“The walls will fall”: last night’s calamity on C4
“When humans disappeared, sea levels were already on the rise.” This is not, as you might expect, the tale of house owners retreating from Brighton beach because the English Channel is swelling, caused by man-made climate change. This is a tale of the immediate disappearance of the human race (we’re not told why), and the water levels are rising because there are no longer humans to operate the pumps to clear the metro tunnels of ground water, to monitor and maintain the dams; to keep, to be precise, the dangerous forces of nature in check
Last night’s Channel 4 programme on a world without us, Life Without People, was a calamity for serious consideration of the issues facing the planet. The programme, an American documentary with American settings and predominantly American experts, with scenes of an overgrown New York reminiscent of Will Smith’s recent remake of The Omega Man, I Am Legend, showed us what Life would be like without humankind to stop it from getting out of hand. So what did we do? Read more
