The Custodians
Red Squirrel on Tresco on the Isles of Scilly | Photo by Martha Attwell
“But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
― Rachel Carson
The Custodians is a potential eco-sci-fi thriller TV series that needs to be made before the next mass extinction, known as the Anthropocene or Holocene extinction. This extinction won’t be a single comet, volcano or earthquake wiping out 95% of all life on earth (like some previous extinctions), but the slow and steady destruction that we are already in the midst of, like when frogs are slowly boiled alive so they don’t realise (actually an inaccurate apologue – a moral fable involving animals – the frog will always jump out when the water gets hot. Unfortunately we don’t have anywhere to jump out to unless the morons in charge have their way with their space rockets). A similar cooking method with lobsters actually increases their pain and suffering (the popular myth that it anaesthetises them is wrong).
It’s worth noting that some extinctions have wiped out the animals that cause the most destruction, e.g. the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous-tertiary extinction 66 million years ago. This enabled many new forms of mammals to emerge. So humans are definitely next on the extermination list. It’s sobering to think that at least 99.9% of all species that have ever lived on earth are now extinct.
Many animals, insects, birds, fish and plantlife have been on this earth hundreds of millions of years longer than humans have. The world belongs to them. They instinctively know their role, and they get on with it. It’s usually something that helps the planet. Insects the size of a pinhead have more benefit than humans. In fact, insects in general provide useful services to mankind (which we take for granted, despite the fact that we would die without them) and the environment. They pollinate plants, decompose waste and dead matter, and aerate soil, to name just a few.
Unfortunately, humans have not yet found their role in the world. They invent reasons but they’re just made up – judges and marketing managers and politicians and mathematicians and corporate lawyers all dress up each morning to put on a pretend show. It makes them feel like they have an important part to play on the earth.
There are those who believe that human’s role should be that of custodian of nature. Not ruler. Not destroyer. But protector and carer. And there you have the dual human’s roles, in a nutshell – to protect or destroy.
Because we’re English, we call the destroyers grey squirrels. Some of us are old enough to remember the 1970s. We look back on it as a time of hope, but it probably wasn’t at the time. That’s just nostalgia. A yearning for a past that never really existed.
Some of us say we remember seeing red squirrels in parks in the 1970s. In London. Before the grey squirrels killed them off. So we call ourselves the red squirrels. You’ll spot us a mile off – we tend not to wear suits. The others, the grey squirrels, they have the power, the technology; they’re the politicians, the developers, the media, pharmaceutical companies, the corporations. In short, they’re evil.
It has long been thought that modern humans – Homo sapiens, meaning ‘wise man’ in Latin – originated 200,000 years ago from Homo erectus (upright man). However, there is absolutely no physical evidence for this long-believed branch of evolution. But there is evidence that Homo sapiens, almost overnight, acquired a mysterious generic mutation called chromosome number two, enabling them to self-regulate and have higher cognitive functions. It wasn’t long before modern man was sowing the seeds for the destruction of the planet: building, destroying, driving cars and devising PowerPoint presentations.
Alien beings, whose exact motives are unclear but who are obviously intent on a slow, long term destruction of planet earth, planted chromosome two within certain humans. Over time, these humans become modern man, acquiring great wealth, power and egos and the notion that they could dominate and destroy nature, whilst neanderthal man remained true to nature, spiritual and humble in its aspirations – The Custodians. The two have lived relatively peacefully side by side for 200,000 years. Until now.
The Custodians (red squirrels) have seen the planet ravaged by modern man (grey squirrels) and have had enough. They are forming, organising and fighting back.
The TV series, told in flashback from the present day back to 440 million years ago (via the 1970s) will feature an intergalactic cast of characters, including John Dekker, climate activist since the 1970s, and his daughter, Greta Dekker, who follows in her father’s footsteps. In South America, environmental activist Maya Santos faces daily threats from corporations and must fight or flee when her life becomes in imminent danger.
Just when it seems like the grey squirrels have won, with their superior wealth, power and egos, a long-dormant secret power is revealed to the red squirrels and it seems like they’re in with a fighting chance.
What will the show be like? Imagine They Live meets Stargate meets Life on Earth.
From an idea by Helen Tanner.
Previously on Barnflakes (environment-related)
• Five years ago Boris was a climate change denier, a year ago he didn’t understand it; in a month he’s hosting a summit on it. Be afraid.
• Turning car parks into parks
• G7: all sett to destroy Carbis Bay
• Letters of complaint
• Notes on Extinciton Rebellion
• The world’s top ten biggest environmental problems (and how to solve them)
• Notes on dog poop bags
• Don’t blame us
• Aspire to be average
• In 100 years everyone in the world will be dead
• Busy bein’ busy
• Blight of the plastic bag
• Water as it Oughta
Previously on Barnflakes (TV and film-related)
• H is the Middle of Nowhere: An Original Screenplay
• The life and death of Michael X
• My top 5 unrealised film projects
• Top 5 TV show concepts
• Crappa nova