Our Plastic Sea
Last year scientists on board the Greenpeace’s boat MV Beluga II skirted round Scotland’s coast collecting data on the concentration of plastic and microplastics in the sea. It’s the first and possibly the only such research of its kind. The results are devastating. Almost two-thirds of Scottish waters were found to contain micro-plastic pollution.
Our Plastic Seas from Bella Caledonia on Vimeo.
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Has pollution/littering and its effect on life and ecosystems faded from our UK popular cultural programming, once prominent in television series like Doomwatch and child-friendly series like the Wombles and the Clangers? I found the treatment in modern Doctor Who (like Gridlock, car passengers trapped in a world of fumes) to be somehow more oblique than classic Doctor Who (like the Green Death, evil corporation pumps toxic waste down a mine, nasty things emerge).
For example, I don’t see much British flavour in Wikipedia’s list of environmental movies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_films
Does this go some way to explain the shock impact that the Blue Planet II episode had?
There is also the question of local movie industries in places like Scotland and New Zealand who seem to depend on the appearance of pristine wild environments to provide backdrops for fantasy action. Does this create a conflict of interest?