Summary: In Ghana, olive baboons are ransacking crops and terrorizing villagers; in Namibia, a once-rich fishing ground is struggling to recover while toxic fumes explode from the ocean depths; in Puerto Rico, futuristic sub-sea fish farms are floating far from shore; and off the coast of Canada, migratory salmon are a part of a radical farming experiment. What do these seemingly unrelated scenarios...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Transporting viewers to the year 2016, this program paints a disturbing picture of an oil-starved America and the socioeconomic upheaval that may accompany the death of the Oil Age. The film follows a middle-aged, Midwestern couple through violence at gas stations, conflicts with neighbors, and the loss of their livelihood; it also focuses on their daughter, an oil prospector determined to find...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: The discovery of oil is often celebrated as a one-way ticket to wealth and economic growth. But in some developing countries, striking it rich has had the opposite effect-making oil more of a bane than a blessing for the poorest inhabitants. This program contrasts two cases: Ecuador, where the toxic environmental legacy of oil has sparked a landmark lawsuit over international corporate...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: As the industrialized world's desire for oil grows larger, so does the opposition from environmental groups intent on protecting the land. As demand increases, what restraints should be put on where oil companies drill? This documentary journey heads to the farthest reaches of Alaska and Canada, with a side trip to Washington, D.C. As the pressure for oil-and "energy security"-increases,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Some conservatives paint the environmentalist movement as socialist or worse, but the key to reducing humanity's carbon footprint may actually appear in new manifestations of capitalism. From electric car technology to the production of ethanol out of waste products, fighting climate change is in fact creating new economic opportunities and could actually steer the planet away from a plunge in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Peak oil: the point at which oil-producing countries, faced with diminishing crude reserves, can no longer keep pace with growing demand. Has the world already reached it, or is the point of irrevocable decline still decades away? That is the slippery question that frames the narrative of this program as experts from around the world give their views on factors associated with escalating oil...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This ambitious documentary follows the circuitous route of the 1,100-mile BTC Pipeline, a string of 150,000 steel pipes that links the cities of Baku, in Azerbaijan; Tbilisi, in Georgia; and Ceyhan, in Turkey. The pipeline will transport the rich, previously untapped energy reserves of the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, from where it will flow into the global market, but its route makes many...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Taking viewers deep inside a devastated landscape, this program examines physical forces directly tied to flooding in Bangladesh as well as the broader causes of such disasters, including climate change. It also explores the social, economic, and environmental impact of intense flooding through the personal accounts of people living by major rivers and on Bangladesh's char lands, areas built up...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: Among the largest, most pristine areas of tropical woodland on the planet, the Congo Basin forests could easily fall prey to shortsighted and exploitative commercial interests. This program looks at sustainable lumber production initiatives taking root in the region, with a focus on cutting-edge forestry management as well as economic growth through increased cooperation between local...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Whether they arise from human causes or forces within planet Earth itself, natural disasters threaten life and civilization with what seems to be growing frequency. This album of NewsHour segments studies troubling developments in marine, arctic, wetland, and urban environments—highlighting research opportunities that may help prevent future catastrophes. Coral reef decay, Everglades habitat...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Climate change is a global phenomenon, but its effects are most clearly demonstrated on a regional level. This program connects the local and planetary aspects of global warming through environmental case studies, focusing on North Carolina's Outer Banks, South Carolina's coastal areas, and Florida's Everglades and Keys. Long-time residents of each state describe ecological changes they have...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: The UAE's oil is plentiful and readily consumed by an energy-thirsty world; meanwhile, the nation struggles with its own thirst for water. This program documents the history of the wealthy Arab nation and how it deals with water scarcity and an abundance of petroleum. Detailed discussions of the oil drilling and seawater desalinization processes, conversations with young UAE citizens, and a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: All around the world, allergies are on the upsurge. Why? In search of an answer, this program travels the globe to examine the complex web of causes of what is amounting to an outright allergy pandemic. Topics include food allergies, pollution-induced asthma, allergies caused by cumulative damage to the skin due to overly aggressive hygiene, allergies to dust mites in the home and off-gassing...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: With extraordinary footage shot during and after Severe Cyclonic Storm Aila, this program looks at the causes and effects of the violent weather event in Bangladesh. Viewers learn how cyclones take shape and develop, witness scenes of Aila striking coastal areas, and explore the social, economic, and ecological consequences through expert commentary and first-hand accounts. The film returns to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: When seasonal rains sweep across South America, the Amazon River and its tributaries overflow their banks to create an ecosystem unlike any other-a place where, for six months out of each year, land-dwellers and water-dwellers mingle. This program joins an expert Amazon biologist in a journey into the flooded forests of the Amazon Basin to film dolphins navigating through treetops, a male...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Having overtaken the U.S. as the world's biggest polluter, China is now responsible for 11 percent of all greenhouse gas production. Can the country reduce its carbon footprint without slowing its unprecedented economic growth? This program shows how that question is playing out in the Chinese construction industry, highlighting the creation and practical application of new homebuilding...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Noma is an acute oral infection that attacks young, malnourished children. If left untreated-which, tragically, is often the case in Africa-it devours bone tissue and permanently disfigures its victims. This unflinching program studies the impact of the pitiless disease and will help viewers assess the ability and readiness of the international community to combat the suffering. Graphic scenes...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: The tropical rain forests of the world are home to nearly half the animal species on earth and contain some of the most fascinating examples of natural adaptation ever seen. This classic program takes viewers into the rain forests of Costa Rica to witness a richly varied habitat under threat from human encroachment. Here, a basilisk lizard walks on water, howler monkeys bask in the sun, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge-also known as ANWR or the "Alaskan Serengeti"-is a vast wilderness near the top of the world. From here, thousands of caribou begin a pilgrimage to the ocean every summer, and for that reason alone the place is a national treasure. This program examines another treasure hidden beneath ANWR's coastal plain: oil. Since oil virtually runs the planet and is used...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Rosia Montana is a Romanian village that has existed since the days of ancient Rome. Now, as Gabriel Resources, a Canadian mining company, hopes to begin excavation there of the largest open-pit gold mine in Europe, mineral wealth and badly needed jobs compete with time-honored rural traditions and concerns about the potential for an environmental disaster. This Wide Angle report captures the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Virtually every reef system in the world is endangered, and the island nations of the South Pacific provide some of the most troubling examples. This program examines the uncertain future of tropical offshore ecosystems using the French collectivity of New Caledonia as a case study. Viewers accompany lagoon protection crew members as they patrol fragile marine reserves by boat; an itinerant...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Despite the extraordinary engineering of Brazil's Porto Primavera Dam, many scientists and environmentalists view its ecological effects as catastrophic. This program offers a sobering look at a nation's effort to balance its growing energy needs against the long-term benefits of preserving unique and irreplaceable ecosystems. Produced prior to the completion of Porto Primavera and the creation...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Based on Mark Lynas's Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, this program explores the theory that Earth's average temperature could rise six degrees Celsius by the year 2100. One poignant degree at a time, the consequences of rising temperatures on Greenland's ice sheet and Himalayan glaciers, tropical coral reefs and the Amazon rainforest, and elsewhere across five continents are...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Nothing is so familiar, and yet so elusive, as water. A running faucet would require 136 trillion years to discharge the Earth's 326 million cubic miles of water, but only fresh water-less than three percent of the global supply-can sustain life. As we transport, utilize, and consume water, we are tempted to view it as eternally plentiful. But its protracted cycle of falling from the sky,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010