Just outside Paris, inside a hi-tech vault, and encased in three vacuum-sealed bell jars, rests a small metallic cylinder about the diameter of a golf ball. It may not look like much, but it is one of the most important objects on the planet. It affects nearly every aspect of our lives including the food we eat, the cars we drive, even the medicines we take. It is the Kilogramme, the base unit of mass in the International System of Units. Yet over time, its mass has mysteriously eroded by the weight of an eyelash. A change that, unbeknownst to most, unleashed a crisis with potentially dire consequences. The film follows the ensuing high-stakes, two-year race to redefine the weight of the world, and tells the story of one of the most important objects on the planet.
David Attenborough and the world-renowned scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse. The film explains how humanity has pushed our planet beyond the boundaries that have kept it stable since the dawn of life, but also that this crisis can still be averted, thinking and acting with one unified purpose to ensure that Earth forever remains healthy and resilient.
This series is a searing indictment of Big Pharma and the political operatives and government regulations that enable over-production, reckless distribution and abuse of synthetic opiates. Exploring the origins, extent and fallout of one of the most devastating public health tragedies of our time, with half a million deaths from overdoses this century alone, the film reveals that America's opioid epidemic is not a public health crisis that came out of nowhere. In the first part, a look at how Purdue Pharma worked with the FDA to get OxyContin approved for wider use, promoting the highly profitable pain medication's safety without sufficient evidence, and creating a campaign to redefine pain and how it's treated.
Dr George McGavin and Dr Zoe Laughlin set up base camp at one of the UK's biggest sewage works to investigate the revolutionary science finding vital renewable resources and undiscovered life in human waste. Teaming up with world-class scientists, they search for biological entities in sewage with potentially lifesaving medical properties, find out how pee can generate electricity, how gas from poo can fuel a car and how nutrients in waste can help solve the soil crisis. They follow each stage of the sewage treatment process, revealing what the stuff we flush can tell us about how we live today, and the mind boggling biotechnology being harnessed to clean it, making the wastewater safe enough to return to the environment.
The film exposes the dark world of ivory trafficking. Ivory is a prized status symbol for middle class Chinese, and poachers in pursuit of elephants in Africa are causing a great damage. Award-winning director Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson filmed undercover for 16 months infiltrating and documenting the deep-rooted corruption at the heart of the global ivory trafficking crisis.
With a million species at risk of extinction, Sir David Attenborough explores how this crisis of biodiversity has consequences for us all, threatening food and water security, undermining our ability to control our climate and even putting us at greater risk of pandemic diseases. Everything in the natural world is connected in networks that support the whole of life on earth, and we are losing many of the benefits that nature provides to us. The loss of insects is threatening the pollination of crops, while the loss of biodiversity in the soil also threatens plants growth. Last year, a UN report identified the key drivers of biodiversity loss, including overfishing, climate change and pollution. But the single biggest driver of biodiversity loss is the destruction of natural habitats. Seventy-five per cent of Earth's land surface (where not covered by ice) has been changed by humans, much of it for agriculture, and as consumers we may unwittingly be contributing towards the loss of species through what we buy in the supermarket. Human activities like the trade in animals and the destruction of habitats drive the emergence of diseases. Disease ecologists believe that if we continue on this pathway, this year’s pandemic will not be a one-off event.
The film follows the ensuing high-stakes, two-year race to redefine the weight of the world, and tells the story of one of the most important objects on the planet.