(suspenseful instrumental music)
(wrench whooshing)
(wrench clanging)
(dramatic instrumental music)
(intense dramatic music)
(explosion booms)
(dramatic instrumental music)
(whooshing)
(water splashing)
(dinosaur roaring)
(water gently lapping)
(dramatic instrumental music)
(birds squawking)
(wind howling)
(water lapping)
(waves crashing)
(people chattering)
(waves crashing)
(wind howling)
- Welcome to the global archive,
a vast storage structure
located 800 kilometers north of Norway.
(turbines whirring)
It contains the artwork
from every national museum.
There are pickled animals
stack up two by two.
(liquid bubbling)
Every film, every book,
every scientific report,
all stored on banks of servers.
(electronic humming)
But the conditions we are experiencing now
were actually cause by our behavior
in the period leading up to 2015.
In other words, we could've saved ourselves.
(sighing)
(electronic beeping)
We could've saved ourselves.
But we didn't, it's amazing.
What state of mind were we in,
to face extinction, and simply shrug it off?
(electronic beeping)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(horn honking)
- By nature or by disinterest,
I was always an introvert.
For years, you know,
the non-business needs, needs a face
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
A personality.
- [Narrator] The year 32-year-old
entrepreneur Jeh Wadia,
he's starting up India's
third low-cost airline, in 2005.
(phones ringing)
- Time for India is now, the time for
developing businesses in India is now.
- [Narrator] He's got 1200 employees, most of whom
have never set foot on an airplane.
- What are the different kinds of
hijackers that you might have?
- Uniforms.
- [Man] Uniforms are the first point.
- Do I care? - The 31st--
- No no, do I care?
(liquid hissing)
- Babe?
- Why are you scared of a little smoke?
Do you want to be scared and run of fire?
It's not a toy, it's not a perfume bottle,
you've got to aim it, hold it.
(liquid hissing)
That's it.
- I was in London at the time, where Stelios Haji-loannou,
you know, created Easy Jet,
and I was always fascinated
with basically how he did it.
- Evacuate, evacuate!
Go this way, go this way!
Go this way!
(chattering in foreign language)
- We'd be offering fares from 600 rupees,
okay, all the way down to one rupee.
How many people can afford a one rupee fare?
I would imagine every single Indian can.
That the, a rickshaw driver can, and servants.
You know in the year 2005, I mean, you know,
having a elite class who can fly in
a country of a billion people is ridiculous.
- Search, visible impacts of climate change
leading up to 2010.
(electronic beeping)
(people chattering)
- 101 degrees Fahrenheit.
It's the hottest day ever recorded.
- [Reporter] 700 people are now feared dead
after the strongest ever-recorded
day's rain fall in India's history.
- Now, it's official, the past year
has been the driest in Melbourne's history.
- The desert is advancing at the phenomenal rate
of three miles every year.
- [Reporter] Dozens of Antarctic ice shelves
collapsing faster than anyone predicted.
- [Reporter] 18 countries are under water
and one and a half million people are affected.
(dramatic instrumental music)
(soft upbeat music)
(electronic beeping)
- [Narrator] Fernand Pareau has climbed Europe's
highest mountain Mont Blanc over 150 times.
Here he's guiding a family from England.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Narrator] At 82, Fernand's the oldest guide
still working in France.
All his lifetime he's witnessed
huge changes in the mountains.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Now, there's a ladder extension
on the bottom here now.
- Wow.
Wow.
(melancholy instrumental music)
- Extraordinary to think that
these are the Alps in December.
Here in Chamonix as across the Alps,
there is a dramatic lack of snow
and exceptionally warm temperatures.
It is a glimpse into the future.
- More than half the ski resorts in Europe
could shut down in the next 50 years
because of global warming.
- So nobody goes skiing, big deal.
But the thing is it's not that, is it?
That's the whole point.
The fact you can't go skiing anymore or
that the glaciers are melting is not really the point.
The point is that that signals
that basically the earth is destabilizing.
And all the norms that have
allowed life to exist
as it has done are changing.
(melancholy instrumental music)
- List, climate change,
major events, up to the present day.
(electronic beeping)
(people chattering)
(upbeat instrumental music)
This is a couple of days before Katrina struck.
Most people are following the evacuation order
in getting out of the city.
But New Orleans-borne Alvin DuVernay
had no intention of moving.
I got up Saturday morning
and there was a buzz in the neighborhood.
Everybody was running around
and I was like what's up, what's up?
You know, the hurricane's coming.
I checked on the web and sure enough
all of the models had it, aiming right for us, bullseye.
This is a monster, and it's coming.
Walked through the house a few times,
putting things up, you know.
My silk rug from Nepal up on a top shelf,
and my guitar, I mean, you know,
you just do these things, you know.
I mean another way to do that is
get all your stuff and go, that's option one,
probably the best option.
I didn't grow up in that option.
The biggest blue marlin--
- [Narrator] Alvin collected his 84-year-old father
just then barricaded the two of them inside
his house as the hurricane approached.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- You stare Mother Nature in the eye,
usually she's fairly benign.
Then she comes along,
methodically, ruthlessly.
And then she stands toe to toe
with you and dares you, dares you.
Go ahead and get your best equipment out.
Go ahead, do it, let's dance.
(rain pattering) (wind howling)
- I think one's got to be very careful
about attaching a particular event to global warming.
But nevertheless the intensity of hurricanes
is related to surface sea temperature,
so increased intensity of hurricanes
is associated with global warming.
(water crashing)
(soft jazz music)
- [Narrator] By first light, the water in Alvin's house
was chest-deep and still rising.
So he helped Alvin Sr. into their boat
and headed for dry land.
(metal creaking)
(dog barking)
At this point, the boat's floating,
so it's no big deal to launch the boat, it's launched.
(motor rumbling)
There's no landmarks, really, to speak of.
That's a real different perspective,
driving through your neighborhood at tree level.
Then, all of a sudden you realize
there's a lot of people who stayed behind.
There was no coastguard or police or,
most of our national guards
was elsewhere in the world, Iraq, Afghanistan.
- [Narrator] Alvin rescued over a hundred people,
and their pets, over two long days,
including a 95-year-old man
and a six-week-old baby.
When that little basket came out of the window,
that was a pretty special time.
And just as peaceful, eyes-closed,
it just stops you, in your tracks, just dead stop.
Take a breath, you know,
there's nothing more precious than that.
(water lapping)
- [Narrator] Alvin's neighbors were the lucky ones,
Hurricane Katrina was America's worst
weather-related event to that date,
but it was just a taste of what was to come.
(helicopter blades whirring)
- It is our fault.
After years of debate, some of the world's
top scientists have concluded--
- [Reporter] Unequivocable, is the word
they used, human activity is--
- Contributing to changes in our earth's climate,
and that issue is no longer up to debate.
- [Reporter] In Andermatt,
they've covered a glacier with a special
protective sheet to reduce its summer melt.
- One way I do my bit for the environment
is turning to 30 with Ariel.
- This is offsetting all those flights that I take
that I have to for my job.
- [Reporter] David Cameron even wears recycled shoes
made from old fireman's trousers.
- Despite all of the efforts to control pollution
and its effect in our climate,
the level of greenhouse gas emissions has reached
a record high and shows no signs of being reversed.
- Despite the Kyoto treaty, and all the talk
of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide,
levels of this key greenhouse gas
are rising faster than ever.
- [Narrator] 6:30 a.m. on a cool autumn morning
and Alvin's heading off to work, searching for more oil.
(helicopter blades whirring)
Ironically, the oil infrastructure
off the coast of New Orleans
suffered major damage during the hurricane,
but Shell moved fast to carry out repairs
and just nine months later,
the rigs are online, and everyone's back at work.
(soft upbeat music)
- [Reporter] Oil was formed when ancient plant life
in the oceans absorbed energy from the ancient sun.
As these plants died, they settled on the ocean floor
along with the dead bodies of tons
and tons of ocean creatures.
Over the millennia, temperatures increased
and the organic matter was gradually cooked
until the sun's energy was stored inside oil.
150 million years later, Shell's geologists
analyzed where the oil might be,
then drilled three miles down
into the seabed to collect samples.
- Here Al, get it yourself.
- Thank you, brother.
We get the samples and analyze them
for the fossil contents, the microscopic fossils.
And it's just another geo-scientific tool
in order to improve your possibility of finding oil.
In my opinion, probably arrogantly so,
but it's pretty high calling
actually to try to do that,
to try to figure out or maybe
take apart, you know, time itself.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(speaking in foreign language)
Go back a few thousand years,
and the energy available to grow our crops or feed animals
was limited by the daily sunlight falling on the earth.
But now, we use the energy equivalent to hundreds of years
of sunlight every single year.
Every part of modern life is now literally made of oil,
from CDs and plastic bags,
to medicine and computers.
From clothes and carpets to cosmetics and cell phones.
It's truly a wonderful and necessary substance.
Then there's our food,
each calorie we eat uses nearly a hundred oil calories
to produce, package, refrigerate, transport.
And fossil fuel produced fertilizers now feed
a couple billion or so people
who could not otherwise be sustained.
It would be prudent for humanity to carefully use
the remaining oil to build a new society run without it.
Instead, we're burning up tens of millions
of barrels every day, so it will be gone.
It will run out,
leaving pretty much none for future generations.
Even though we in the oil industry
are working our asses off looking for
and finding this magical substance.
- All right, guy! - Push it back!
- And then you see it,
and you smell it, and, you know,
it's greasy and ugly and smells so much
like money, it's just beautiful, you know.
- [Reporter] 13 billion pounds in 2005.
That's one and a half million pounds an hour,
400 pounds a second.
- [Reporter] And a hefty chunk of those profits
came from here, Nigeria,
where most of the population lives
on less than one dollar a day.
- This is the water we drink.
- [Narrator] 22-year-old Layefa Malin
has an ambition to train as a doctor
and then work in a home village called Cojabanee,
where Shell started building this medical center.
- [Narrator] Like hundreds of other community projects
across the Niger Delta, construction has been abandoned.
Shell maintains that's because of the risk of kidnapping.
13% of the oil revenue is supposed
to be spent on community development.
But the local people's share is almost
all lost to the corrupt political system.
So despite being in the most
profitable oil region in West Africa,
Layefa's village has no health service,
no secondary school, no
electricity, and no drinking water.
(gentle instrumental music)
(water lapping)
- This way? - Yeah.
- Yes, like, no!
- [Narrator] Layefa is describing a phenomenon
known as the resource curse.
Paradoxically, finding oil usually
increases a country's poverty.
As the oil wealth is concentrated
in the hands of a few,
so the agriculture, education, and health system
of the country become neglected and often collapse.
The local people's health problems
are compounded by gas flares,
burning night and day
throughout the Niger Delta.
Asthma, bronchitis, skin diseases
and cancer have all been linked.
That gas is found alongside oil,
but, as it's dangerous to transport,
it can't easily be sold to over-seas markets
It could be used for cooking and heating within Nigeria,
but building infrastructure is expensive
so the oil companies just burn it off.
(flames hissing)
The flares emit about 70 million tons
of carbon dioxide every year,
more than the annual emissions
from 10 million British homes.
They just do whatever they like.
(melancholy instrumental music)
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Reporter] Why are American cities designed
so it's almost impossible not to have a car?
Why were a hundred railways in cities like New York,
Philadelphia, and Los Angeles bought up
and then deliberately destroyed?
Why did the electric car get scrapped?
Why were we, along with Australia,
the only two countries not to sign
the original Kyoto climate treaty?
Why was an oil company lobbyist allowed to change
official government reports on global warming?
Why was the same PR firm employed by the tobacco industry
to persuade the public that smoking is healthy,
then employed by the oil industry to convince us
there was still doubt about climate change?
Alternative energy has been available
for 50 years, why have we barely used it?
Why were solar panels taken off the White House?
Because right from the early days of the industry,
the oil men and their obscene profits have had
an unhealthy influence on the people running our country.
And now, they are the people running our country.
And they're providing the cash, too.
Oil business isn't just in bed with the government,
it is the government.
(water lapping)
(engine rumbling)
- [Narrator] Here, Layefa is going to a nearby village,
Odioma, that was massacre by the government.
The village was involved in a dispute
about ownership of a piece of land,
on which Shell planned to drill for oil.
The government claimed that
the village was harboring terrorists,
and when they sent
the military in to find those terrorists,
the villagers opened fire on the soldiers.
(speaking in foreign language)
Layefa has gone to hear the villagers' side
of the story, from Omiekma Wekid.
(explosions booming)
(children laughing)
(dramatic instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Amnesty international investigated
the massacre and concluded that,
although the government
was responsible for the killings,
Shell Nigeria should have made sure that
their activities did not contribute to the conflict.
- They shoot him? - Yes.
They burned them off.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Human history is littered with the corpses
of people who had stuff worth stealing.
(arrows whooshing)
(sheep baaing)
Animals,
(water splashing)
water,
(animals shrieking)
(arrows whooshing) (groans)
shiny things, - Ugh!
- [Narrator] Fertile land.
(groaning)
(trumpets blaring)
(gunshots firing)
(people screaming)
Spices.
(sword whooshing)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(speaking in foreign language)
- Hmm!
Nutmeg slice, tea?
(explosions booming)
(people screaming)
- [Narrator] But when it came to stuff
worth pinching one continent had it all.
(elephant shrieks)
Ivory, copper, cotton, rubber, wood,
tin, gold, diamonds, and people.
We're saving a pool of, pool of, pool of
- [Narrator] As cheap energy, slaves were unbeatable,
until a less troublesome energy source was discovered,
and the new era began.
(horns honking)
Human numbers increased five times over.
And with each person wanting more and more stuff,
oil became the resource
worth fighting for all around the world.
(engine rumbling)
(upbeat orchestral music)
(tires screeching)
(helicopter blades whirring)
(heavy metal music)
(gunshots firing)
(explosion booms)
(moaning)
(explosion booms)
- Well, you want to know
the real reason we went to war in Iraq?
According to the former Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan, it's simple, three letter answer.
Not WMD, it's O-I-L.
(applauding)
- [Alan] I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient
to acknowledge what everyone knows,
that the Iraq war is largely about oil.
- You might read the ex-chairman of Shell
that said over weekend that oil could hit over $150
a barrel as world production begins to peak,
not really good news for a country whose entire economy,
not to mention its entire way of life,
is based on cheap oil.
(singing in foreign language)
(speaking in foreign language)
(imitating gun firing)
- Throughout our history, the deal was
we left the world in a better place
than we found it.
That was progress,
the wheel, the rule of law, penicillin.
It was our covenant to our children and grandchildren.
My children weren't angry with me
for breaking the covenant,
they were too busy trying to stay alive
to waste energy on blame,
trying to negotiate their way through food riots,
and refugee camps, and the collapse of society.
But I think my grandchildren would have been angry,
had they survived into adulthood.
(electronic beeping)
(speaking in foreign language)
(chainsaw whirring)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(camels grunting)
- [Narrator] Skiing in the desert,
heating the air,
(chattering)
lighting empty offices, (phone ringing)
energy is so ridiculously cheap it makes
perfect economic sense to just piss it away.
China is new bad guy, because they are building
a new power station every four days.
But a quarter of that energy makes stuffs for us.
(clacking)
Western companies pay Chinese workers
crap wages to make crap plastic toys,
then ship them to Europe,
and wrap them in more plastic.
(horn blaring)
Punters drive to the out-of-town
megastore in their gas-guzzlers.
Plastic toy and plastic box
goes into plastic bag.
Two days later toy is broken
and back it goes to a Chinese landfill where it
stays for about, hmm, 50,000 years?
(upbeat instrumental music)
Water from the bottles
Much better than the tap
Ooh water from the bottles
Much better than the tap
Ooh health giving life enhancing
Mountain spring spa
- [Narrator] 800 times more energy wasted
and 10,000 times more expensive for you.
It's a tricky decision.
(coin clanging)
- Wee!
("These Boots are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra)
You keep saying you've got something for me
Something you call love, but confess
You've been messing where you shouldn't have been messing
(horns honking)
And now someone else is getting all your best
(electronic beeping)
Boots are made for walkin'
And that's just what they'll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you
(people chattering)
- Woo! - Woo!
("Just Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode)
- [Narrator] Lots of ideas have tried
to take over the world,
but there's only one winner.
3,000 adverts bombard us every day.
Telling us we'll be happier,
more attractive and with better skin,
if only we buy their product.
To get there, they create within us an insatiable
desire to buy more and more stuff.
Americans have been advertised that longest,
and they now each consume
twice as much energy as a European,
and nine times more than a Chinese person,
15 more times than an Indian,
and 50 times more than someone from Kenya.
If all six and a half billion people here on earth
consumed like Europeans or Japanese,
we'd need two more planets worth of resources.
If everyone consumed like
Americans, Australians and Canadians,
we'd need another four.
And in 2040 or so when there's about nine billion of us,
we'll need two more again.
Capitalism's only goal is ever expending growth,
but ever expending growth
on just the one not expending planet,
(air squelching) it's impossible.
The current economic system is disastrous,
not just for the planet
but for most people, too.
400 years of capitalism has allowed
the richest 1% to take 40% for themselves,
leaving just 1% for the poorest to have.
But anyone wanting to live differently
is thwarted at every turn.
With profit the only measuring step,
destroying the planet
is written into the system,
and runaway climate change
is a not very surprising result.
Just can't get enough
I just can't get enough
(engine revving)
I just can't get enough
- The logo effectively is color,
you know, light Gray, you know,
orange Telecom, they have orange and black.
Our logo is fluorescent color.
I just can't get enough
- Everything changes in economy
the minute you have an airline moving in.
Because people can basically do business a lot faster.
(women laughing)
If businesses grow a lot faster,
people have more disposable income,
then, you know, consumerism sets in,
and you know where the verge
where basic consumerism is setting in.
(speaking in foreign language)
Just moving a lot like America.
You're like an angel when you give me your love
(somber instrumental music) (engine rumbling)
- [Man] Glide slow, glide slow.
- [Narrator] Here, Jeh travels to Airbus headquarters
in France, as they'll be supplying him
with 26 planes in his first three years.
- [Man] We'd do it year round, of course.
- We have only 200 aircraft
commercially flying in India, China has 800.
Ultimately, you know,
we have a very long way to go,
playing catch up with China,
or catch up with Europe,
or, you know, say America,
one airline Southwest, have 417 aircraft.
That's double the amount
of aircraft we have as a country.
- So this is not of course your final design.
- You know, one simple sentence for me, summarizes it all.
Thing are gonna get better.
(twangy guitar music)
(engine rumbling)
- In my main house was,
it had 10 feet of water in it,
marinated in that for, in that sludge
for three weeks, almost.
So it's current state of my house, it has been demolished.
It's a flat piece of a property waiting
for another house to go on that.
(light piano music)
I lost everything, everything that I owned.
I mean everything from family heirlooms
to the paper towels sitting on your kitchen counter,
and everything in between, it goes on and on.
Two beautiful, beautiful oak trees I did not lose,
you know, local, indigenous,
Quercus Virginianas, live oaks
that sprawl all over the place,
beautiful, beautiful things.
That's what I have left, two oak trees
and an empty lawn, everything else is gone.
That sucks.
Losing everything you have,
it's so overwhelming.
And the grief that comes
with that, is just, it's profound.
(melancholy instrumental music)
- [Narrator] We have an unspoken collective pact
to pretend climate change wasn't happening,
as though as long we ignored it
hard enough, it wouldn't be true.
(thunder rumbling)
Not absolutely everyone,
a few were shouting fire.
- Hello, come on in.
One of the greatest difficulties
with climate change
is that the effects of our emissions today are
not actually realized in terms of the temperature
for 30 to 40 years so there's this time-lag in the system.
Which makes it difficult for us humans to respond
because we're evolutionary equipped
to deal with very immediate threats
like advancing armies or dangerous animals.
We're not so well-equipped with dealing rationally
with very long-term problems like climate change.
So we have to act now to stop
something happening in the future.
If we wait until the full temperature
effects are already upon us,
then it's far too late to stop.
If you remember one single number above all else,
make it two degrees,
now everyone in the world pretty much,
the European Union, big multi-national corporations,
Greenpeace, political parties,
all agreed that we have to stabilize global temperatures
within two degrees above pre-industrial levels,
and the reason for that is because,
if you cross that threshold,
the narrow tipping points in the earth system,
which could drive the warming process
essentially out of control.
Huge amounts of carbon could be coming out
of the world's trees and the soils, methane could be coming
out of the permafrost in Siberia
and it's that extra input of greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere,
which then leads us up to worst case scenario
to six or more degrees
and the eventual wipe-out of most of life on earth.
So power emissions has been going up
between, let's say 1950,
and now they need to level out,
stabilize, and then decline
just as rapidly to sustainable levels
about an 80% cut by 2050.
But crucially, to keep the temperature
rise within two degrees,
this point of stabilization
needs to be at around 2015.
And so that means, really, the time,
timeline we've got, ticking clock,
is that we have to stabilize global emissions
within just seven years from now as we speak, 2008.
And the scale of this task to achieve
a transformation to a low carbon economy
for the entire, entirety of human civilization,
is obviously, it's a huge monumental task,
probably the greatest that humanity's ever faced.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Remember the English family
who went to see the glacier?
They're back home in Cornwall,
Southwest England, inspired to start tackling
their own energy wasting.
- It says that the average individual
in the UK is responsible
for emitting 10 tons of greenhouse gas a year.
- [Narrator] They're calculating exactly how much
climate-change-gases their family currently produces,
and how it can be reduced.
- Yeah, but that's the average individual.
There are five of us, yeah.
- Ah, ooh.
- Whichever way you look at this,
it isn't good.
(cow moos)
- [Woman] We produce about half of our food,
and we try and keep
our consumption of meat and dairy down.
My car runs on chip fat
and we do cycle when we can.
We've just got our wind turbine,
which will produce all our own electricity.
- [Man] We're aiming to cut down to
about one ton each per year,
which is apparently the sustainable amount
that the world's trees and plants can reabsorb.
- [Woman] But the big problem is flying,
just one return flight, say London to New York,
would blow our entire carbon
budget for about three and a half years.
Apparently, other than setting fire to a forest,
flying is the single worst thing an ordinary
individual can do to cause climate change.
So, it's a bit of a dilemma, because we've
just been invited to go skiing in France.
- Then I am flying from Newquay,
which is our nearest airport,
it's like 40 minutes from here, to Bergerac,
which is like, you know,
an hour and a half--
- Very tempting. - Or something, from it.
- And literally we could leave here
in the morning, we live like, in Cornwall,
we could leave Cornwall in the morning,
and be in Bergerac by sort of,
for lunch, after lunch.
But if you actually think, this is going to cause
the death of people, is actually gonna affect people,
and make that direct connection
then it is a really scary thought.
(children laughing)
Obviously, us not flying to France or not flying,
wherever it's hardly gonna solve the problem.
But it's down to what you think
is the correct thing to do.
Because everyone else is doing it, I mean,
that's not a good reason to do anything.
You know, you have to look at the terrible things
in our history that everyone regrets now,
you know, massacres,
the holocaust, et cetera, and a lot of that
was just going along with what was
the predominant thinking at the time.
I'm almost jealous of the time,
five, 10 years ago, when I could
just jump on a plane with impunity.
I didn't even think about it, it's just blissful.
No moral dilemma there, whatsoever.
(beating drums) (people chanting)
- [Narrator] Needless to say,
they didn't take that flight.
And joining the climate change protest march
may not be everybody's idea
of a 10th wedding anniversary,
but Piers and Lisa have shared ideals
from the moment they met.
- My friend, we went along to the party together,
and she just basically took me
straight over to Piers and said,
"Hey, look," you know "Piers, this is Lisa."
And, dah dah dah.
And that was it, that was it.
We just (fingers snap) and spent the whole evening
talking about wind turbines. (laughs)
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Piers has been developing wind farms in Africa,
America, and Britain for over 15 years.
But he knows that they will only
help solve the climate crisis
as a small part of a total
reordering of western society.
- [Piers] And there's still this idea that somehow
we have to find the solution,
you know, the silver bullet.
No single renewable source is gonna
be the solution, absolutely not.
- [Narrator] And Piers doesn't think
much of the other option,
whereby everyone crosses their fingers
and hopes that the miracle
technology will be invented in time.
- I'm not saying we shouldn't be developing
other stuff, absolutely, we should be.
We should be throwing everything at it.
But, you've got to make use of what's available now.
And in the UK, we've got a great wind resource,
and we just got to bite the bullet and go for it.
- [Narrator] Piers has purposed a new wind farm
at Airfield Farm in Bedfordshire, central England.
He could have 15 turbines installed and generating
13 megawatts of electricity within a year.
- Good morning, sorry. - Well, we're the
revolutionary army.
- [Photographer] That's it, outraged faces.
Edward, I've lost your face again, sorry chap.
Can you just?
That's it, yeah, good man.
Right, okay.
- Well, the process balloon is now going up,
but while that's happening,
I'll just explain where we are.
This is the site (phone ringing)
of an old World War II bomber base.
Phone, bullocks. (phone ringing)
- [Photographer] We all have our thumbs down as well.
(group laughing) That's it.
- UK-wise surveys point to about 70 to 80%
in favor of wind farms as a concept.
The difficulty is when you've
got one on your own doorstep,
and then it's the sort of
not-in-my-backyard syndrome.
- Jim, what's the problem?
- Well, the problem really is that this is one of the
least windy sites in the country.
- [Woman] I hope it's not gonna get too windy tomorrow
and it wraps itself around the church.
- Well, I live in Coddington, and we're going to be
absolutely surrounded by these high moss.
They're going to obliterate the view.
- What it normally always comes down to
with wind farms is aesthetics, you know.
Everything else is basically put together
to try and back up the ultimate thing,
and the ultimate thing is they
don't want it to spoil their view.
- But I'm a bit concerned
about the low level noise as well.
- [Narrator] The wind farm site is right next
to the world famous Santa Pod drag-racing strip.
(engine revving)
- Anybody you ask it, nobody's against
wind energy, that's the point.
- Yeah.
- It's against inappropriate wind energy use.
- Right, okay.
- Hypnotic, you're driving along,
and you tend to see the sails revolving,
and you're not concentrating on the driving.
- [Narrator] Ernie Braddock will benefit
financially having turbines on his farm,
but now he's in conflict
with his neighbor, Victoria Reeves.
- Well, everyone is very unhappy about it.
We're gonna lose the value in our properties.
- No, we're not.
- We're not gonna be able to sleep, it will make
a difference, Ernie you have no idea, believe me.
- According to Victoria, they stopped a wind farm up in
Scotland on their other estate in Scotland
back in the mid-90's, and that was a great victory.
- It can't rely on the wind.
It can only deliver.
- It's only an additive.
- An additive?
- It means that-- - Do you mean additional?
Yes, it is additional.
- It prolongs the resources, put it that way.
- No, Ernie, it doesn't.
- It's got to.
- It does nothing of the sort.
- Got to. - Believe me.
- It's got to. (Victoria laughs)
- It's an emotional campaign, it's about fear
mostly based on complete bullocks, frankly.
But never mind, facts are not a problem, you know.
- It's a fair fight.
- Yeah.
- And I hope you lose.
- All right.
(dramatic instrumental music)
(rain pattering)
- [Narrator] This is August 2005, just after
Mumbai's worst ever floods.
And a couple of months before Jeh's first flight.
- [Jeh] All right?
(electronic whirring)
- Come on.
Show daddy how good you ride this,
show daddy how fast you can go, come on.
Press, press.
Whoa. - No more pushing.
It's battery operated.
- So, I can't see an issue there.
- That's grandpa. - Secondly.
- See you, Grandpa. - And, you know.
- [Narrator] Jeh is descended from one of India's richest
and most powerful business dynasties.
They've pioneered everything from ship building
in the 18th century to internet services in the 21st.
In a round about way, his privileged upbringing
sparked the idea for the low cost airline.
- What do you want me to do?
I'm going to the airport.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Throughout basically my life, from a young age,
I mean, I used to hang out with basically tons of,
you know, servants' kids.
You know, that sort of stuff.
You know, and when you go home,
you say, you suddenly think,
why the hell do I have so much,
and these guys have nothing.
And that sort of shook, and
that constantly, constantly, constantly adding me up.
(gentle instrumental music)
You know, everyone is here for a purpose.
The idea is to realize what your higher purpose is,
and then understand how you're gonna fulfill it.
And eventually I realized what my higher purpose was,
it was to ensure that I eradicated poverty.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Jeh volunteers at a charity which helps
villagers lift themselves out of poverty.
But even by private jet and Jeep,
it's a five hour, 900 kilometer journey.
- Hiring a private jet basically
in terms of costs as much as the village does.
In order to take a village from below
the poverty and put it above the poverty.
So effectively, in terms of it
defeats the purpose.
And therefore I decided to, you know,
try the trains, from Bombay it takes about 26 hours.
I said to myself, wow, this is just incredible.
You know, people pay good money
and still have to basically put with this rubbish.
- [Narrator] 15 million people travel
by train in India every single day.
Jeh's dream is to get them all off
the trains and into the skies.
- We're not at war at the moment.
It's not a war.
But if people actually recognize the
full implications of what's in store for us,
they would be treating it like a war.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(engine rumbling)
(explosions booming)
They only gotta take Airfield Farm, for example.
I mean that was a US airbase,
people flew out of there and died.
Or a cause, which was massive at the time,
the global problem, and we have ourselves now
a real global problem that needs
that kind of level of commitment.
- There are many, many other industries
that need to be looked into first, before aviation.
It's not a question about choosing one industry to target.
The ultimate deal, we all contribute to greenhouse gases,
we all contribute to the crisis
that we have today with the planet.
So ultimately, in terms of, you know
ensuring our planet is safe and
healthy is each one's job, task.
Whether you do it in your own
way by using less tissue paper,
using less paper so the trees not cut,
buying green cars or not flying.
Obviously, if you're not doing it,
the demand goes down,
the supply goes down.
Life's about demand and supply
or supply demand.
(fire crackling)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(chattering in foreign language)
- Strange, watching these film fragments.
Like looking through binoculars
observing people on a far off beach.
Running around in circles, fixated on
the small area of sand under their feet,
as a tsunami races towards the shore.
- Rickety, girl.
Ah.
- [Narrator] Here's Alvin.
He's just taken early retirement
after 30 years on an oil industry salary.
And he's planning to spend his later
years outside enjoying nature.
- Oh, certainly I'm an ecologist,
and an environmentalist.
I really don't have a problem squaring that,
working for an oil company
that I feel has done a pretty good job
in being environmentally friendly.
(engine rumbling) (water splashing)
When I started working in
the oil industry, about the mid '70s,
it was a clear path for me,
as a scientist coming out of college.
And I didn't know the detail of what goes on
in the industry, the goods and the bad.
But indeed every industry has that, the goods and the bad.
Would I do it again, knowing what I know now,
of course I would do it again.
I mean, you need to work,
you need to do something.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Answering Machine] Message one.
- The worst example I've had is a lady,
an old lady came up to me,
at the public exhibition,
and gave me a cutting from a newspaper,
with a picture of a guy being shot.
- [Narrator] Local anti-campaigns are one
of the key factors
stopping about 80% of the proposed
wind energy projects in Britain.
Had they all been built, 10% of our
electricity would've been non-polluted.
- How the heck are we meant to persuade
people in India and China
that they should develop in a more sustainable way
when we're not prepared to even accept
you know, the old wind farming landscape.
So how's it going? - All right, yes.
- Not too much trouble? - Not really, no.
Nobody's punched me up yet, anyway.
- (chuckles) Good.
- [Narrator] Piers has come back to Ernie's farm
with a plan to make the turbines less visible.
Trying to kick start the planning process
that the anti-campaign has now
held up for 18 months.
- Another 18 months of climate change.
Another eighteen months
where I've been able to do nothing about it.
Yeah, I feel really, really fucked off with it.
You must be feeling the same as me.
It's just, I mean how long have we got? (laughs)
- [Narrator] Piers's compromise reduces the number
of turbines from 15 down to nine.
- This is still the equivalent electrical power
to fair 11,000 homes.
So there's still a lot of power.
Exactly the opposite is happening,
to the very thing that needs to happen.
These things need to be speeded up,
and actually, they're getting slowed down.
Plenty of politicians are talking about it,
but when it comes down to it,
it's just not happening.
It's just not happening, folks.
- Governments will only go as far as the population demands,
and that means mass protest on an unprecedented scale.
Direct action like this is essential,
if you're going to turn an issue
around in a short period of time.
We've found that many many times in the past,
from the suffragettes onwards.
(upbeat instrumental music)
The very fact that the crisis is taking place
within our generation and it's happening right now,
means that we are tremendously powerful people.
So this position of despair,
and I can't do anything, and there's no point,
it's completely illogical.
It's exactly the opposite.
(gentle instrumental music)
(speaking in foreign language)
(chattering in foreign language)
(bicycle bells ringing)
- There's no shortage of Gray matter
in the species, we can do some amazing things.
(upbeat jazz music)
But I don't think we been very smart
about how we use our resources.
How we quite literally burn up something
as beautiful and useful as oil.
We literally burn it up.
That's it, it's gone, it's done.
- [Narrator] I think most people were
becoming disenchanted by this point.
We'd stopped believing that this was
the golden era of human civilization,
and started questioning our collective values.
- All I can hope is,
incredible disasters like Katrina,
and the horrible wars and what not
that are going on around the world
will snap us out of it.
I'd like to see us headed in
the right direction for the good of mankind.
I still believe in chasing dreams
- Hey, how you doing? - Oh, you got me.
Jack on the rocks, perfect. - I do.
- You know what I like.
(upbeat jazz music)
I had my share
I drank my fill
And even though I'm satisfied
I'm hungry still
- [Alvin] Before this disaster, I had a lot of stuff.
I was a classic consumer.
Two years later, I've learned a lot about
happiness and the pursuit thereof.
So here's to life
And every joy it brings
- [Alvin] Happiness is not in the latest gadget,
the latest electric toothbrush, or something like that.
All of that stuff.
It's just not the stuff of life.
Not for me anyway.
Here's to life
Here's to love
Here's to you
(electronic beeping)
(banging)
- Come on, you stupid computer.
Come on.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Climate scientist can estimate how much of
the remaining fossil fuels we can safely burn.
This amount is called the global cap.
Under this proposal, the world's governments
would make a binding international agreement
detailing how to distribute the global cap.
The earlier the start date,
the greater the chance of not
triggering runaway climate change.
The total global emissions for the first year,
say 2012, will be set at their current level.
Every year following they'd shrink until
by about 2065, they're almost zero.
Initially, each country would be
allocated an emissions quota,
according to how much they currently consume.
But this would change over time.
America would slash its emissions 90%
from its current over-consuming position.
Europe too would decrease massively, as would China.
But India and Africa would increase until by about 2025,
each human being on the planet would have
equal rights to the earth's resources.
Equity is the only option morally,
and also practically as developing countries
won't sign up to anything less.
The total emissions would then keep decreasing every year,
until by 2065 we'll have
weaned ourselves off fossil fuels
and prevented the worst impacts of climate change.
As to how each country divvies up its share to
its citizens, there were various options on the table,
the most promising of which is individual carbon rationing.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Announcer] Mr. W.S Morrison is here to explain.
- If in the course of the war, we are short
for a time of this or that article of food,
rationing will give everyone,
rich and poor alike,
an equal share of all that's going.
- Down to the scheme,
everyone in the UK would be allocated
an annual carbon allowance.
- Stored electronically, rather like
a supermarket loyalty card,
points will be deducted every time
we buy or use non-renewable energy.
For example, using electricity
to power appliances in the home.
- Or traveling somewhere by plane.
- Or even buying Petro-fuel for your car.
- The best way you can help
is by rationing yourselves.
I'm sure that all of you will
buy your fair share and no more.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Airports were expanding all over the world,
to cope with the exploding number
of cheap flights we were all demanding.
And Jeh was doing everything
he could to join the party.
- Ultimately, the art is to hug and then kick.
She thinks that the PSF is payable,
you're saying the PSF is not been payable.
What's wrong with you?
Now!
Yes or no?
Did I ask you that question,
or did I not ask you that question?
- You asked--
- You are suspended, you are suspended.
Both of you go to my office right now.
Does it take bloody more than 10 minutes to clean this?
Keep paint with you!
It's all in a day's work. (laughs)
Maintaining my plane means something to me, okay?
If I see my step ladder like this,
and if I find one dirt, you'll be fired!
Okay?
(phones ringing) (paper tearing)
Now!
(knocking)
- Yes.
(applauding)
- [Narrator] June the 11th, 2007,
in a hotel room in Bedford.
Piers is polishing his speech for tonight's
showdown with the local planning committee.
- This committee can approve this application.
If you do, you will show courage and leadership.
- [Narrator] He has just six minutes to convince
them to approve his wind farm.
- I'm absolutely confident,
that if you approve this project,
you'll look back on the decision
and say, thank goodness we said yes.
- [Narrator] But the committee rejected Piers's application,
saying that his wind farm would be conspicuous
and out of place in the Bedfordshire landscape,
that it would decrease enjoyment of nearby footpaths
and negatively impact the listed building
and an ancient monument.
In other words, it would spoil the view.
- Oh, we're delighted that it's been refused, yes.
- It's a wonderful result.
- It just shows if you work hard,
if you look at all the facts,
if you do it fair and with balance,
you can get a good outcome.
- 10 against and one in favor.
Might even have been 11 against and one in favor.
But there as only one guy that actually,
actually voted in favor of it. (sighs)
- [Reporter] Cheers, mate.
(melancholy instrumental music)
- Hi, mom, it's Piers.
I think it was 10 to one or 11 to one against.
Yeah, just a fucking waste of time.
That's the thing.
(sighs)
I could have said anything, to be honest.
I don't think it would have made any difference.
- Of course we're worried about global warming,
I mean, that's got to be something
that we're all concerned about.
I mean, we're all doing our bit to try and conserve
and looking at renewable energy.
Of course, absolutely, yeah, I mean,
we're part of the (laughs) yes.
(bell tolls)
- [Reporter] And it is global warming.
For the first time, scientists confirm the link
between climate change and our awful weather.
- [Reporter] Emergency services scramble to Bedford's--
- [Reporter] As the flood waters finally work
their way along the Great Ouse,
other parts of Bedfordshire didn't escape, either.
- We've lived at here for over 40 years,
and we've never ever had anything like this.
- [Reporter] At least 80,000 fatalities
in Burma today after cyclone Nargis--
- [Reporter] Emergency across Western Europe with
drinking water strictly rationed in Holland and France.
- [Reporter] Forest fires which are still
sweeping across Spain and Portugal.
- [Reporter] 30 billion pounds,
a price worth paying for motorists'
right to drive, said Lord Clarkson.
- [Reporter] Good news for the UK wine industries,
especially--
- [Reporter] Is that New Orleans will not be rebuilt
a third time, said the Louisiana governor.
- [Reporter] Less than a total destruction of India's dams
would end Pakistan's drinking water crisis.
- [Reporter] As a U.S. president, Chelsea Clinton
refuses Africa's demands.
- [Reporter] Sales of air conditioning units in India.
- [Reporter] San Francisco's extraordinary
heat wave continues into Los Angeles.
- [Reporter] Now we are seeing extreme weather
events somewhere around the planet every single day.
- [Reporter] 35 million Chinese refugees.
- [Reporter] Skiing in the Alps is over.
- [Reporter] New Channel Four documentary asks
is global warming really happening, or are natural--
- [Reporter] 61 degrees centigrade,
the highest land temperature.
- [Reporter] More than a hundred
million people are homeless tonight as Bangladesh--
- [Reporter] Methane emissions from Siberia.
- [Reporter] The last Indonesian tree found,
but fire fuel crisis--
- [Reporter] European Union today permanently closed
all of its borders.
- [Reporter] Roadside villages must be reserved
for food production.
- [Reporter] London is under water again,
as last night's 30 foot storm surge overcame the Thames.
- [Reporter] New Zealand has also now closed
its borders leaving 22 million stranded.
- [Reporter] Reports are coming in
that the North Sea is boiling.
- [Reporter] 100 million refugees
from middle east and continental Europe.
- [Reporter] Half of the species are now extinct,
scientists estimate, and ecosystems are collapsing.
- [Reporter] Past two degrees, we cannot
now stop runaway climate change.
- [Reporter] There are simply too many people
to feed on Ireland's remaining farm land.
- [Reporter] Suicide rates increasing 800%.
- [Reporter] The Amazon rainforest is still burning.
- [Reporter] And anyone who cannot bear
to eat their own cats and dogs.
- [Reporter] We are entering the eighth world food crisis.
- [Reporter] The world temperature
today passing four degrees.
- [Reporter] Retaliate to a nuclear strike.
- [Man] Go on, with ferocity across the entire continent.
(fire crackling) (people screaming)
- We wouldn't be the first life form
to wipe itself out.
But what would be unique about us
is that we did it knowingly.
And what does that say about us?
The question I've been asking is,
why didn't we save ourselves
when we had the chance?
Is the answer because on some level,
we weren't sure if we were worth saving?
(electronic beeping)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(blender whirring)
(engine rumbling)
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Woman] Please proceed near the aircraft,
and take care of the responsibilities.
- You know if all of us stood united, in terms
of the world would be different in every way,
Unfortunately, that's not the reality.
If we can't even stand united on
eradicating poverty in the world,
what does the health of the planet have any chance?
- Thank you, sir.
(singing in foreign language)
- In my opinion, our use or misuse
of resources in the last hundred years or so,
I'd probably rename that age,
something like the age of ignorance.
The age of stupid.
(speaking in foreign language)
Every minute they take our oil then they go
(upbeat instrumental music)
(passengers applauding)
(melancholy instrumental music)
(sighs)
- I just find it surprising,
that after so much effort, the final act
of our existence should be suicide.
So why did I build this archive?
It's a cautionary tale.
Not for us, too late for us.
But for, well,
for whoever, whatever,
eventually finds this recording.
(electronic beeping)
And away you go.
(dramatic instrumental music)
(electronic whirring)
(people chattering)
(debris whooshing)
("Reckoner" by Radiohead)
Reckoner
You can't take it with ya
Dancing for your pleasure
We are not to blame for
Bittersweet distracters
Dare not speak its name
'Cause every kid is all you
All you
Because we separate
Like ripples on a blank shore
Because we separate
Like ripples on a blank shore
Reckoner
Take me with ya