Karluk: Surviving the Arctic • 2007

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

43:59

Welcome to the Collision Zone – the fiery unpredictability of Indonesia’s volcanoes at one end, the massive Himalayas at the other and millions of years of tectonic tension in between. The collision zone of the old world is about to be the hub of the new. India, the Himalayas and the island arc of Indonesia - these lands will form the centre of the world’s next supercontinent. A story unfolds—a tale of where the earth has been and what the earth shall be: a whole new world that we’ll barely recognize.

S50E08 • The Nature of Things • 2010 • Environment

58:59

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.

S1E2 • Earth: The Power of the Planet • 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

18:47

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

53:32

As global temperatures rise, scientists are exploring solutions from planting trees to sucking carbon out of the air to geoengineering. But would they work? And what are the risks of engineering Earth's climate?

NOVA PBS • 2020 • Environment