Critical Mass

Ben Fogle spends a week living inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, gaining privileged access to the doomed Control Room 4 where the disaster first began to unfold.

Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers an alarming global conspiracy.

Earth's environmental crisis--brought about by uncontrolled technological progress--is endangering life on a global scale. At the core of the threats to the planet - wars, overpopulation, pollution, and the depletion of natural resources - is the inadequacy of the nation state to come to terms with the surmounting problems of twentieth century living. What is urgently needed is the kind of international cooperation where nation states relinquish part of their sovereignty to a world body entrusted with the management of mankind's future.

In the first half of the 19th century, the French ornithologist Jean-Jacques Audubon travelled to America to depict birdlife along the Mississippi River. Audubon was also a gifted painter. His life’s work in the form of the classic book ‘Birds of America’ is an invaluable documentation of both extinct species and an entire world of imagination. During the same period, early industrialisation and the expulsion of indigenous peoples was in full swing. The gorgeous film traces Audubon’s path around the South today. The displaced people’s descendants welcome us and retell history, while the deserted vistas of heavy industry stretch across the horizon. The magnificent, broad images in Jacques Loeuille’s atmospheric, modern adventure reminds us at the same time how little - and yet how much - is left of the nature that Audubon travelled around in. His paintings of the colourful birdlife of the South still belong to the most beautiful things you can imagine.

David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.

This underwater ballet is an ecological story depicting our paradoxical relationship with plastic. Bakelite launched the #SickOfPlastic campaign from On Est Prêt, along with the Surfrider Foundation, Break Free from Plastic and the Resilient Foundation. Photography was directed by Jacques Ballard, a specialist in underwater cinematography.

Three farming families in Hanyuan, China, strive to give their children a good life in the midst of an ecological crisis, as widespread use of pesticides leads to a dramatic decline in bees and other pollinating insects in the valley.

Over the past year, three young scientists have found unusual colored frogs in the wild in Latvia that are not typical for our region. A green frog with unusual orange and black coloring—seen for the first time—as well as a strange red frog. Scientists are trying to determine the cause – whether these are "natural errors" in a few specimens, or whether the entire frog population is affected – with environmental pollution being cited as one of the reasons. In a parallel story the scientists are conducting research on the restored tree frog population, observing the results of a project implemented in the 1990s – at that time, the extinct tree frog species was successfully restored and is once again found on the Kurzeme coast.

The story of a brilliant ecologist with a plan to save the world by restoring the planet's forests. His original work was hijacked by corporations and politicians with disastrous effect. Now he's using science to fight back.

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For six years, Melati, 18, has been fighting the plastic pollution that is ravaging her country, Indonesia. Like her, a generation is rising up to fix the world. Everywhere, teenagers and young adults are fighting for human rights, the climate, freedom of expression, social justice, access to education or food. Dignity. Alone against all odds, sometimes risking their lives and safety, they protect, denounce and care for others. The earth. And they change everything. Melati goes to meet them across the globe. At a time when everything seems to be or has been falling apart, these young people show us how to live. And what it means to be in the world today.

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

Offshore wind farms are a major player in the move away from fossil fuels, especially in the North Sea, and they are increasing in number. But their impact on the environment is not yet clear: We take a look at ongoing research in Europe that is measuring the impact of wind turbines and their harm, or benefit, to biodiversity in our seas.

Violent squalls, hail, waterspouts, lightning... storms put animals and plants to the test. At a time when climate change is multiplying extreme weather events, this documentary plunges into the heart of a storm, from the heavy, dry atmosphere that precedes it to the deluge that follows.