
taken your chances with the 2 degree temperature rise, mate.”
As I say, I am not at all sure what the real warning of this
salutary tale was intended to be: in the final part, the man
responsible for the Triffid Solution to Climate Change admits that the
hell he has unleashed on the world might not have been such a
great idea. With quite breathtaking understatement, he says,
“There are always unintended consequences to everything we
do.” I’ll say: in this case, the near-extinction of the
human population.
So was this designed to be yet another lesson in climate change
awareness: don’t let things go so far that you have to turn to an
army of man-eating herbs to save you? Or was it a warning against
taking drastic measures against global warming which may have
unpredictable risks?
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