Deepwater Horizon • 2021 • episode "S1E4" • Ten Steps to Disaster

59:14

Why do animals perfectly adapted to island life give up the ghost when new species arrive?

S1E5 • South Pacific • Environment

40:47

The disaster began during a routine systems test at reactor number four of the Chernobyl plant located near the town of Pripyat, on April 26, 1986. After a power surge, an emergency shutdown was attempted and after a subsequent power spike, there was a reactor vessel rupture and a series of steam explosions. The cascading course of events led to exposing the graphite moderator of the reactor to the air, causing it to catch fire. This sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere. The fallout from Chernobyl prompted mass evacuations as it drifted over an extensive geographical area, including the western Soviet Union and Europe. Over 350,000 people were resettled from contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine. Thirty-one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, and all the deaths were among reactor staff and emergency workers. This is the kind of atmosphere Nelson and Ochota are investigating on Life After: Chernobyl as they attempt to determine how the radiation continues to impact the affected areas. They are allowed to stay for as long as they need to in order to conduct their ground-breaking research, but the duo must also be sure to take the necessary safety precautions. Broadway World noted in their Life After: Chernobyl article that by staying in the area for too long, the radiation exposure could reach dangerously high levels in their bodies, and they must always monitor the radiation levels.

2014 • Environment

52:04

In the Vega Archipelago, in the north of Norway at the Arctic Circle, people have formed a unique partnership with wild eider ducks. The provide the birds with shelter in hatcheries, and in return, after the breeding season, collect the precious eiderdown, with which the ducks line their nests.

S1E4 • Paradise Preserved • 2019 • Environment

90:27

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.

2020 • Environment

4:51

Earthquakes have always been a terrifying phenomenon, and they’ve become more deadly as our cities have grown — with collapsing buildings posing one of the largest risks. But why do buildings collapse in an earthquake? And how can it be prevented? Vicki V. May explains the physics of why it is not the sturdiest buildings, but the smartest, that will remain standing.

TED-Ed • Environment

58:45

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.

S1E4 • Earth: The Power of the Planet • Environment