Hengist tells BBC : Put up or shut up

This Blog is now calling for the BBC to withdraw it's absurd documentary "Analysis : are environmentalists bad for the planet?" And asking for the makers to explain why they think that title is apt anyhow.  

"I sent a letter by post to your Glasgow complaints office on 5th February and have not received a reply nor an acknowledgement. So I have decided to send it to you again this time through your internet complaints portal , in a redrafted form.


The title of this documentary “Are environmentalists bad for the planet?” ,already described by Roger Bolton as provocative, is not addressed by the content. The body of the programme does not put forward the case that the title suggests. The programme can be said to make a case that environmental campaigning is poor, and that environmentalism is incompatible with the economy or indeed any politically adopted economic model. But you do not present a case that environmentalists or environmentalism is bad for the planet . Nor is a shred of reasonable evidence presented to show that the planet is harmed by environmentalism.

Indeed I challenge the makers of this programme to justify the title with what is found in the script. This can be viewed as the most serious of my many (mostly unanswered) complaints about this programme not just because the title is seen by more people than will actually listen to the programme and because the oxymoron in the title is defamatory. But also the title clearly suggests that there is such a case, fit for broadcast on the BBC, and then deceptively puts forward other arguments ,that I might add, would be dismissed by any cadre concerned by the title . That last sentence should also be considered in any complaint about the programme's impartiality.


In my letter that seems to have gone astray I asked for the BBC to broadcast a counter point of view. I now realise that is impossible and I am asking for the BBC to accept that this programme should not have been aired. Bearing in mind that the BBC has been unable to keep up with the correspondence I hope you will look on that plea favourably."