PBS Frontline: Heat

miscrms · Oct 22, 2008

Caught bits of this on PBS last night, seems to be really well done. Nice to see a treatment of the topic on mainstream television that is suitably long and in depth, touching on many of the major aspects, and mostly resisting the urge to degenerate into sensationalist histrionics. All in all it seemed like a pretty good picture of the current energy situation. Included a good segment on the struggles to raise CAFE standards, the Partnership for a New Generation of American Vehicles, the EV1, the Prius and the Volt. Good segment about the Ethanol lobby too.

FRONTLINE: heat | PBS

You can watch it online here:
FRONTLINE: heat: watch the full program | PBS

Its also replaying late tonight/early tomorrow morning if anyone wants to set their DVRs. Mine's already set so I can see the whole thing without my 2.5 year old yelling through most of it .

Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, fires, floods and droughts. On the eve of a historic election, award-winning producer and correspondent Martin Smith investigates how the world's largest corporations and governments are responding to Earth's looming environmental disaster.
"I have reported on the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the rise of Al Qaeda, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," says Smith. "But nothing matches climate change in scope and severity."

The world needs to dramatically cut the carbon emissions responsible for wreaking havoc on the planet's climate, according to Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, whose organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize. "If we don't take action immediately, we face a crisis," Pachauri tells Smith. "Climate change is caused by human actions, and we need to do something about it. The sooner we realize that, the better."

With that sense of urgency in mind, Smith traveled to 12 countries on four continents to investigate whether major corporations and governments are up to the challenge. HEAT features in-depth interviews with top policy-makers and with leading executives from many of the largest carbon emitters from around the world, including Chinese coal companies, Indian SUV makers and American oil giants. The report paints an ominous portrait. Despite increasing talk about "going green," across the planet, environmental concerns are still taking a back seat to shorter-term economic interests.

Author and journalist Jeff Goodell adds, "We seem incapable of grasping what's at stake here, perhaps because so much is at stake. Addressing this really means reinventing the engine of our livesâ€”which is fossil fuels."

Main thematic segments are:
1. Watching the World Change
2. Fossil Fuels, the Engine of Our Lives
3. Ten Years to Reverse Course
4. America's Addiction to Coal
5. Cars: 2nd Largest Source of Carbon Emissions
6. Big Oil
7. Two Instructive Lessons From the Past
8. Carbon Free Power
9. Will America Summon the Political Will?

Rob

Log in or Sign up

PBS Frontline: Heat

miscrms Plug Envious Member

Comments

Share This Page

New

Recent

Popular

Log in or Sign up

PBS Frontline: Heat

miscrms Plug Envious Member

Comments

Share This Page

Useful Searches