Climate Change and Global Warming

You’ve seen it in the comment section before: “Climate change is natural. It’s happened before and it will keep happening”. In reality, comments like these are the newest kind of climate change denial. In this video we’re going to learn about all the reasons that Earth’s climate changes, natural and otherwise, and then how we know that modern climate change can’t be blamed on natural forces. [Aired 09/15/2022]

Four years ago, climate change was a hot issue and politicians from both sides seemed poised to act. Today public opinion on the climate issue has cooled considerably. Politicians either ignore it or proclaim their skepticism. What’s behind this massive reversal? FRONTLINE goes inside the organizations that fought the scientific establishment to shift the direction of the climate debate.

A year after the devastating Camp Fire, FRONTLINE examines who’s to blame and why it was so catastrophic. With accounts from survivors and first responders, the documentary tells the inside story of the most destructive fire in California’s history, its causes and the impact of climate change.

How Scott Pruitt went from fighting the Environmental Protection Agency to running it and rolling back years of policy.

In episode four of the series "Years of Living Dangerously", 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl travels to Greenland to investigate the effects of global warming in the Arctic; Down south, Ian Somerhalder travels to North Carolina to listen in on both sides of the evangelical community's debate over climate change. Somerhalder finds himself entrenched in the middle of not only a religious debate, but a familial one. The father: a megachurch preacher who doesn't believe in climate change. The daughter: an activist trying to shut down the local coal-fired power plant.

In episode three of the series "Years of Living Dangerously", MSNBC's Chris Hayes shadows a climate change skeptic, Republican Congressman Michael Grimm, for a year in Staten Island in the wake of Superstorm Sandy and questions what he might have learned about climate change in the process. In addition, conservationist M. Sanjayan travels to Christmas Island with a climate scientist who gathers thousands of years of temperature data from coral to determine whether El Nino has taken on unprecedented severity.

In episode six of the series "Years of Living Dangerously", America Ferrera profiles prominent climate skeptic James Taylor of the Heartland Institute as he crusades against clean energy, and investigates the battle over the future of renewable energy in the US. New York Times columnist Mark Bittman returns to conduct a yearlong investigation into natural gas, which has been touted as "America's energy source" and a way towards a cleaner, greener future. Is it true?

The fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. Part one of a three-part series tracing decades of casting doubt on the science, missed opportunities and the ongoing attempts to hold Big Oil to account. Distributed by PBS Distribution.

The fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. Part two of a three-part series tracing decades of casting doubt on the science, missed opportunities and the ongoing attempts to hold Big Oil to account. Distributed by PBS Distribution.

The fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. Part three of a three-part series tracing decades of casting doubt on the science, missed opportunities and the ongoing attempts to hold Big Oil to account. Distributed by PBS Distribution.

Rising temperatures, melting glaciers, massive floods—the dangers of climate change are "no longer over the horizon" and humanity may soon pass the "point of no return." These are the phrases that Secretary-General António Guterres of the United Nations used in a 2019 speech to describe what he called an "utterly inadequate" international response to global warming. Despite the calls of scientists, environmental advocates, and many world leaders to alter how we extract and consume resources, the global community has taken few concrete steps in the intervening years to address the issue. If climate change continues at its present pace, it will test and challenge humanity's capacity for adaptation and survival. Can humans adapt to climate change?

An eye-opening documentary that focuses on many never-before-seen solutions designed to slow down our escalating environmental crisis, Ice on Fire goes beyond the current climate change narrative and offers hope that we can actually stave off the worst effects of global warming. Narrated by producer and Oscar®-winner Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Leila Conners, who first collaborated with DiCaprio eleven years ago on The 11th Hour, the feature-length documentary focuses on cutting-edge research behind today’s climate science – and the innovations aimed at reducing carbon in the atmosphere, which could pave the way for a reduction in the global temperature rises and a benefit to the planet’s life systems. With sweeping cinematography of a world worth saving, Ice on Fire crossing the globe, from Norway to Alaska, Iceland to Colorado, Switzerland to Costa Rica to Connecticut to highlight the firsthand accounts of people at the forefront of the climate crisis, with insights from scientists, farmers, innovators and others, finding that while the risks and urgency may be higher than ever today, there are also greater opportunities for innovative solutions, offering a realistic but hopeful perspective on a key global issue that demands our attention.

In GREEDY LYING BASTARDS, filmmaker and political activist Craig Rosebraugh, in association with Executive Producer Daryl Hannah, investigates efforts by oil industry interests, led by ExxonMobil and especially the Koch brothers, to fund skepticism of the scientific consensus on climate change. The film argues that this campaign is responsible for the failure to act on climate change. It covers "climate gate," arguing that this was a made up scandal and blaming it for the failure of Copenhagen talks. The film links the oil industry's efforts directly with the tobacco industry's campaign to convince people cigarettes aren't harmful.

This episode of The Green Interview features James Hansen, a preeminent scientist formerly with NASA who, in 1988 shocked the world with his research findings. In his testimony before U.S. Congress, he explained that his research had demonstrated that rising emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities were dramatically increasing the temperature of the global climate and had the potential to make the planet uninhabitable, not only for humans but for many other species. Hansen's testimony marked the beginning of widespread concern about climate change and he subsequently resigned from NASA to work fulltime on the climate change issue. He is now the Director of Climate Science and the Climate Science Awareness and Solutions program at Columbia University's Earth Institute. He is also a proponent of carbon fee and dividend, a system that would see the price of carbon reflect its true costs, encouraging the development of alternative energies, while the public would receive a dividend collected from the fossil fuel industry. He is also involved with Our Children's Trust, an organization involved in a landmark federal climate lawsuit against the U.S. government.

The coronavirus brought much of the world to a standstill, dropping carbon emissions by five percent. Al Gore says keeping those rates down is now up to us. In this illuminating interview, he discusses how the steadily declining cost of wind and solar energy will transform manufacturing, transportation and agriculture, offer a cheaper alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear energy and create millions of new jobs. Stay tuned for a lively debate about geoengineering and hear Gore's thoughts about how humanity can create a clean, prosperous future through a focused global effort and a generation of young people committed to change. (This virtual conversation, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson, was recorded June 23, 2020.)