Ice • episode "S1E3" • Earth: The Power of the Planet

Category: Environment

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.

Make a donation

Buy a brother a hot coffee? Or a cold beer?

Hope you're finding these documentaries fascinating and eye-opening. It's just me, working hard behind the scenes to bring you this enriching content.

Running and maintaining a website like this takes time and resources. That's why I'm reaching out to you. If you appreciate what I do and would like to support my efforts, would you consider "buying me a coffee"?

Donation addresses

BTC: bc1q8ldskxh4x9qnddhcrgcun8rtvddeldm2a07r2v

ETH: 0x5CCAAA1afc5c5D814129d99277dDb5A979672116

With your donation through , you can show your appreciation and help me keep this project going. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant impact. It goes directly towards covering server costs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You might also like

The World's Water Crisis

The World's Water Crisis

The global water crisis is at an inflection point. How do we price our most valuable resource, while also ensuring access to it as a human right?

S01E19 • Explained • 2018 • Environment

Nuclear War

World War 3 breaks out & a nuclear nightmare becomes reality as thousands of hydrogen bombs destroy the world's greatest cities. Resulting in a Nuclear Winter, plunging the planet into a sudden Ice Age.

S1E4 • Doomsday: 10 Ways the World Will End • 2016 • Environment

Plastic Wars

With the plastic industry expanding like never before, and the crisis of ocean pollution growing, FRONTLINE and NPR investigate the fight over the future of plastics.

Frontline • 2020 • Environment

Rise of the Superstorms

Rise of the Superstorms

In just one devastating month, Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean were changed forever. In summer 2017, three monster hurricanes swept in from the Atlantic one after another, shattering storm records and killing hundreds of people. First, Harvey brought catastrophic rain and flooding to Houston, causing $125 billion in damage. Less than two weeks later, Irma lashed the Caribbean with 185 mile per hour winds - and left the island of Barbuda uninhabitable. Hot on Irma's heels, Maria intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane in just 15 hours, then ravaged Puerto Rico and left millions of people without power. As the planet warms, are these superstorms the new normal? How well can we predict them? And with hurricane season just around the corner, does the U.S. need to prepare for the reality of climate refugees? NOVA takes you inside the 2017 superstorms and the cutting-edge research that will determine how well equipped we are to deal with hurricanes in the future.

NOVA PBS • 2018 • Environment

Inside Chernobyl

Inside Chernobyl

Over three decades after the world's most devastating nuclear accident, Ben Fogle spends a week living alone inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Throughout the expedition, Ben ventures inside the ruins of a nearby hospital, explores the deserted radioactive remains of the ghost town of Pripyat, and goes deep inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

2021 • Environment

Shattered Ground

Shattered Ground

As Shattered Ground reveals, some see fracking as a great opportunity for money and jobs, and one that provides cheap, clean fuel. But, for others, the possible human health costs of this new drilling technology have motivated a large and vociferous anti-fracking movement. The debate over fracking has been echoed in the Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland and in Promised Land, the new Gus van Sant's feature film starring Matt Damon. Fracking's critics consider the industry a potential environmental disaster, citing chemical contamination of air and water. With pipelines proposed, terminals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) requiring billions of dollars of investment, and huge shale beds lying underneath highly-populated areas of the Canada and the US (including southern Ontario and the GTA), fracking is an issue that could affect every one of us.

S52E09 • The Nature of Things • 2013 • Environment