ADVERTISED as a ‘unique event for all the family’, a BBC Prom based on Lost Words, a book which aims to revive disappearing words about the natural world, delivered a warning of catastrophic climate change ‘designed to terrify’ the young audience. It began with a recorded message from teenage activist Greta Thunberg: ‘We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction’.
Telegraph reviewer Ivan Hewett accused the broadcaster of ‘blatant politicising of an event aimed at children.’ He added: ‘It’s unfortunate that the supposedly impartial BBC turned a promising event into an opportunity for eco-propaganda.’
Evidently the BBC have no qualms in scaring the living daylights out of children, who as Mr Hewett points out are not mature enough to process this information, with its accompanying angst that, having been born, they are the problem.
Indeed, Ms Thunberg, who is on the autistic spectrum, is the best example of why such propaganda should not be aimed at children. Her condition means that she has trouble absorbing big ideas, such as imminent mass destruction. But rather than being protected from adult concerns, she has been exploited as the poster girl of climate doom.
The BBC are happy for children’s minds to be traumatised even though they would faint at the idea of allowing a child to see a cigarette; no doubt they would be just as wary of fairy stories. Perhaps their next children’s Prom could be Peter and the Wolf, in which the wolf is captured, not killed, showing children how to respect nature even when nature does not respect them. Of course it was written by Prokofiev as propaganda for the Soviet Young Pioneers, to embolden them and increase their loyalty to the Communist collective, and since much ‘green’ propaganda is heavily disguised anti-capitalism, it would be right up the BBC’s street.
