3 minute read time.
If reality was a TV series, when is the big reveal going to happen?

If this was a TV series, then the end of the previous season would have ended with the news that Climate Change was confirmed after all, and the closing shot would be all the main characters looking shocked: believers and deniers alike. The next, and final, season would start with the usual TV trick of not addressing the cliff-hanger at all, and instead, would show some flashbacks of the main characters, from which we piece together that there is a smart solution, and that’s what then happens in this season, neatly finishing with a grand resolution. 



Unfortunately, and sorry for the spoiler in the run up to the long-awaited 4th ‘Matrix’ movie, but this is reality, and so there isn’t a neat twist waiting in the wings. Unlike fantasy, actuality has a habit of delivering brutal inevitabilities at huge cost, and history documents it all very well. The historical record carries on regardless, even if we have become so arrogant that we choose to ignore it, right up to the moment when we are wiped out of existence. If there is one thing that is true about TV dramas, it is that they bend things to produce entertainment, and so you should never fall for the illusion that they might be an accurate reflection of what actually happened... 



...or will happen. Knowing that there isn’t a simple, low-cost, effortless, no-repercussions solution waiting to be activated actually gives us a super-power: not the ability to make tough decisions, but the ability to not defer making them. If you think about it, Super-Heroes are often defined, not by their abilities, but by the inherent limits of those powers. Superman is an irresistible force, except when it comes to a few tiny bits of Kryptonite. Good screen-writing always has the pivot in the small details, because it is much easier to hide it there, and there is more surprise value. Interestingly, reality is much the same. 



So, the next season of ‘Reality - the TV series’ has lots of small changes: people eating less meat, a move away from fossil fuels, more recycling, less air travel, less bitcoin mining, and more. The habits of the mddle-classes will change, or be changed, and whilst many of the changes will be unimplementable by the poor and simply ignored by the selfish hyper-rich, the overall effect may start to move us towards a future where it isn’t the cockroaches or dolphins that take over what remains of the planet. 



If this was TV, then every field of endeavour would be looking at what contribution they can make. For the media industry, then one of the major entertainment activities of much of the human beings on the planet should definitely be a target. Recent events have not always been good. Changing from analogue AM and FM radio to DAB digital radio that requires a thousand times more power was not a good start, streaming is just about the worst (and arguably the best) way to distribute data to lots of people, is the move from HD to 4K justifiable, and as for storing data on spinning metal disks... 



And this is exactly what is happening. In the next month, the IET Media Technical Network is running a sustainability online panel, Greeningofstreaming.org is having its first meeting on the same day, and less than a month later, the BBC is running a festival devoted to sustainability in media, and IBC continues to evolve from a frantic event of a few days into an ongoing continuous 24/7/365 activity with broader coverage and increasing awareness of the role of media in a connected world. It looks like it is going to be a fascinating and challenging season! 



Links: 



IET: https://broadcastprojects.ck.page/ac7b882b5a 



GoS: https://www.greeningofstreaming.org/event-details/first-meetup-for-greening-of-streaming 



BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/events/climate-creatives-festival 



IBC: https://www.ibc.org/sustainability/685.subject 



Photo by Rachmaddian Shotz on Unsplash