Five Ways to Save the World

19th Feb, 9:00pm - 10:00pm, BBC2
1.4 Million, 5.8% Audience Share

RadioTimes: The five ways of the title are a series of silver-bullet solutions to the global-warming menace devised by brainstorming scientists. They are jaw-dropping in scale and amount to considerably more than just recycling your empty pinot grigio bottles. The problem is that the statistics are so mind-crushingly huge they are next to impossible to assimilate. For instance, one scientist's suggestion for a giant sunshade a million miles from Earth would involve 800,000 separate trips into space to assemble a thing that's 100,000km wide and made of 16 trillion glass discs. Other solutions include artificial trees (inspired by a school experiment by the scientist's daughter), giant plankton, a sulphur blanket and cloud cover. Who knows whether any are actually feasible. But all the experts are agreed: the global-warming nettle should be grasped now, while still manageable. Says one: "We need a panic button to stop the damage."