Summary: They are now banned worldwide-but the toxins known as PCBs are not going away. This program explains how the compounds have almost irreparably polluted the globe and still threaten future generations. The film begins in 1927, when PCBs became integral to electric power and, eventually, a vast array of agricultural and technological products. Describing the growth of scientific awareness of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Throughout the world, sea levels are rising, coastlines are crumbling, and the intensity of hurricanes is increasing. Is the situation in New Orleans a glimpse into the future of all cities that exist near major bodies of water? Filmed six months after Katrina, this program analyzes why New Orleans flooded so catastrophically and asks whether the city-constructed on a steadily subsiding...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Much of what is known about the environmental disaster in Libby, Montana, has been due to the unflagging efforts of residents Les Skramstad, U.S. attorney for Montana, and Gayla Benefield. In this ABC News program, these determined individuals are joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Andrew Schneider; Drs. Brad Black and Alan Whitehouse, of Libby's Center for Asbestos-Related...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: The tremolite asbestos-tainted vermiculite from Zonolite Mountain has spread its lethal legacy well beyond Montana and the town of Libby, where it was mined and milled for decades: over the years, 236 cities in 42 states received billions of pounds of it to be processed into a range of consumer products. This ABC News program focuses on trouble spots in Michigan, New Jersey, and Colorado. With...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The weather-a phenomenon clearly beyond human control!-is nevertheless a topic of fascination to people the world over. A combination of high-quality film footage and detailed animations, this collection of 48 video clips (30 seconds to 2 minutes each) discusses Earth's atmosphere, precipitation, meteorology, climates, the environment, and pollution. Video clips include: Earth's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program demonstrates how wind turbines, solar cells, hybrid automobiles, and coal gasification plants are beginning to transform the way the world is powered. The U.S. Secretary of Energy, the director of the National Wind Technology Center, the CEO of Enron Wind Corporation, representatives of Worldwatch Institute and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and others discuss the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: People everywhere are interested in the weather, but how does it all work? Beginning with Earth's atmosphere-its evolution, its gaseous composition, and its four regions-this video takes a close look at how conditions combine to create climate and weather. Topics include the Koppen Climate Classification System; weather prediction; types of clouds and precipitation; thunderstorms, tornadoes,...
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: By building roads, watering crops, and grazing cattle, we are constantly changing the climate. We may also modify the weather by cloud seeding, though there is no scientifically accepted proof that rain or snow would not have occurred naturally in cases where seeding appears to have been successful. This program shows how migration in the Sahel has altered regional climate; examines the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Did the great flood, as described in the Book of Genesis, really happen? In this program, scientists travel to Switzerland, Barbados, Greenland, and South Africa to decipher the clues left by history. These include erratic boulders and terminal moraines, coral terracing, microscopic fossils in core samples from the ocean floor, and tiny pockets of carbon dioxide in glacial ice samples. Evidence...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This program presented by Sir David Attenborough discusses the thickening of Earth's carbon dioxide envelope and, using climate modeling, confirms that fossil fuels are primarily responsible for a global rise in temperatures going far beyond any normal allowance for cyclical fluctuation. Traveling from the Arctic, where the ecosystem is collapsing; to the low-lying islands of the South Pacific,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: To most people, air pollution is a global issue. But what about the air we breathe every day-on the street, at work, and in our homes? This program studies fine particle air pollution and its public health hazards. Using detailed graphics that magnify a compound 100,000 times, the video explains the concept of fine particles and their ability to penetrate and disable cells-clearly illustrating...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Access to affordable, sustainable energy supplies is a growing concern around the world. This program looks at successful enterprises that are providing some renewable energy solutions. In Scotland, small-scale turbines put wind power within the reach of domestic users. In Sweden, the world's first train to be run solely on biogas has been developed. In Nepal, biogas stoves are improving the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: As visually spectacular as it is informative, this program thoroughly surveys the world's varied climate systems. Using simple color-coded maps based on the Koppen classification system, the video identifies the characteristics of the following zones: humid tropical climates, wet-dry tropics, dry climates, subtropical and mid-latitude deserts and steppes, humid mid-latitude climates, humid...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: A life-sustaining envelope of gas surrounds the earth. This atmosphere contains oxygen, CO2, water vapor, and other gases-it is what generates climate, which affects all living beings. This program analyzes the sun's gradual brightening and the relationship between sunlight and CO2, explains why the atmospheres of Mars and Venus cannot sustain life, theorizes about the disappearance of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This collection of 34 visually stunning video clips explores the environment and facets of physics. Properties of rain, ice, snow, oil, trees, volcanoes, and salt are examined, as are aspects of quantum physics, light phenomena, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, Newton's Laws, and electricity.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: For most of a century, industrial and automotive smoke were equated with progress and prosperity. But the cost in human health has been devastatingly high, particularly in developing countries. In this program, Devra Davis, author of When Smoke Ran Like Water; Peter Brimblecombe, executive editor of Atmospheric Environment; and others use examples such as smog-related deaths in Donora,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: More than 1,000 tornadoes touch down in the U.S. every year. While most people run away, one team of scientists heads straight for the action. This program follows their activities, with a primary focus on one team member, Tim Samaras. Viewers learn about the small, armored, camera-laden probes which have been placed by the team directly in the path of several twisters in order to gain...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report studies the physical force known as electromagnetism and how it encircles, interacts with, and is generated by matter. Demonstrating attractive and repulsive forces with iron filings suspended in liquid, the program explains the significance of a magnet's poles and why some materials are more magnetic than others. The electromagnetic fields of the Earth and Sun are...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report looks at the causes of climatic conditions and their influence on human activity. Outlining principles of topography and atmospheric pressure, the program identifies specific types of weather and how they form global patterns-sometimes with damaging and deadly results. The role of ocean currents, and their relation to massive storm systems such as hurricanes and El...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Three billion years ago, bacteria polluted the atmosphere with a new gas, oxygen, and changed the planet forever. This new "poison" gas became the catalyst for life to emerge. But today, humankind is also creating new gases, along with altering the composition of the atmosphere by building dams and removing forests. This program examines the possible consequences of our actions.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program presents a comprehensive scientific examination of global warming and El Nino, while viewers travel to the battlefields of Waterloo, to Hawaii and Antarctica, and across North America to learn how complex, contradictory, and influential weather can be. Topics include the role played by weather in Napoleon's defeat, and the relationship of El Nino to underwater volcanic activity....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program presents a clear, forceful, and thorough exposition of the problems of air pollution: its causes; its effects on forests, streams, and human health; and the issues involved in correcting the problems. Narrated by Walter Cronkite, the program shows the consequences of air pollution in Shenandoah National Park, the Adirondacks, New England, Ohio, California, Mexico, Canada, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: To predict weather and understand climates, researchers use physics, environmental science, mathematics, and information technology to interpret huge amounts of oceanic, atmospheric, and terrestrial data. Filmed with the assistance of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, this program introduces the allied sciences of meteorology and climatology. After explaining how the sun, wind, and clouds...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010