Tag Archives: amazon

The Politics of Climate Change

The World Health Organisation puts the number of deaths from climate change at 250,000 by 2050.

We travel the world to see how the devastation wrought by droughts, wildfires, floods and catastrophic rains – all the direct results of climate change – are a political problem, and require political solutions. From the outback of Australia, to the Pakistani Himalayas and Brazilian Amazon, this series takes us to the front line of the approaching disaster.

Along the way, we meet people and activists trying to find ways to tackle the biggest issue of the 21st century.

A combination of bad policies and political apathy is speeding up climate change. Have we reached the tipping point? Can it be reversed?

 

Episode 1 – Australia´s Coal Conundrum

Against the backdrop of dwindling water resources, ravaging bushfires and high unemployment, a controversial new mine set to be built in Central Queensland is being met with controversy and passionate resistance. Further mining activities promise to exacerbate the region’s already dwindling water resources while raising Australia’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. The perceived silver lining in the building of the controversial Carmichael Mine is the promise of job creation. But, at what cost?

 

Episode 2 – Brazil´s Amazonian Battle

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon increased 30% since Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro came to power. More than 120,000 square kilometers of the Amazon forest have been destroyed: an area a fifth the size of Wales in the last 10 years. It’s displaced around 400 indigenous groups but has also decimated a vast store of carbon that is vital for tackling climate change. The jungles produce 20% of the world’s oxygen. We go on an investigative journey to reveal the gold rush pushing communities over the edge. Along the way, we meet the Mundurukku aboriginal tribes and activists fighting to stop the destruction of Amazon jungles. We also meet activists seeking solutions for a sustainable lifestyle.

 

Episode 3 – Pakistan´s Himalayan Meltdown

The word Himalaya means House of Snow, and is the second largest icecap outside the polar regions. But it is melting at the fastest rate in human history. One-third of the Himalayan glaciers are projected to disappear by the end of this century due to climate change, threatening the supply of water to nearly 2 billion people across South Asia. We discover how water became a major flash point between arch-rivals India and Pakistan, due to the Siachen glacier conflict, and go undercover to observe the proliferation of water thieves in Karachi. We also examine the impact of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s billion tree tsunami, Pakistan’s bold bid to mitigate worsening climate change.

Ayahuasca: Expansion of Consciousness

Ayhuasca: Expansion of Consciousness, tells the story of Ayahuasca, from its emergence in the Amazonian Forest, to its popularity with the Santo Daime religion, and on to its arrival in urban centres. 

Combining scientific, religious and anthropological perspectives on the use of Ayahuasca in modern society, and in parallel with the director Fausto Noro’s own healing process, Ayhuasca: Expansion of Consciousness provides for the first time, a holistic, yet balanced view of this controversial subject.

Secrets of the Tribe

This is the story of the unhealthy meeting of two cultures: an indigenous tribe, the Yanomami and the western anthropologists who came to the Amazon to study them. Over three decades the Yanomami Indians were transformed from the “last Stone Age tribe” so prized by those anthropologists to the most exhaustively documented and filmed tribe on earth.

Napoleon Chagnon built his reputation – and sold over a million books – by claiming to demonstrate the innate ferocity of Yanomami. He dubbed them The Fierce People. In 1968 his biggest expedition and most famous film were both lavishly funded by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. He targeted world-famous geneticist Dr James Neel, who literally wanted their blood – he was on the lookout for a ‘virgin soil’ population and was keen to know how diseases spread through such populations. Coincidentally or otherwise, a serious and deadly outbreak of measles happened during their expedition, killing hundreds in its wake.

Chagnon friend and fellow anthropologist Jacques Lizot, was a young prodigy and favoured student of the godfather of cultural anthropology and French intellectual icon, Claude Levi-Strauss. Like practically all other anthropologists in the field, they both distributed gifts, in order to ease their way into a tribe’s affections. “Chagnon is the golden goose for the Yanomami. He brings steel tools, machetes, fishhooks and they tell him what they think he wants to hear.” Lizot’s gifts included shotguns, but his favours were not confined to the academic and his illegal sexual predations amongst the Yanomami were kept sated over years, funded by the Collège de France and Académie Française over decades.

A leaked email from two top anthropologists notes: “This nightmarish story – a real anthropological Heart Of Darkness is beyond the imagining of even a Josef Conrad – though not, perhaps, a Josef Mengele.”