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

BBC - Earth Planet Atmosphere @ Yahoo! Video

Ice

BBC - Earth,The Power Of The Planet Ice @ Yahoo! Video

Oceans

Rare Earth

Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life

David Attenborough asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before?




David starts his journey in Darwin's home at Down House in Kent, where Darwin worried and puzzled over the origins of life. David goes back to his roots in Leicestershire, where he hunted for fossils as a child, and where another schoolboy unearthed a significant find in the 1950s. And he revisits Cambridge University, where both he and Darwin studied, and where many years later the DNA double helix was discovered, providing the foundations for genetics.

At the end of his journey in the Natural History Museum in London, David concludes that Darwin's great insight revolutionised the way in which we see the world. We now understand why there are so many different species, and why they are distributed in the way they are. But above all, Darwin has shown us that we are not set apart from the natural world, and do not have dominion over it. We are subject to its laws and processes, as are all other animals on earth to which, indeed, we are related.

The Last Lions of India

I have had many requests for more nature documentaries...this documentary is for those that want to know the life of animals, rather than just watching them.




This documentary is about Asiatic lions, which are completely different from African lions in both appearance and behaviour but are thriving in India. Their refuge is the Gir forest in Gujarat, and in the last 100 years their numbers have grown from 20 to over 300.

These lions are now spreading out beyond the protection of the National Park, reclaiming lost territory and colonising new habitats. It's a rare conservation success story but one that brings new challenges to lions, naturalists and forestry staff.

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...

David Attenborough Documentaries

I have had several requests for documentaries by the old master David Attenborough. I am not too fond of nature documentaries myself, but Sir David does make his films come alive!




Below you will find one Attenborough documenary series with four parts and two seperate documentaries...enjoy!

Lost Worlds - Vanished Lives

Break open a stone and you may discover a new species, one that existed thousands of years ago. From insects to dinosaurs, David Attenborough shares his enthusiasm for fossils and fulfils one of his most enduring ambitions: a global fossil hunt.




PART ONE - Magic in the Rocks

PART TWO - Putting Flesh on Bone

PART THREE - Dinosaur

PART FOUR - The Rare Glimpses

The Great Natural Wonders of the World

Narrator David Attenborough sets out on an intrepid quest that celebrates the wealth of natural features that makes Planet Earth so varied, distinctive, and beautiful.

Can We Save Planet Earth?

After a long career as a naturalist, David Attenborough still cares passionately about the world he is leaving to coming generations.




In Can We Save Planet Earth? he looks into the future to find out what needs to be done to save our planet from the impact of global warming.

He discovers what could happen once a “tipping point” of carbon emissions is reached and searches for the solutions we can all adopt to prevent catastrophic change.

The latest and best on DVD from David Attenborough...