A Perfect Planet
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- Episode
- Episode 5 - Humans
- Broadcast Info
- 2021 (58 mins)
- Description
- Our home, a blue glowing beacon of life, hangs alone in the cosmos. The only living world we know of. But a new force, one so powerful that it is upsetting the balance of life on earth, threatens our perfect planet - that force is us. Humans are changing our planet so rapidly, it’s affecting earth’s life support systems: our weather, our oceans and the living world. To understand what is going wrong, we must look to the past. Earth has been through at least five mass extinction events, most of which have been caused by cataclysmic volcanic eruptions. It’s not the lava or ash that wiped out life but an invisible gas released by volcanoes, Carbon Dioxide or CO2. Through compelling animal-led stories and expert interviews, we discover how the invisible gas is destabilising Earth. We meet rescued orphaned elephants in Kenya, victims of ever worsening droughts, and join ocean patrols off the coast of Gabon fighting to save endangered sharks. In the Amazon, we witness wildlife teams saving animals in the shrinking forests and in San Diego we enter a cryogenic zoo preserving the DNA of endangered species before they go extinct. Almost every part of modern life depends on energy created by burning fossil fuels; this produces CO2 in huge amounts. Humans are now acting like a super-volcano releasing carbon dioxide at an even greater rate than the prehistoric mega-eruptions that extinguished life in the past. Globally, we now release one hundred times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all of Earth’s volcanoes combined. The greatest change we must make is how we create our energy, and Earth is brimming with natural power to do just that - wind, solar, wave and geothermal It’s these forces of nature, that have shaped life, which hold the key to our future. The film concludes with the children who are making their voices heard, reminding all of us that we are running out of time to save our perfect planet.
- Genre
- Natural History; https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/search.php?genre=59
How to cite this record
The Open University, "A Perfect Planet". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/238121 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)