Our strange rock itself can also be lethal. We tend to think of Earth as our life support but it's not there to support us at all. It's a place that's violent, that's beautiful, that's crazy, that's intense. Mother Nature is a serial killer. We wouldn't be here without mass suicide and events so devastating it makes the extinction of the dinosaurs looks like a tea party. There have been 5 mass extinctions on the planet and 99.9 percent of all species that have ever lived are gone. Explore the story of how life on Earth has evolved, becoming lethal for life to thrive.
Today, worldwide, we each eat 27 pounds of chicken a year. Chicken's astonishing growth has been propelled and satisfied by a business that creates lives, and harvests them, at breathtaking speed and volume. But now the massive scale of production has exposed those in the chicken business to dangers large and small. The ruthlessly efficient world of chicken production pits vulnerable growers against each other and leaves them open to vicious acts of sabotage.
A heroic congressman, Leo Joseph Ryan Jr, travels to Jonestown; some Temple members plot their escape. Jim Jones realizes the walls are closing in and plans his final stand. After the massacre, the world learns about mass murder/suicide in Jonestown, orchestrated by cult leader. Survivors try to piece their lives back together.
At 11 o'clock on New Year's Eve of the Cosmic Calendar, Homo erectus stood up for the first time, freeing its hands and earning the species its name. They began to move around, to explore, daring to risk everything to get to unknown places. Our Neanderthal relatives lived much as we did and did many of the things we consider to be 'human.' More restless than their cousins the Neanderthals and Denisovans, our Homo sapiens ancestors crossed seas and unforgiving landscapes, changing the land, ocean and atmosphere, leading to mass extinction. The scientific community gave our age a new name, 'Anthropocene.' Since the first civilizations we've wondered if there's something about human nature that contains the seeds of our destruction. Syukuro Manabe was born in rural Japan and took an intense interest in Earth's average global temperature. In the 1960's, he would assemble the evidence he needed to predict the increase of Earth's temperature due to greenhouse gases until it becomes an uninhabitable and toxic environment, leading to our extinction. 'This doesn't have to be,' says Neil deGrasse Tyson, 'it's not too late. There's another hallway, another future we can still have; we'll find a way.'
In the second part and conclusion, a spotlight on the mass marketing of the synthetic opioid fentanyl examines the connections between drug manufacturers and government policy. Video of sales retreats and promotional material reveals a deep cynicism among company employees and a disregard for the widespread, nefarious corporate practices.
Putin returns to power under a storm after a four-year absence, but his attempts to improve his popularity are hobbled by accusations of corruption. The final part of this sinister history doesn’t quite come up to date with Vladimir Putin’s recent moves to 'reset' the Russian constitution so he can rule, theoretically, until at least 2036 – longer than Stalin. But it does walk us through some of his other moves to entrench power, including vote-rigging in parliamentary elections that was so brazen, his approval ratings fell amid mass street protests. Leading the protests was opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was then simply gunned down on a street near the Kremlin. These days, we are told, the world stage interests Putin more than the Russian one, and with various 'mini-Putins' installed around the world, his legacy looks safe.
Explore the story of how life on Earth has evolved, becoming lethal for life to thrive.