Atmosphere • episode "S1E2" Earth: The Power of the Planet

Category: Environment

Iain travels into the stratosphere in a Cold War fighter, gets his eyebrows singed in Siberia and discovers why Argentina is one of the stormiest places on Earth. All to show why our atmosphere is unique and utterly crucial for life.

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Earth: The Power of the Planet • 5 episodes •

Volcano

Volcanoes have a fearsome reputation. In reality, they are the most important force in the creation of the planet as we know it today. Iain abseils into a lava lake and cave dives in a cenote to show how the heat that fuels volcanoes also drives some of the most fundamental processes on the planet.

Environment

Atmosphere

Iain travels into the stratosphere in a Cold War fighter, gets his eyebrows singed in Siberia and discovers why Argentina is one of the stormiest places on Earth. All to show why our atmosphere is unique and utterly crucial for life.

Environment

Ice

Ice may be nothing more than frozen water but, as Iain explains, it holds extraordinary power. Descending 150m down a frozen waterfall, he sees a glacier in action from below and discovers why the huge Jacobshaven glacier is retreating, he shows how it shaped our past and may now threaten our future.

Environment

Oceans

Travelling from Hawaii to the Amazon and Ethiopia and then on to the Mediterranean, Iain tells the story of the oceans – fierce waves, huge tidal bores, global currents and the future dangers of global warming.

Environment

Rare Earth

Iain looks at the big picture of Earth's place in space. It's taken four and a half billions years and several great catastrophes to turn it from a barren rock to the unique planet we know today.

Environment

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S1E1Sinking Cities • 2018 • Environment

Ocean Autopsy: The Secret Story of Our Seas

Two-thirds of our planet is covered in water, split into five distinct oceans, but in reality, Earth's seas are part of one huge global water system - a system that has been instrumental in shaping our destiny for millions of years. Now, however, in the 21st century, it is mankind that is shaping the destiny of our oceans. In unprecedented ways, humans are changing our seas and the life within. The ocean bed, the currents, marine life, even the water itself is transformed by what we are putting into our oceans.

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Antarctica Science Below Zero

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Before the Flood

Join Leonardo DiCaprio as he explores the topic of climate change, and discovers what must be done today to prevent catastrophic disruption of life on our planet.

2016 • Environment

Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes

HBO Original, Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes takes a deep-dive behind the 1986 disaster of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Watch never before seen footage and get real-life accounts of the horrific accident. The story of Chernobyl told through a newly discovered hoard of dramatic footage filmed at the nuclear plant during the disaster and newly-recorded, deeply personal interviews of those who were there, directed by Emmy Award-winner and Russian-speaker James Jones. This gripping film tells the story of the disaster and its consequences entirely through extraordinary and immersive archive, shot at great risk in the hours, days, weeks and months after the accident by a handful of cameramen given access to the plant. These cameramen lived side by side with the "liquidators" who went to incredible and often fatal lengths to try to prevent another explosion and make the reactor safe. The reality of their bravery and heroism is more harrowing than any drama can portray. The footage, most of it never seen before in the West, has only now come to light after an extensive trawl by director James Jones and his colleagues of the state archives and other sources in Ukraine and Russia. For thirty-five years the story of what happened in April 1986 when the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant melted down has enthralled and horrified. Radio programmes and scripted dramas have all told their version of events. But no-one has made a documentary that reveals the full, shocking reality of this cataclysmic, world changing event – until now. Though many of the rescue workers died, a surprising number who appear prominently in the footage are still alive today. The film features newly recorded audio interviews with people involved in the original key moments of the footage – their memories of that fateful night and the aftermath haunting but also deeply humane. Amongst those interviews is Lyudmila Ihnatenko, whose firefighter husband Vasily died days after the accident, and who was pregnant at the time. She went onto lose her baby hours after she was born. "All the radiation I was inhaling, she absorbed it." From a ten-year-old schoolboy to a Russian general, we see how events at Chernobyl transformed the lives of millions of people. Soviet propaganda plays out as a backdrop, initially saying nothing of the disaster, Gorbachev eventually appearing to downplay what happened, putting his own citizens and the rest of the world at great risk. The film reveals how many people suffering from radiation poisoning, cancer and other illnesses were told that it had no connection to the accident. The state was in denial and was willing to lie to its own citizens to prevent the truth getting out. This film witnesses the incredible physical suffering of men who had sacrificed themselves for the greater good. The film shows how Chernobyl and the cover-up that followed sparked unprecedented distrust in the authorities, giving birth to a protest movement in Ukraine which would eventually lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The modern resonance of a disaster which threatened millions of lives but was tragically mishandled by those in authority will have an obvious resonance to the contemporary audience. Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes is the full, unadulterated true story of what happened in one of the most iconic but least understood tragedies of the twentieth century.

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Jungles - People of the Trees

A look at humans who live in the depths of the rainforest, a perilous environment.

S1E4Human PlanetEnvironment