In 1998, wildlife enthusiast and photographer Chris Packham had a remarkable encounter with the Orang Rimba, a tribe of hunter gatherers in the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. It was the first time he had ever seen people living in perfect harmony with their environment. One photograph in particular that Chris took, a picture of a young tribal girl, has since become immensely important to him as a barometer of how we are treating our planet. In this real-life detective story, with no clues as to her identity or whereabouts other than his original photograph, Chris sets off to Sumatra 20 years on to try to find her; the girl in the picture. Chris's search is further complicated because her tribe is nomadic and often cover vast distances on foot, and since he was last there, millions of hectares of her rainforest habitat has been destroyed. Piecing together the clues, Chris discovers to his horror that the girl's close-knit group of Orang Rimba was attacked not long after he met them, and a number of them killed. But was the girl among them? Chris travels into the heart of Sumatra and tries to discover the girl's fate by meeting the men who pulled the murdered tribespeople's bodies out of the river. On his way, he discovers just how much of Sumatra's once pristine rainforests have been replaced by palm oil plantations, palm oil which is in around 50% of the products we buy in our supermarkets. Chris learns some uncomfortable truths about how we are all in some way connected to deforestation.
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When humanity hits pause, nature reboots; scientists discover the surprising ways pandemic lock downs affected our planet.
S61E2 • The Nature of Things • 2021 • Environment
What if the Earth was pulled out of its orbit and sent on a collision course into the Sun? Earth's deadly fall triggers massive hurricanes, sandstorms and a heat wave that kills every last person.
S1E8 • Doomsday: 10 Ways the World Will End • 2016 • Environment
In the final episode of the series, Anita Rani investigates the tsunami of single-use plastic that parents pick up in the form of give-away toys. It turns out that McDonald's are the largest toy distributor in the world, handing out over 1.4 billion plastic toys per year worldwide. They claim on their website that they are recyclable, but a visit to Simon Ellin, the CEO of the Recycling Association, makes it very clear that while that may be true in theory, in reality it’s not that simple. Meanwhile, Hugh is in Scotland. He’s learnt that at the same time as the public are trying to reduce the amount of plastics in their lives, the plastics industry has big plans to increase plastic production by 50% before 2040. To find out more, he visits the INEOS factory in Grangemouth, owned by the richest man in Britain, where they produce a staggering 60-70 billion tiny plastic pellets every day.
S1E3 • War on Plastic with Hugh and Anita • 2019 • Environment
This feature documentary tells the story of the story of the pioneers who founded Greenpeace and defined the modern green movement. In 1971 a brave group of young activists set sail from Vancouver in an old fishing boat. Their mission: to stop Nixon's atomic bomb tests in Amchitka, a tiny island off the west coast of Alaska. It was from these humble but courageous beginnings that the global organisation that we now know as Greenpeace was born. Chronicling the fascinating untold story behind the modern environmental movement and with access to dramatic footage that has not been seen for over 40 years, this gripping new film tells the story of eco-hero Robert Hunter and how he, alongside a group of like-minded and idealistic young friends in the '70s, would be instrumental in altering the way we now look at the world and our place within it. These campaigning pioneers captured their daring and sometimes jaw-dropping actions on a range of film cameras and Greenpeace granted acclaimed director Jerry Rothwell access to this vivid archive to make his thrilling, sometimes terrifying film. Greenpeace was born in 1971 when a ragtag group of journalists, hippies, and scientists living in Vancouver tried to stop a US atomic test. Fortunately, they were media savvy from the beginning, capturing their seat-of-their pants activist adventures on film. The youthful energy is palpable in action-packed scenes, including one in which activists confront a Russian whaling ship in a tiny Zodiac dingy. Soon, though, idealism comes up against reality, compromise, human nature, and the complexities of managing a growing organization. This insightful film is also a vibrant, moving reflection about the ongoing struggle to balance the political and the personal.
2015 • Environment
We explore the meaning of 'homo sapiens' (meaning 'wise being') and hear what experts say about the importance of using wisdom as a guiding value to address climate change, income inequality, discrimination, and more. This short film features Dr. Jane Goodall, Vandana Shiva, Chris Hedges, Clayton Thomas-Muller, Dacher Keltner, Ernest Callenbach, and John Perkins.
Thought Café • 2021 • Environment
A look at scientists' claims about human contribution to global warming, and how statistician Leonard Tippet's investigation into snapping cotton threads helps predict extreme weather.
S1E2 • Climate Change by the Numbers • 2016 • Environment