Tag Archives: Environment

Great White North

With a never-before-seen explosion of Great White Shark encounters off Canada’s East Coast, we embark on a research expedition to unlock the secrets of these elusive apex predators that have invaded Canada’s ocean playground.

A recent spate of close encounters with Great White Sharks has brought together a team of researchers and scientists to conduct a ground-breaking research expedition.

Using an array of underwater cameras, ground-breaking early advance multi-beam sonar imaging, ROV cameras, underwater acoustic technology, and drone photography, our team will prove that not only are great whites here, but in much larger numbers than anyone had imagined.

The expedition will also break new ground in expanding our knowledge of these elusive apex predators. Many questions remain to be answered: how many great whites are visiting North Atlantic Waters and for how long. Are they reproducing there, or just summer visitors feasting on seals and tuna? What role does climate change play in the proliferation of sharks in the Northwest Atlantic? Are these curious juveniles carving out new territory, or mature breeding adults that are expanding their range? What impact are they having on the local ecosystem, and does their presence mean the North Atlantic Ocean is becoming healthier?

Ocean Odyssey

We follow a pair of Humpback Whales – a mother and her calf – on their great migration from the warm tropics to the frozen ice flows of Antarctica, via an Ocean Current that is home to thousands of interconnected species.

As we cross multiple eco-systems, it becomes evident that the ocean itsself is the blue heart of our entire planet, necessary for life as we know it both in the sea and on land. Our journey takes us from the smallest microscopic organisms to the largest animals ever to have inhabited the planet to understand how their fragile interdependence is crucial to maintaining the oceans health but also our weather systems on land, and the make up of our atmosphere.

Between the Americas (series)

Between the Americas is a search for the iconic sounds of Central America, and what they signify. For a long time, this region seemed to be on the ascendance, but opposing forces have hindered any positive developments. There have emerged two Americas, and in between these two visions, journalist Stef Biemans listens to what Central America has to tell. Biemans has lived and worked in the region for more than 15 years and illuminates the delicate situation of lots of Central Americans in a collidescope of sounds and stories.

 

Episode One –  Listening to San Blas

The Islands of San Blas are inhabited by the Kuna people, an Indigenous people who live on the rhythm of nature. As their islands are at the forefront of climate change, with the Caribbean Sea rising continuously, they face a huge dilemma: relocate to the mainland or to wait until the water comes? Stef Biemans preserves the last sounds of this extraordinary culture: a sewing machine, the threatening waves, a grated coconut and the singing palm tree.

Episode Two –  Panama’s Echo

Panama seems to be doing well. The economy flourishes and this results in a vertical building drive and an impressive skyline. Biemans visits the colourful neighbourhood at the foot of these buildings and finds out what has changed for the ordinary people of Panama.

Episode Three –  The Silence of Guatemala


If we listen carefully to the stories of the Maya people, we will hear a silence that has lasted for 40 years. This silence is about the genocide that took place under the rule of General Efraín Ríos Montt. It is called The Silence of Guatemala because the mass slaughter off the indigenous people has never been recognized. Has the moment arrived to break the silence?

Episode Four –  Costa Rica’s Happiness


Most people in Costa Rica – the happiest country of Central America – say their lives could not be any better. On a scale of 0 to10, the population on average award their happines a 9. But people in neighboring country Nicaragua are feeling far from okay. Recently a stream of refugees has fled to Costa Rica in their search for freedom and safety. Are they welcome and who is entitled to happiness?

 

Climate Trailblazers: Reimagining Our Future

Exciting technologies have emerged, setting the gears in motion for a new green industrial revolution.

Climate Trailbazers; Reimagining Our Future examines the new technologies and practices that decouple social and economic growth from carbon emissions showcasing innovations across the world that provide new and greener ways of producing energy, materials and food.

These new technologies, if adopted at scale, could move the needle on climate change.

The new tech and business models featured also prove that sustainability can be profitable, while consumers and whole industries alike can play their part in slowing – and reversing – environmental damage and creating a more sustainable future for generations to come.

Climate Trailblazers provides a message of hope for those who care about sustainability, and our planet, in what is often characterised as an unavoidable catastrophe.

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.

Forging the Future (series)

Filmed across North America, Europe, and Australia, and mastered in 4K, this six-part series focuses on the most exciting disciplines in popular science today.

Each episode features a deep dive into: Artificial Intelligence, Achieving Immortality, Living Off the Earth, Genetic Engineering, Cyborg Technology, and creating a Disease-Free World with the Human Microbiome.

By showing how the most cutting-edge technologies work across these fields, the series reveals the real-world impact they will have, and the hopeful futures they will create—and which this series dramatically reveals—for humanity and the planet.

Through immersive, ‘you are there’ filmmaking, each episode presents the most esteemed technologists and scientists in action at the world’s most advanced facilities—including those at elite institutions like Harvard University, MIT, Columbia University.

To overcome some of our greatest challenges, they are using gene-editing technologies to fight life-threatening genetic disorders, using Artificial Intelligence to develop robotic consciousness, creating outside-the-box treatments that can reverse ageing, or even using Computer-Assisted Telepathy that gives a person control of another person’s body!

Forging the Future offers unique, first person perspectives from some of the most respected scientists today, as they help to create a better future for everyone.

Episode 1 Cyborg Revolution won the 2021 Gold Award at the New York Festivals TV and Film for Best Science and Technology episode, and Episodes 4 and 5 (Life off Earth and Disease Free World) both won Finalist Awards. Details here, here and here.

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Episode 1 – Cyborg Revolution

We’ve all seen Cyborgs in Hollywood blockbusters. But it turns out these fictional beings aren’t so far-fetched. In fact, this episode features a true-to-life cyborg, who at four months of age, was the youngest American to be outfitted with a myoelectric hand. And at one ground-breaking engineering facility, engineers are developing biotechnologies that can even further enhance high-tech like this by giving mechanical prosthetics something incredible: the physical sensation of touch!

Other engineering firms are gearing up powerful exoskeletons that both rehabilitate and enhance the power of the human body… improving the lives of those with paralysis and transforming the work force.

But the real pivot is getting machines inside the body. An out-of-the-box ‘transhumanist’ featured in the episode installs a chip inside a person’s hand. It works as a key that unlocks doors, literally and figuratively.

However, brain-machine integration poses the biggest challenges, and the biggest rewards. Cutting-edge neuroscientists and technologists reveal how computer chips can directly interface with the human brain in ways that not only rehabilitate, but which can also ‘read thoughts’ in real-time.

Remarkably, a breakthrough technology called ‘Computer Assisted Telepathy’ is achieving the impossible. Through a test subject’s mind only, she’s able to control another person’s body. Technologies like these will pave the way toward the Cyborg Revolution.

  

 

Episode 2 – Hyper Intelligence

Everyone has heard about Artificial Intelligence (or AI), but very few people know what it is or how it actually works. This episode brings this otherwise abstract topic to life by visiting the most cutting-edge engineering firms where innovative technologists are using AI to transform machines into thinking robots.

Leading institutions are preparing robot rovers and flying drones to navigate through unmapped territories, in order to save lives in bold Search and Rescue missions. By ‘mapping as they go’, these thinking machines generate their own intelligence—allowing them to self-navigate without human input. Additionally, some technologists are coordinating swarms of drones to operate and collaborate together—all with the explicit ambition of improving the efficiency of farming and increasing food production.

Though the news media often reports on how machines could cause unemployment, that’s not what AI inventors in this program are saying. In fact, their AI-driven robots are using machine-learning to work better with humans. Through observation, AI robots are learning to anticipate the actions of human co-workers, keeping people safer in the workplace – and making it more productive.

Some scientists in this show are even developing AI robots that are achieving the beginnings of robotic consciousness. By comprehending their own self-image, they are able to learn about their environment, make decisions, and navigate the space around them – just as  human babies do. Other engineers are taking this technology even further to develop real-world Androids – that is, robots that look, feel, and act like people.

Becoming consultants, advisors, and even friends, these Androids will ultimately help individuals adjust to realities of the human condition.

 

Episode 3 – Human Immortality

If you thought Human Immortality was just a concept in science fiction, this episode reveals how it will become science fact. For some scientists featured in this program, achieving Immortality is not a question of ‘If’. The real question is ‘When?’.

One scientist shows how she is making lab-grown organs called ‘ghost hearts’ that not only grow quickly, but that can be accepted in any host’s body without rejection—ending the agony for those waiting for organ transplants. Another biologist is looking at Immortality at the microbiological level. In his lab, he’s identified the ‘longevity gene’ (called SIR2) that can slow the ageing process, and which holds the key that will unlock our ability to better control the rate at which we age. One gerontologist is unearthing the immortal secrets of lobsters, who never stop growing and naturally live up to the astonishing age of 122 years. Inspired by how their bodies regulate cellular division, he’s developing cutting-edge medications that will boost human longevity.

Incredibly, one pioneer is creating a unique medical cocktail that can even reverse ageing. Medical techniques like these could pave the way to Human Immortality.

  

 

Episode 4 – Life Off Earth

If you thought The Space Race peaked with the Apollo missions, wait until permanent research bases on the Moon and Mars start cropping up.

The New Space Race to get humans to Mars is heating up, and this episode presents the visionaries who are making this future possible. Once exclusively financed by governments, private companies are now developing the means of living in outer space.

On the cutting edge of this Copernican Revolution is the Dream Chaser—a new, high-flying space shuttle that will ferry researchers to inflatable research habitats in outer space. But creating permanent habitats in the toxic environments on the Moon and Mars is a serious undertaking. Scientists and engineers take these threats to human life very seriously. One engineer is creating advanced, reusable spacesuits that makes mobility and dexterity less bulky, and more feasible in gravity-free environments.

Other engineers featured in the episode are helping in these efforts by developing high-tech drills and pressurization chambers that allow for the excavation of the most crucial resource for the survival of humanity: Liquid Water.

These are just a few parts of the complex efforts needed to establish habitats on alien planets.

One firm is developing habitats that are 3D printed with Martian soil, and will be pre-built before astronauts arrive. But one of the boldest endeavours lies in creating a living, breathing ecosystem that, through plant growth, generates oxygen and food for the first permanent settlers on the Moon and Mars.

An ambitious research project—30 years in the making—is providing the ‘ground-truth’ of how to create an Earth-like Biosphere in outer space… providing a road map for how humanity will survive and even thrive in the life-threatening conditions of other planets.

 

Episode 5 – Disease-Free World: The Microbiome

To create a disease-free world, scientists are pushing the envelope in every conceivable corner. This episode features the most cutting-edge scientists out there—including Nobel-prize winners—who are harnessing the power of what’s called “The Microbiome.”

The Microbiome is the full array of the trillions of microorganisms that live in or on the human body, which help it function. By understanding the Microbiome as a kind of ecosystem, scientists are using innovative techniques to discern the microbes’ various functions in the body as a whole.

Incredibly, through revealing the function of one particular micro-organism, one scientist has been able to cure Stomach Cancer. But other scientists armed with this knowledge are attempting the unthinkable: namely, to increase the presence of microbes across the body by intentionally infecting people with more infectious agents. The reason? Increasing microbial diversity in the body boosts its immunity, and helps people fight disease from the inside out.

Radical methods like these are leading to breakthrough remedies, from the erasure of life-threatening infections like C. Difficile, to ending Asthma and Obesity. Innovative research like this will inform the biotechnologies of the future, and in turn create a disease-free world.

 

Episode 6 – The Rise of Genetic Engineering

Genetic Engineering extends far beyond the controversial news headlines that obsess over ‘designer babies’. In the science community, gene-editing tools like CRISPR and PRIME editing will do nothing less than save the planet.

Methods like this allow scientists to alter and ‘re-program’ the genetics of living organisms.

This episode shows scientists at large using gene-editing technologies to revolutionize the food supply chain, bolstering food crops to prevent famines, and even speed up reforestation efforts that will reverse global warming. Genetic Engineering in farm animals is helping scientists to ‘select’ desirable traits, like physical features and gender. Incredibly, one scientist is using gene-editing technologies to resurrect the DNA of extinct species, like the Wooly Mammoth!

Despite some public concern, gene-editing is definitely a cause for hope in the fight against genetic disorders in humans. It’s already reversing a type of congenital blindness in children. And with the hyper-precision afforded by PRIME editing being prepared for clinical trials, a much more hopeful world will be revealed for families in the future.

The Dark Web (series)

There’s a dark side to the internet, and you probably don’t even know it exists. Look behind the positive veneer of social media, communication apps and platforms that have made our lives easier and more connected, and you’ll find criminals using the same apps and platforms to run illicit and dangerous activities.

Sextortion syndicates target victims globally through social media. Illegal wildlife trades thrive on social consumer marketplaces. Digital black markets operate anonymously using software designed for press privacy and freedom to sell drugs. Secret child pornography rings run rampant in secret, closed groups and private chats.

This explosive new series lifts the lid on how criminal organisations are thriving in this new digital frontier.


Episode One – The Queen of Sextortion

Sextortion was invented by one woman in the Philippines, Maria Caparas. She turned the idea of making friends online and recording explicit video chats into a profitable blackmail and extortion scam that could not exist without social media. She now runs a mini empire seemingly beyond the reach of authorities, that has led to many suicides.

Episode Two – Wildlife Clickbait

They may look like ordinary posts of exotic pets for sale on social media. But they are feeding a growing trade in illegal and endangered animals in Malaysia and beyond. This criminal industry is worth billions and is jeopardising attempts to protect endangered species.

Episode Three – Black Market Boom

Drugs, guns, counterfeit documents and much more are sold on dark web marketplaces that run on anonymous browsers and using cryptocurrency. AlphaBay was the biggest marketplace, transacting over US$800,000 in a day enabling its founder to live a luxury lifestyle in anonymity, until international law enforcement caught up with him.

Episode Four – The Candyman

It was one of 640 million closed groups on Facebook. Hiding behind the anonymity, the creator of child pornography group Loli Candy and its 7,000 members hid their activities on Facebook and Whatsapp – the dissemination of horrifying images of abuse. While they were eventually bought to justice many more thrive.

Crossing the Andes (series)

Half of Latin American countries number among the top economies in the world to do business in, and for many the continent is an investor’s paradise. Why should we keep an eye on Latin America, and which changes are taking place there right now?

As the backbone of South America – some 7000 kilometres long and passing through seven countries – the Andes mountain range is a good place to ask that question.

You’ll find Chilean capitalism in the smog of Santiago, and will travel 30 years back in time through the clouds of remote Bolivian mountain villages. Latino’s are known as a politically engaged people. Always fighting, but with a smile. Strong, but not tough as nails. The history of this continent is one of ups and downs. Sometimes there’s a glimmer of hope, then everything seems to fall apart again. Is the continent crawling, walking or about to fall down again?

Stef Biemans’ journey starts in Tierra del Fuego and ends in Colombia. Along the way, he searches out small stories about big issues, which illuminate contemporary South America.

 

Episode 1.  The Man-eating Mountain

Stef Biemans travels the ridge of the Andes and wonders how South Americans are doing in Potosí, the highest city in the world, and once one of its richest, but also one where life can be short.

In the mining town of Potosí, capitalism was born, as it were. Here, the first coin was struck using silver from the mine of the ‘rich mountain’, which is still in use. So much silver has been extracted from this imposing mountain, you could use it to build a bridge to Spain. But you could also build a bridge out of the bones of dead miners and slaves. On average, miners only make it to the age of 45.

 

Episode 2. The Skyscraper of Santiago

In the Chilean capital of Santiago, Stef visits South America’s highest skyscraper. It was once built as a symbol of progress, but now the tower represents the dark side to that success story: record depression and suicide rates.

The highest tower in South America rises out of the Santiago smog, a symbol of the strong neoliberal economic system. But almost every month, someone jumps off of it. Nowhere else are depression rates as high as in this city of remarkable economic prosperity. In and around this skyscraper, Stef tries to find out where it all went wrong. What are the prerequisites for success and how do people survive in the smog of neoliberalism?

 

Episode 3. El Paraíso Technológico

Stef travels to Argentina’s southernmost tip Ushuaia, and discovers an impressive electronics industry among the penguins. Since it’s become known that there are jobs to be had in Tierra del Fuego, the capital of Ushuaia draws countless South American fortune seekers. What is this growth doing to the mountains surrounding the town?

Terra del Fuego is the new migrant’s paradise of South America. Since word’s gotten out that on the southern tip of the continent you can easily find work in an Argentinian electronics plant, the city has boomed. The Argentinian government has declared the area a tax free zone and companies have flooded in with smartphone and television factorys.

Growth is so rapid here, that it feels like a threat to many people; what is the impact on the nature of the surrounding mountains and its biodiversity? In Tierra del Fuego, Charles Darwin studied man and animal, and discovered the principles of his theory of evolution. Can modern-day inhabitants adapt to these changes?

 

Episode 4. Eternal life

In Ecuador, Stef Biemans visits the valley of eternal life – where the high life expectancy of its inhabitants has astonished observers – and investigates its finite nature. What do spry centenarians in Ecuador right below the equator do in order to stay healthy, what provisions are there for them should they fall ill, and how do South Americans deal with their elderly?

The Vilcabamba valley in Ecuador is known for its healthy old people. The fit old man who interrupts his work in the field to firmly shake Stef Biemans’ hand shows an official proof of identity with a 1913 birthdate. A little bit later, he lets his hips do the talking when he’s dancing.

Others in the valley also dance, but it doesn’t mean they’re all happy. An 89-year-old woman says she’d like for it to be over. ‘God is keeping me alive. I’m waiting for my time to come.’ A voluntary ending to this earthly life is so unthinkable, Biemans is afraid to even broach the subject.

 

Episode 5. My Mother-in-Law stayed at home

In this episode we look at the role of the mother-in-law, because Latino’s tend to talk about them rather a lot.

In Latin America, folk tales, songs, novels and soap operas are not complete without a distrustful mother-in-law. Why is that, he wonders? And has the role of the mother-in-law changed, now the economy is booming and whole families don’t have to live under one roof anymore? Or are mothers-in-law still as picky and meddlesome as Latino men would have us believe? Maybe they have good reason to be so, because men aren’t always gentle with their women.

 

Episode 6. The Mother of Colombia

In the final episode of the series, we journey down the Magdalena River, which originates in the Andes and ends in the Caribbean Sea.

This is the most hopeful period in Colombia’s history: the peace treaty has been signed and the country looks towards the future as new roads and bridges are being constructed. At the same time, the Magdalena River, also known as the mother of the country, still means a lot to inhabitants. What will progress destroy?

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.

Groundswell Rising

Groundswell Rising shows how Fracking – an untested energy extraction process – has contaminated drinking water and jeopardized health. We meet scientists, doctors and farmers across the political spectrum engaged in a David and Goliath struggle against Big Oil and Gas, decrying a process that puts profits over people.

Homeowners near wells suffer from respiratory ailments and property devaluation. A former industry employee shows skin lesions and edema, a result of working on drilling rigs, while others witness mistakes (5% of all wells leak) and explosions, against a back drop of rising ill health, as more and more suffer, from nose bleeds to asthma.

But there is cause for hope.

Local mothers groups unite to win some protections, while lease holders outraged by the corporations strong-arm tactics win local bans. Common Cause uncovers corruption as corporations buy influence to evade environmental protection laws, and the movement begins to gather momentum as actor Mark Ruffalo and singer Natalie Merchant support—and sometimes lead—their efforts.

Grassroots efforts have achieved bans, moratoriums, and referendums on Fracking, giving hope to others worldwide faced with the same nightmare. Transcending the genre of environmental film, Groundswell Rising’s passionate stories inspire and empower.

“Groundswell is ultimately a rousing, convincing rallying cry that the little guys, working in numbers, can triumph” LA Weekly

“But however you stand on the issue, you’re likely to be moved by the film’s portraits of grassroots activists managing to make their voices heard despite the opposition of major corporations and the big money at their disposal.” The Hollywood Reporter

An Invisible Threat

We cannot see the waves, we cannot hear them, we cannot touch them, but they are all around us, invading the air, irradiating our body and the environment.

An Invisible Threat looks at the relationship between microwave technology and health, investigating the conflicts of interest among industry representatives, politicians, scientists and consumers that leave us unprotected to the effects of radiation.

Wireless networks irradiate microwaves indiscriminately across cities, villages and the countryside of all developed countries. This increasing exposure disturbs the biological processes that are essential for the healthy growth of human beings, animals and plants – it especially affects children and teenagers.

The reasonable doubt that has arisen from independent scientific reports regarding the harmful effects of these technologies has led the Council of Europe to recommend its members countries apply the Precautionary Principle. In June 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a body of the World Health Organization (WHO), admitted for the first time that microwaves produced by mobile phones could be “possible carcinogens”.

Our investigation delves  into three groups: the telecommunications industry (mobile telephone companies, MMF); official organisations (WHO, IARC, ICNIRP) and official scientific reports (BioInitiative, Interphone, CEFALO).

In parallel, An Invisible Threat takes in the daily life of Minerva Palomar, a woman affected by the electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome and the obstacles she needs to overcome in order to lead a normal life.

An Invisible Threat has a clear international focus, dealing with a social issue of global importance. Microwave effects are currently being analysed and debated in almost all developed countries. The question is, are we prepared for the answers.

 

 

Beyond Pollution

A thought provoking, in-depth look at the causes and effects of the most devastating man made environmental disaster America has ever experienced.

Beyond Pollution is a firsthand investigation into BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Traveling thousands of miles across the Gulf coast interviewing environmental experts, government officials, fisherman & distributors, scientists, drilling engineers, and key BP contractors, the film reveals, in depth the immediate and long term environmental, economic, and health impacts the tragedy is having on the local communities.

In the context of BP’s record on safety and the environment, the oil spill now seems sadly inevitable, so why weren’t measures put in place to avoid the disaster that will be felt for generations to come? How were they able to play down the consequences and avoid criminal responsibility, and how did their response further devestate those communities affected?

Beyond Pollution is an exhaustively researched and elegantly executed expose on an avoidable tragedy that began with an oil spill but had far-reaching, and unreported repercussions, uncovering what really happened, why, and who really benefited