Get them while they're young

The longest running children's TV show in Britain has decided to change its name for the day as part of BBC TV's 'Climate Chaos' season. Blue Peter - which is almost as much of a national institution as the BBC itself - will be called Green Peter on 24 May. The programme will feature explanations about climate change and what you do to prevent it. The team will apparently try to boil a kettle powered by a bike and plant a drought-resistant garden. (I look forward to this bit as it's forecast to pour with rain today in London.)

Editor Richard Marson said in a press release, 'We know from the thousands of emails we get from Blue Peter viewers that they are passionate and active about green issues. Many are understandably scared about the future of their planet and how this will affect them.' Scared? I wonder where they get that idea from?

It fits in neatly with the attitude towards environmentalism in schools, where Green ideas are presented as moral certainties and scientific facts rather than a political outlook which needs to be debated and questioned. Saving energy and recycling our waste have become uncontroversial parts of a new trend towards 'ethical living' where we can all find some common purpose. No wonder politicians are embracing such ideas wholeheartedly. In fact, this programme name change is worryingly close to the Conservative local election slogan, 'Vote Blue, Go Green'.

The programme is named after a flag. A 'blue peter' is a blue flag with a white square in the middle used to indicate that a ship is setting sail. The image was important to the programme creators - it indicated the idea of setting sail on a voyage of discovery. How ironic then that the effect of today's show is not to encourage open and questioning minds but to spin a lie that the debate about climate and society's future is closed.

Blue Peter to change title, BBC press release