Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Earth - The Power of the Planet

In this landmark BBC series, Dr Iain Stewart tells the story of how our planet works and how, over the course of 4.6 billion years, it came to be the remarkable planet it is today. Examining the great forces that shape the earth - volcanoes, the ocean, the atmosphere and ice - the programme explores their central roles in our planet's story. How do these forces affect the earth's landscape, its climate, and its history?




CGI gives the audience a ringside seat at these great events, while the final episode brings together all the themes of the series and argues that earth is an exceptionally rare kind of planet - giving us a special responsibility to look after our unique world. This is a series that shows the earth in new and surprising ways.

Extensive use of satellite imagery reveals new views of our planet, while time-lapse filmed over many months brings the planet to life. Offering a balance between dramatic visuals and illuminating facts, specialized imaging and gripping narrative, this ground-breaking series makes global science truly compelling.

Volcano




Atmosphere



Ice



Oceans




Rare Earth


Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Bigger Than Enron

On June 15, a Houston jury convicted Arthur Andersen -- the 89-year-old accounting firm once known as the gold standard of integrity in auditing -- for obstruction of justice in the government's investigation of Enron, Andersen's biggest client. With the demise of Andersen, the American business landscape was forever altered. But something else was altered as well: the scandal surrounding Enron and Andersen, together with the wave of other major accounting scandals that have come to light in recent months, has dealt America's markets an unsettling psychological blow. If we can't trust the auditors, investors wonder, whom can we trust?




The meteoric rise and stunning collapse of Enron caused many to question why the corporate oversight system that was supposed to protect investors failed to sound any alarms about the company's dubious finances. But Enron and Arthur Andersen turn out to be merely the tip of the iceberg. In the 1990s, more than 700 U.S. companies were forced to correct misleading financial statements as a result of accounting failures, lapses, or outright fraud. Together with Enron -- the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history -- these failures have cost investors an estimated $200 billion.





Enron's collapse in late 2001 galvanized Congress and brought urgent calls for reform. The House and Senate held hearings and introduced legislation to reform the accounting industry. But so far no bill has passed both chambers and been signed into law. Instead, after prolonged criticism for moving too slowly and being too soft on the accounting firms, SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt has taken the initiative, announcing on June 20 his proposal for a new Public Accountability Board. Critics, however, still say that his plans are too weak, and question whether he is genuinely prepared to cross his former clients in the accounting industry, which he represented as a top Wall Street lawyer throughout the 1990s.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Encounters at the End of the World

Werner Herzog is a master filmmaker. Stretching back decades, genres, languages, styles and scope, he continues to be a pioneering creative force. Encounters at the End of the World is the newest reminder of his skill, and joins the growing list of ecologically/environmentally centered documentaries gracing us, the most famous being Davis Guggenheim/Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.




Herzog's Encounters is a somewhat meandering trip to the Southernmost place on Earth, inspired by footage of Antarctica's marine world taken by a friend of his. From the early images of crammed passengers on a cargo plane to the buckethead testing of what to do to get to the outhouse in a blinding blizzard to absolutely stunning footage of underwater life to a wayward penguin's seemingly suicidal venturing into mountainous country, Herzog has fashioned together a commentary on life in one of our harshest environments and the quality and experience of what it is like. An ethereal, primal musical score accompanies the picture, which is narrated by Herzog, like his fabulous Grizzly Man, but more muted and ponderous.





But the film in not merely a Discovery Channel opportunity to remind us of the staggering beauty that rests so far away, so deep and unhospitable. Though the Discovery Channel produced or funded it, Herzog infuses, through interviews of people who find themselves shaken down to this vagabond paradise, a philosophical questing that appears both wonderfully progressive and positive, to his own harsh expression of human futility.

Click here to visit the official site.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Flow - For Love of Water

Irena Salinas' documentary is about the global crisis we face as Earth's fresh water supply constantly diminishes. The film presents top experts and advocates to show us that every aspect of human life is affected by pollution, wastefulness, privatization and corporate greed as it relates to fresh water--a natural resource more valuable than oil. The film shows in no uncertain terms that if we continue to abuse our water supply, Earth will become uninhabitable and humankind will become extinct. The investigation points fingers at water companies such as Nestle, Vivendi, Thames, Suez, Coca Cola and Pepsi. This is an extremely important must-see documentary!




From the documentary’s opening moments, director Salinas engages us with a beautifully photographed montage of babbling brooks, rushing waterfalls, melting icebergs and surfer-worthy ocean waves. Over the refreshing images and soothing audio, the title FLOW quickly appears on the screen, followed by its expanded version For Love Of Water. We are then reminded that water is essential for human life and well-being, and we are informed that millions of people--babies, in particular--die from lack of fresh water every year.





Salinas takes us on a worldwide tour of water-related disasters, every one of them the product of human abuse--pollution, privatization and corporate greed, inexcusable wastefulness and, to put it in terms that are simplistic but true, lack of respect for mother nature’s grand design.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Oceans

What lies below the frozen Arctic ice-sheets? Or in the black holes under the Caribbean Sea? The oceans are Earth's single most important feature. They shape our climate, our culture, our future. Yet we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about Earth's watery depths.




Explorer Paul Rose leads a team of ocean experts in a series of global science expeditions. With him, maritime archaeologist Dr Lucy Blue investigates our past and our relationship with the sea, exploring shipwrecks and lost civilisations; marine biologist and Oceanographer Tooni Mahto seeks the extraordinary life in our oceans today; and environmentalist Philippe Cousteau Jr looks to the future of our oceans and charts the way they're changing.


PART ONE - Sea of Cortez



PART TWO - Southern Ocean



PART THREE - Red Sea



PART FOUR - Atlantic Ocean



PART FIVE - Indian Ocean



PART SIX - Not available yet!


PART SEVEN - Mediterranean Sea



PART EIGHT - Not available yet!


Filmed in High Definition in some of the most beautiful, diverse and threatened seas on our planet, the team travels across the world to the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Sea of Cortez, the Arctic Ocean and the Mediterranean, to dive the depths of the world's seas and oceans. The planet's seas are changing fast and Oceans builds up a timely global picture of our planet's most magnificent and vital asset.

Click here to visit the official website.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Owning the Weather

Back in 1995, a document titled "Owning the Weather in 2025" was submitted to the director of the United States Air Force, under a disguised notion that it was a fictional report and was not intended to be applied to real-life scenarios. The document was a detailed research analysis paper which described the potential of developing aerospace technologies, and more importantly, how they might best be used to harness, control and manipulate the natural forces of weather on this planet.




The technologies and capabilities described in this report have now become a reality, and have been documented all over the world. The "Space Preservation Act of 2001" was introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives by Dennis Kucinich and was an attempt to legislate the use of certain types of advanced weaponry, and not surprisingly, did not pass. Although Kucinich is just another gear in the NWO mechanism, the first-draft edition of this bill contains some very startling admissions to the types of weaponry the United States Air Force has been developing since the end of WWII, including such categories of weaponry as "biological", "electromagnetic", "tectonic", and most disturbingly, "chemtrails."





This film attempts to show that chemtrails are not a hoax, they are real, and they are part of an international conspiracy aimed not only at controlling the elements, but also at ascribing this new technology immediately to war-fighting applications.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Global Warming Doomsday Called Off

I would like to point out for the record that I do not agree with the premise of a global warming swindle. I earnestly belive that global warming is real and that humanity needs to act before it is too late.




This documentary claims to be about the real cause of global warming. It discusses the idea that CO2 is not cause of global warming. This documentary discusses many topics that are not covered in the Global Warming Swindle such as the hockey stick graph, from the viewpoint of Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas.





I find it amazing the lengths that 'flat-worlders' will go to when trying to prove their illogical arguments. Are these people visionaries or just nut-jobs...you decide!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Earth - The Climate Wars

Global warming, and how to combat it, has provoked intense debate, changed the way we see the planet and created headlines around the world. But when and how did scientists first discover global warming, why has it led to such furious debate and who should we believe?




PART ONE - The Battle Begins

In the 1970s the world seemed to be falling apart. From acid rain to overpopulation, ecological concerns were at the fore. And it was at this time that climate change first became a hot political issue. But it wasn't global warming that frightened scientists, it was the complete opposite; a new ice age.



Dr Iain Stewart traces the history of climate change from its very beginning and examines just how the scientific community managed to get it so very wrong back in the Seventies. Along the way he uncovers some of the great unsung heroes of climate change science, and introduces us to a secret organisation of American government scientists, known as Jason, who wrote the first official report on global warming as far back as 1979.




He shows how - by the late 1980s - global warming had already become a serious political issue. It looked as if the world was uniting to take action. But it turned out to be a false dawn. Because in the 1990s global warming would be transformed into one of the biggest scientific controversies of our age.



PART TWO - Fightback

Dr Iain Stewart investigates the counter attack that was launched by the global warming sceptics in the 1990s. At the start of the 1990s it seemed the world was united. At the Rio Earth summit the world signed up to a programme of action to start tackling climate change. Even George Bush was there. But the consensus didn't last.



Iain examines the scientific arguments that developed as the global warming sceptics took on the climate change consensus. The sceptics attacked almost everything that scientists held to be true. They argued that the planet wasn't warming up, that even if it was it was nothing unusual, and certainly whatever was happening to the climate was nothing to do with human emissions of greenhouse gases.




Iain interviews some of the key global warming sceptics, and discovers how their positions have changed over time.


PART THREE - New Challenges

Having explained the science behind global warming, and addressed the arguments of the climate change sceptics earlier in the series, in this third and final part Dr Iain Stewart looks at the biggest challenge now facing climate scientists. Just how can they predict exactly what changes global warming will bring?



It's a journey that takes him from early attempts to model the climate system with dishpans, to supercomputers, and to the frontline of climate research today: Greenland. Most worryingly he discovers that scientists are becoming increasingly concerned that their models are actually underestimating the speed of changes already underway.





More documentaries like this...

The Great Global Warming Swindle

The Big Freeze

Global Dimming

Life After People

A World Without Water

Monday, February 16, 2009

The Great Global Warming Swindle

This film by the documentary-maker Martin Durkin presents the arguments of scientists and commentators who don't believe that CO2 produced by human activity is the main cause of climate change.




It's a controversial film that was roundly attacked by some scientists and enthusiastically received by others, and the arguments it contains are an important part of the wider debate on the causes of climate change.





Please note that I do not agree with the main premises of this documentary. I do believe, however, that it is important to see an argument from all sides...the viewer will have to make their own mind up.

More documentaries like this...

Life After People

What on Earth is Wrong With Gravity?

The 11th Hour


Get the DVD today...

Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Big Freeze

Imagine our world in the not-too-distant future? In parts of the northern hemisphere, the temperature plummets to -90 F. At 130 below, public transportation fails. Those caught outside freeze to death.




Buildings collapse under the weight of snow and ice. The power goes out, society collapses, and anarchy takes its place. Could this be a vision of our future? In this documentary, Naked Science examines what may cause temperatures to plummet and how this could spell disaster for our planet.





More documentaries like this...

Visions of the Future

Strange Days on Planet Earth

A World Without Water


Get the DVD today...

Thursday, January 15, 2009

The World According to Monsanto

Monsanto is a world leader in industrial agriculture, providing the seeds for 90 percent of the world's genetically modified crops. Once a chemical company based in the US, Monsanto has transformed into an international life sciences company, aiming to solve world hunger and protect the environment.




Filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, however, exposes the company's troubling past, in her recent film, The World According to Monsanto. In an interview with The Real News Network, she discusses Monsanto's controversial practices from a producer of PCBs and Agent Orange to genetically modified seeds and related herbicides.




Starting from the Internet over a period of three years Robin has collected material for her documentary, going on to numerous interviews with people of very different backgrounds. She traveled widely, from Latin America, to Asia, through Europe and the United States, to personally interview farmers and people in influential positions.




As an example of pro-Monsanto interviews, she talked at length with Michael Taylor who has worked as a lawyer for Monsanto and also for the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), where he had great influence on the legalization of the genetically modified bovine growth hormone (BGH). It also became FDA policy during Taylor's tenure that GM seeds are declared to be "substantially equivalent to non-GM seeds, hence proclaiming proof of the harmlessness of GMs to be unnecessary. Michael Taylor is a typical example of technocrats employed via 'the revolving door policy'. He is now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.


More documentaries like this...

A World Without Water

The Curse of Oil

Crude - The Incredible Journey of Oil

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance

Mark Thomas on Coca Cola


Get this documentary on DVD...

Friday, January 9, 2009

Strange Days on Planet Earth

Around the globe, experts are racing to solve a series of mysteries: how could a one-degree rise in average temperature have profound effects around the globe? How could crumbling houses in New Orleans be linked to voracious creatures from southern China?




Hosted by actor-writer-director Edward Norton, this award-winning series uses state-of-the-art graphics and globe-spanning investigations to understand how our environment is changing and why.

Part One - Invaders

More and more plants and animals are turning up where they don't belong. The global system of transportation is carrying them around the world. Alarmingly alien species have the potential to cause damage to the health and wellbeing of our communities and need to be kept in check.



At the end of World War II, American soldiers in the Pacific used wooden crates to ship equipment back to the United States. Little did they know that they were also transporting an aggressive breed of termite. They might be small but in large numbers they are destructive, bringing down the timber homes that dominate New Orleans.



In Uganda it took only a few years for water hyacinth, not native to the area, to rapidly spread around Lake Victoria, choking the banks. Diseases such as malaria and dysentery have been on the rise, and the prevalence of the plant has made it harder for fishermen to make a living. Can a small insect, the weevil, bring the water hyacinth under control?




In the forests of Hawaii, a plant introduced in the 1960s, has become a new source of erosion. The invasive plant with its destabilising root system has caused an increasing number of landslides. Not only devastating to species in the forests, soils being dumped in the oceans are also damaging sea-life.


Part Two - The One Degree Factor

Dust clouds are building high over the Atlantic. An entire population of caribou is declining, while other species are pushed to the limits of their physical survival in the oceans. A respiratory illness, once uncommon among children in Trinidad, is now widespread. Amazingly, many scientists now believe these disparate phenomena may be linked to global climate change.



With the constant burning of carbon fuels, scientists have concluded that the Earth's temperature has increased at least one degree. The first episode in the series explores some of the consequences of the temperature increase.




Discover how, after successfully breeding and migrating for thousands of years, the caribou populations in Alaska are now under threat, as the environment around them warms up; how the drought in Africa is responsible for both an increase in children's asthma and a disease in coral plants in the Caribbean; and why zooplankton, the most basic food source in the ocean, is continually fluctuating in population, putting entire communities of animals at risk.


Part Three - Predators

This episode shows how an entire ecosystem can change when its top predators disappear.

In Venezuela the damming of a river created a man-made lake and a number of small islands. The predators that once dominated the ecosystem have gone and the remaining wildlife, including iguana and howler monkeys, battle for survival on the small islands. Without the predators, the changes in animal behaviour and the vegetation are undeniable.




At Yellowstone National Park, Aspen trees and willow bush are disappearing from the landscape at an alarming rate. Could the demise of wolves in the park over the past century provide the answer? The bold move to re-introduce wolves back into the park, may have outraged some of the locals living nearby, but it only takes a couple of years to see the difference their presence makes.

Part Four - Troubled Waters

For decades, efforts have been made around the world to clean up our waterways and in some cases it appears to be working. But are our water systems really as clean as we think they are?



Across America, leopard frog species have been diminishing in large numbers. Scientists have discovered that an increasing number of male species are actually hermaphrodites. Scientists are on a quest to prove whether a herbicide used in corn farming, which is also found in the breeding grounds of the frogs, is actually responsible for the genetic anomalies.




Scientists in Canada have discovered that colonies of beluga whales have high cancer rates. The bodies washed up on shore are so toxic that they are considered hazardous waste. But where are the toxins coming from and how can scientists help save the whale colonies?

Click here for the official website.

More documentaries like this...

The Kogi - From the Heart of the World

Life After People

Global Dimming

The Human Footprint

Buy this amazing documentary on DVD...

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Something in the Air

Can polluted air on board planes damage your health? This episode of Panorama talks to pilots who have almost passed out at the controls and passengers who say they've been made ill by toxic fumes. The air breathed on airliners is drawn past the engines. It can become polluted by any leaks of engine oil.




'Fume events' are rare but there are no accurate figures of just how many occur each year. Panorama wanted to discover what was really in the air passengers, crew and pilots breathe on planes. Swabs and air samples during two UK flights will be analysed by toxicologist, Professor Christiaan Van Netten on Monday's programme.

Toxic Fumes
Reporter Gerry Northam also meets a family who believe they were made ill by fumes on board a plane. Samantha and Pete Sabatino and their three children boarded a holiday charter flight to Florida. During the flight, six-year-old Emily complained of a funny smell then vomited violently.




In the following fortnight, other family members became ill. Mum Samantha was hospitalised. On the return flight, she made a list of 31 passengers who had been similarly affected after the flight out. They believe toxic fumes had contaminated the air on board. Sixteen of them are now planning legal action.


Sunday, December 14, 2008

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance

The amazing documentary film contains several cinematic sequences accompanied by recurring musical themes. The chapters on the Koyaanisqatsi DVD are separated and named by the titles of the musical sections.




The first image in the film is of a Fremont Indian pictogram located in The Great Gallery of Horseshoe Canyon, part of Canyonlands National Park, Utah. The section shown depicts several tall darkly-shadowed figures standing near a taller figure adorned with a crown. The next image is a close-up of the Saturn V rocket from the Apollo 12 mission during lift off. The film fades into a shot of a desolate desert landscape. The large skylight arch depicted a few scenes later is a formation called Paul Bunyan's Potty in the Needles District of Canyonlands. From there, it progresses to footage of various natural environmental phenomena such as waves and cloud formations ("Organic").




The film's introduction to human involvement in the environment is subtle: a low aerial shot of choppy water cuts to a similar shot of rows of cultivated flowers. After aerial views of monumental rock formations partly drowned by the backed up waters of Lake Powell, we see a large mining truck causing billows of black dust in the chapter titled "Resource". This is followed by shots of power lines in the desert. Man's continued involvement in the environment is depicted through images of mining operations, overhead shots of power plants, Glen Canyon Dam (not Hoover Dam as the Glen Canyon Bridge is visible) and stock footage of atomic bomb detonations in the Nevada desert.




Right after the atomic bomb detonations, the sequence entitled "Vessels" begins with a shot of sunbathers on a beach, then pans to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, showing how oblivious the sunbathers are to being so close to the same power as the atomic bombs. "Vessels" contains the film's longest single take: a three minute and thirty-two second long shot of two United Airlines commercial passenger Boeing 747s taxiing on a runway. "Vessels" also contains shots of traffic patterns during rush hour on a Los Angeles freeway and a shot of a large parking lot. This is followed with stock footage of Soviet tanks lined up in rows and a B-1 Lancer military aircraft.




The juxtaposition of humans and nature is seen again in the chapter "Cloudscape". The time-lapse photography of shadows of clouds are seen moving across the skyscrapers in New York City. The sequence "Pruit-Igoe" contains shots of various housing projects in disrepair, and includes footage of the decay and demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project. The housing project was known for its modernist design, but fell into immediate disrepair. The sequence ends with stock footage of the destruction of large buildings. A sequence known as "Slow People" begins with a time-lapse shot of a crowd of people who appear to be waiting in a line. This is followed by shots of people walking along the streets of New York City shot with slow motion photography.




"The Grid" is the film's longest sequence, roughly 22 minutes in length. The cinematic theme of this sequence is the speed of modern life. The sequence begins with shots of buildings and a shot of a sunset reflected in the glass of a skyscraper. The sequence is characterized by its use of time lapse photography of the activity of modern life, taking events typically shot at normal speed and accelerating them. The events captured in this sequence involve people interacting with modern technology. The first shots are traffic patterns as seen from skyscrapers at night. This is followed by the film's iconic shot of the moon passing behind a skyscraper. The next shots are closer shots of cars on highway. The sun rises over the city and we see shots of people hurrying to work. The film shows at regular speed the operation of machines packaging Oscar Mayer bologna. People are shown sorting mail, sewing jeans, manufacturing televisions and doing other jobs with the use of modern technology. A shot of hot dogs being sent down rows of conveyers is followed by a shot of people moving up escalators. The frenetic speed and pace of the cuts and background music do not slow as shots of modern leisure are shown. People eat, play, shop and work at the same speed. The sequence begins to come full circle as the manufacturing of automobiles in an assembly line factory is shown.




More shots of highway traffic are shown, this time in daylight. The film shows the movement of cars, shopping carts, Twinkies, and televisions on an assembly line, and elevators moving from first person perspective. These shots include cars along the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco (later demolished due to damage from the 1989 earthquake), and people on escalators in New York's Grand Central Terminal and the PATH station below the World Trade Center. The film then shows clips from various television shows being channel surfed in fast motion. Clips include a car crash, newscasts moving so fast that the anchors' faces are blurred (if you pause in this part you can see a very young Lou Dobbs reporting on the middle east) football games, and flashes of television advertisements. The film then shows a man and two different couples reacting to being filmed on the street in slow motion photography. Some of the pedestrians appear indifferent to being filmed, others appear irritated, and one man looks confused about being filmed. The sequence then shows cars moving much faster than they were moving before. Both the sequence and the music end without resolution, either cinematic or musical.





"Microchips" juxtaposes pictures of microchips and satellite photography of metropolitan cities, making an obvious comparison between their layouts. "Prophecies" shows various shots of people from all walks of modern life, from beggars to debutantes. A scene of firefighters moving along a smoky street was shot during the aftermath of the riots after the New York City blackout of 1977. "Ending" shows stock footage of a modified and unpiloted Atlas rocket from the Mercury program from the early 1960s. The rocket blows up shortly after lift off (many viewers mistakenly assume it to be the space shuttle Challenger, the destruction of which occurred three years after the movie's release). The footage follows the flaming rocket engine as it plummets to earth. The film comes full circle with a shot of a different portion of The Great Gallery pictograph. It is similar to the first shot, but with no darkly shadowed figures.

If you like the film, buy the DVD. Visit the official site here.

Get this documentary on DVD...

Friday, November 21, 2008

Who Killed the Electric Car?

This documentary deals with the history of the electric car, its development and commercialization, mostly focusing on the General Motors EV1, which was made available for lease in Southern California, after the California Air Resources Board passed the ZEV mandate in 1990, as well as the implications of the events depicted for air pollution, environmentalism, Middle East politics, and global warming.




The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after suits from automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, and the George W. Bush administration. It points out that Bush's chief influences, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Andrew Card, are all former executives and board members of oil and auto companies.




A large part of the film accounts for GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and dispose of them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed; GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank before they were crushed). Several activists are shown being arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed.




The film explores some of the reasons that the auto and oil industries worked to kill off the electric car. Wally Rippel is shown explaining that the oil companies were afraid of losing out on trillions in potential profit from their transportation fuel monopoly over the coming decades, while the auto companies were afraid of losses over the next six months of EV production. Others explained the killing differently. GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss argued it was lack of consumer interest due to the maximum range of 80–100 miles per charge, and the relatively high price.





The film also explores the future of automobile technologies including a deeply critical look at hydrogen vehicles and an upbeat discussion of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle technologies.

Click here for the official website.

Buy this documentary on DVD now...

Monday, November 10, 2008

The Human Footprint

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if all the clothes, washing machines and toilet paper you ever used were piled up outside your front door? Or if you were to lay out all the bread you will ever eat or cups of tea you will drink? This beautiful, landmark film uses art and science to explore the impact each and every human has on the planet in an average lifetime, demonstrating the massive scale of everything consumed and produced in one lifetime.



Featuring a series of arresting art installations and mind-boggling statistics, Human Footprint follows the average life journey from the cradle to the grave, showing just how much, how often and for how long we will each consume. How much food and drink we will devour, how many tears we will cry, how much hair we will shed and how much waste matter we will process through our bodies – all within the 2 billion 475 million, 5,076 seconds that each of us will, on average, spend on earth.




Human Footprint also features several experts, who explain the science behind the installations and explore the profound effect our individual footprints will have on the planet. From our babyhood – when we get through a massive 3,796 nappies and produce 254 litres of urine – through to our old age and death – by which time we will have had sex 4,239 times, eaten 10,866 carrots, taken 7,163 baths and done an average of 15 farts a day – this online documentary tells the story of an average life, the story of our human footprint.

Click here for the fantastic interactive official site.

Buy the DVD now...



Monday, November 3, 2008

The Denial Machine

In the past few years, a firestorm has engulfed the debate about global warming. This issue has pitted science against spin, with inflammatory words from both sides. Former Vice-President Al Gore’s recent Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his work on global warming, only served to heighten the rhetoric on both sides of the debate.




How could scientific fact, which many believe could determine the very future of the planet, become a political battleground, left versus right, environmentalist versus climate change sceptic?

Global warming: potential costs?
A 2006 British report estimated that the projected costs of global warming to be as costly as both world wars and the Great Depression added together. Yet, with such consequences, some scientists still insist that climate change, if it is happening at all, could be a good thing. The Denial Machine investigates the roots of the campaign to negate the science and the threat of global warming. It tracks the activities of a group of scientists, some of whom previously consulted for Big Tobacco, and who are now receiving donations from major coal and oil companies.




Who is keeping the debate of global warming alive?
The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences. It shows that companies such as Exxon Mobil are working with top public relations firms and using many of the same tactics and personnel as those employed by Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds to dispute the cigarette-cancer link in the 1990s. Exxon Mobil sought out those willing to question the science behind climate change, providing funding for some of them, their organizations and their studies.





The Denial Machine also explores how the arguments supported by oil companies were adopted by policymakers in both Canada and the US and helped form government policy.




More documentaries like this...

Sweet Misery - A Poisoned World

Life After People

A World Without Water

Global Dimming

The Curse of Oil

Saturday, October 4, 2008

End Day - A Documentary

Imagine waking up to the last day on Earth...




Inspired by the predictions of scientists, End Day creates apocalyptic scenarios that go beyond reality. In a single hour, explore five different fictional disasters, from a giant tsunami hitting New York to a deadly meteorite strike on Berlin.




End Day is a 2005 docu-drama produced by the BBC and aired on the National Geographic Channel, on the TV series, National Geographic Channel Presents, that depicts various doomsday scenarios. The documentary follows the fictional scientist Dr. Howell, played by Glenn Conroy, as he travels from his London hotel room to his laboratory in New York City, and shows how each scenario affects his journey as well as those around him, with various experts providing commentary on that specific disaster as it unfolds.





More documentaries like this...

The Kogi - From the Heart of the World

Life After People Documentary

A World Without Water

Judgement Day - Intelligent Design on Trial

The Quest for Life

Sunday, September 28, 2008

The 11th Hour

Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, this captivating documentary explores the perilous state of our planet, and the means by which we can change our course. Contributing to this crucial film are noted politicians, scientists and other ambassadors for the importance of a universal ecological consciousness.




"We reached out to independent experts on the front lines of what could be the greatest challenge of our time: the collapse of our planet's ecosystems and our search for solutions to create a sustainable future," says Leonardo DiCaprio.

"We ourselves wanted to understand why humans were on a crash course with nature, and what we had to do to change course," says co-writer/co-director/producer Leila Conners Petersen. Her sister and collaborator, Nadia Conners, adds, "One of the great things about doing this project was being able to meet people that inspired me or opened my mind through their work and writings. It was a great honor and a huge learning experience."




The 11th Hour examines the human relationship with earth from its earliest glimmers of innovation, to the challenges humanity faces in the present, to the possibilities of the future.




"It was the human mind that was the key to our very survival," David Suzuki, an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster, says in the film. "Now, when you think that we evolved in Africa about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and compared to the other animals that must have been on the plains of that time, we weren't very impressive. We weren't very many; we weren't very big; we weren't gifted with special senses. The one thing, the key to our survival and our taking over the planet, was the human brain. But because the human mind invented the concept of a future, we're the only animal on the planet that actually was able to recognize: we could affect the future by what we do today."





The film posits that in many ways, humanity has detached itself from nature, and grown accustomed to using without thinking to manage the earth's resources.


Click here to visit the official website.


More documentaries like this...

The Kogi - From the Heart of the World

Life After People

A World Without Water

Global Dimming

Own this important documentary on DVD...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Crude - The Incredible Journey of Oil

The audio is pretty bad on this documentary up to 3:30 minutes, but fine after that...

From the food on our tables to the fuel in our cars, crude oil seeps invisibly into almost every part of our modern lives. It is the energy source and raw material that drives transport and the economy. Yet many of us have little idea of the incredible journey it has made to reach our petrol tanks and plastic bags.



Coming in the wake of rising global concerns about the continued supply of oil, and increasingly weird weather patterns, Crude spans 160 million years of the Earth's history to reveal the story of oil; from its birth deep in the dinosaur-inhabited past, to its ascendancy as the indispensable ingredient of modern life.



Filmed on location in 11 countries across five continents, the program's award-winning Australian filmmaker Richard Smith consults the leading international scientific experts to join the dots between geology and economy and provide the big-picture view of oil.



Crude takes a step back from the day to day news to illuminate the Earth's extraordinary carbon cycle and the role of oil in our impending climate crisis. Nearly seven billion people have come to depend on this resource, yet the Oil Age that began less than a century and a half ago, could be over in our lifetimes.



Click here to visit the official website.