Episode 3 • 2020 • episode "S1E3" • Fight For Planet A: Our Climate Challenge

49:00

We investigate the emerging threats posed by plastic pollution to life on Earth. The hyper-convenience of our modern way of living produces staggering volumes of plastic waste daily. Scientists now know that this waste breaks down into ever tinier pieces, spreading right across the globe and posing direct health risks, including through bioamplification of toxic additives moving up the food chain. We explore the drastic changes it will take to deliver a sustainable future for our planet.

2021 • Environment

51:00

When you soar above Yellowstone, it's easy to see why it became the world's first national park in 1872. It's a place of staggering beauty and fragile creatures, of stunning granite peaks that pierce the sky and colorful springs that may hold secrets about the origins of life. This aerial voyage takes you over high elevation lakes, snaking canyons, sputtering hot geysers, and snow-covered landscapes. Explore Yellowstone's history of Native Americans, European explorers, and 10 million years of tectonic upheaval.

2018 • Environment

21:02

Plastics have transformed how we live, but progress comes at a high price: 7.8 billion tons of waste. Are plastics a miracle or a catastrophe?

S1E4 • History 101 • 2000 • 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

59:00

Film which explores the extraordinary ways in which people survive at extreme altitudes.

S1E5 • Human Planet • Environment

112:11

Following a trail of fossils found in all the wrong places–beech trees in Antarctica, redwoods and hippo-like mammals in the Arctic–NOVA uncovers the bizarre history of the poles, from miles-thick ice sheets to warm polar forests teeming with life.

NOVA PBS • 2020 • Environment