Planet in Peril: A CNN Worldwide Investigation

Forget primetime and American Morning. For critical breaking news turn on Planet in Peril, CNN's worldwide investigation into the issues of climate change, vanishing habitats, species' extinction, human overpopulation, and Anderson Cooper's athleticism. You won't get better up-to-the-minute news. It's real crisis happening in real time.

Cooper in Cambodia

Monday night, I had the chance to watch a condensed screening of the anticipated series at the Museum of Natural History's Fauchman Theater in New York City. Though a bit sensationalistic, overworked and slightly drawn out, the documentary provides a stunning high-def illustration and first-hand account of environmental strife in 13 countries across four continents.

CNN's Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Animal Planet host and wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin, lead the tour, as undercover investigators probing environmental catastrophe from Madagascar to Greenland, Yellowstone to China, Brazil to the Carteret Islands off Australia. Using "the ripple effect" as a cinematographic metaphor, the three amigos explore the interconnectedness of environmental problems--as human population grows, forests recede, ice evaporates, ecosystems break down, animals disappear . . . yada, yada, yada.

Cooper and Corwin suckle a bear cub in Thailand.

Cooper and Corwin traveled to Brazil to examine connections between the rapid deforestation of the Amazon River Basin and changes in the world's climate. Additionally, they traveled to Greenland where Cooper walked on one of the world's newest islands, revealed under quickly melting ice.

Cooper and Corwin frolic with animals

In China, Dr. Gupta examined how the world's fastest growing country uses natural resources and the toll it takes on its people and the entire world. CNN sent Gupta to investigate cancer rates in the Guandong province, an area notorious for corporate-sponsored industrialism and where my previous employer used to have factories (but that is for another post . . . waiting for my gag order to be lifted).

Monday night, as Anderson Cooper's flaxen complexion glowed against an arid scrub of pillaged rainforest, it was clear: the magnitude of environmental disaster is no longer a distant theory. It's a very real and very scary present crisis.

Baw-Chicka-Wa-Wa

On Tuesday, October 23 and 24 at 9 p.m. ET watch this important documentary with me. If for some legitimate reason you have to miss it, be sure to check in as I share highlights and perhaps a candid interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta himself . . . I can't promise anything, but I'm working on it.

For more on Planet in Peril and "Green Media" read my review on The Daily Green.

Comments

[wm1066]

Did it seem like they were blaming the people of Madagascar for the deforestation and not outside companies?
And blame the smuggalers for the lose of species and not mining companies!
Something stinks with this production. They admit its man that is causing problems but they soft soap the Big Business influence.

[joebaggadonuts]

I am delighted to see a MSM outlet showing this viewpoint. Thank you for spreading the news.

[snowbird1]

Recent research by Henrik Svensmark and his group at the Danish National
Space Center points to the real cause of the recent warming trend. In a
series of experiments on the formation of clouds, these scientists have
shown that fluctuations in the Sun's output cause the observed changes in the
Earth's temperature.

In the past, scientists believed the fluctuations in the Sun's output were
too small to cause the observed amount of temperature change, hence the need
to look for other causes like carbon dioxide. However, these new
experiments show that fluctuations in the Sun's output are in fact large
enough, so there is no longer a need to resort to carbon dioxide as the
cause of the recent warming trend.

The discovery of the real cause of the recent increase in the Earth's
temperature is indeed a convenient truth. It means humans are not to blame
for the increase. It also means there is absolutely nothing we can, much
less do, to correct the situation.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/188993.php


Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.

[criscokid]

Ms. Zaleski,
From the PIP website and clips I've seen promoting the Planet in Peril special, I agree it is an extraordinary effort on CNN's part to make us all aware that action needs to be taken now to protect our planet. However, ConocoPhillips is one of CNN's sponsors for this broadcast. I'm sure you are aware of CP's Wood River, IL project. If not, more information can be found at www.environmentalintergrity.org/pub460.cfm

In addition to the Wood River project, CP has yet to implement the $525 million technological upgrades on their refineries in seven states. They agreed to do this as part of a settlement made with the EPA for violations of the Clean Air Act.

I'm afraid that by sponsoring the PIP project, CP will either gain unwarranted positive publicity, or others will question the validity of CNN's Planet in Peril project.

[OliviaZ]

Criscokid,

Thank you for taking the time to make me aware of this. I will definitely investigate. Please let me know if you come across any more information.

Thank you,

Olivia Zaleski

[criscokid]

Ms. Zaleski,
Here are a couple of other websites you might want to check out:

www.nysun.com/article/48671

www.sierraclub.org/pickyourpoison/

www.envionmentalintergrity.org/pub453.cfm

I'm looking forward to the second part of PIP tonight, but I'll just fastforward thru the commercials.

[sparafucilli]

Two-thirds of Northern China cities are facing severe water crisis. Eighty percent of all the surface water in China is now polluted beyond use (WHO). Four-fifths of the people in China are drinking substandard or dangerous water every day. Billions of tons of water have been diverted to sustain China's economic expansion causing groundwater depletion to reach catastrophic levels.

In India 23 million tube wells operate around the clock. Wells so deep that they are taking up water formed at the time of the dinosaurs amounting to 200 cubic kilometers yearly only a fraction of which is replaced by rain.

Mexico's major cities are siphoning water from the countryside. Water that is ending up in the ocean bordering the coastal cities where as well, because of a lack of green space, water is running off into the oceans instead of into the ground as is happening around the world.

And it's only getting worse?

Terrorist Wars, Drug Wars and, soon to be announced, Water Wars.

[OliviaZ]

So true Sparafucilli.
I plan to write about this soon. Very scary!
Thanks for your comment.
Olivia Zaleski

[OhgReaTone]

Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, including the tree amigos. But the issues of Climate Change is real and it is important. It is incumbent on each of us to be more thoughtful, more resourceful, and more sensitive to the needs of our environment.
Ohg
http://thefireside.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/making-mulch-saving-the-planet/

[dadw5boys]

It is easy to blame the excess and waste on the people but take a deeper look at what allowed them to use so much and be so wasteful.

Credit has allowed mankind to extend his limited abilities to invade other lands and build empires. Along the way the waste and destruction began to grow as he was forced to find income streams that would feed the ever growing INTEREST MONSTER.
Without Credit man kind would have been limited to thier own abilities to create wealth and invest it wisely. The Natural Resources would not have been wasted or the water ways poisioned because people would be depending on getting every ounce of value out of a resource.
Credit has allowed man to destroy his own enviornment.

[Overtone]

An energy revolution has been born. Magnetic Power Inc. is developing never before commercialized technology it calls GENIE„¢ (Generating Electricity by Nondestructive Interference of Energy). GENIE generators are being designed that operate continuously, without fuel, extracting electricity by converting an energy source that exists everywhere in the universe. The process will create no pollution. The cost of electricity is estimated to be significantly less than any competing form of power generation today or in the foreseeable future.

GENIE generators will be scaled to a wide range of applications, ranging from the relatively small power needs of consumer devices up through the massive needs of power plants. Advanced prototypes are currently being built in an MPI laboratory. A proof-of-concept of one design was evaluated by Lee Felsenstein, EE. He felt it was analogous to the early work on the transistor, which eventually led to a Nobel Prize and the creation of Silicon Valley. The next goal is a prototype of a 1,000 watt self-sustaining generator, perhaps the size of a 12 pack of soda. By late 2008, a modified plug-in hybrid car should demonstrate that a pair of these GENIE generators can eliminate the plug.

Nobel physicist Werner Heisenberg is quoted as stating: "We could utilize magnetism as an energy source". The first successful prototype was built by Wesley Gary in 1874 and shown to Harvard and MIT professors. Hans Coler, a German inventor supported by Hitler"s navy, demonstrated a working 6,000 watt, solid-state, magnetic "space energy receiver" in 1937. His work was destroyed by an Allied bomb late in WWII. At the time, there was no comprehension as to the source of the energy. Coler wrote: "These fundamental researches¦have made the first real and large breach in the citadel of present scientific belief."

GENIE generators are likely to be constructed in many of the world"s electronics factories. Household units will be inexpensive and produce power 24/7. Larger units will replace automobile engines and allow future cars to become income producing power plants, when parked!

[civilbehavior]

Anyone interested in hearing what the paleontologists have discovered to tie in with the climatologists should buy and read and then pass around to good friends a new book:

Under a Green Sky by Peter Ward.

Recent discoveries (as recent as 2006) are uncovering evidence from the past that incontrovertibly link carbon to mass extinctions, in particular the Permian which was the granddaddy of all extinctions.

This isn't just GCM work predicting what carbon is doing. This is unassailable data, measured carbon isotope, oxygen isotopes and irridium pretty much ruling out impact theory.

A bit dry and a book to reread in sections but you want to really have some food for thought this book is highly recommended.

Interdisciplinary communication is coming home to roost. We best all take heed.

[MadMadWorld]

Are they going to be admitting that Science has already determined that man is having a considerable influence on Climate Change? Or are they going to say the jury is still out? Is this just another attempt to muddy the matter by not assessing blame to anyone, but pretending to be aware and concerned about the problem?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be happy about this increased attention, but it always seems to fall short of expectations. They usually present all the evidence then interview three supporters and three deniers, never stating that there are a million supporters and only three deniers (don't get on me, I exagerated the numbers to make my point - don't get on me about spelling either).

I don't trust these people, a shame really because I love Jeff Corwin, but CNN and the MSM, even huffpo now to an extent, deals too much in opinion to the exclusion of fact.

I'll have to DVR it, The Reaper comes on at 9:00.

[OliviaZ]

Hi MadMadWorld,
Thank you for your comment. I agree! I am so sick of media outlets, which have the opportunity to truly inspire and influence us, sugar coating and down playing the severity of these issues.

I have to say though, I thought CNN did a great job of communicating the immediacy of environmental catastrophe. I actually got pretty depressed after I saw it because I worry we are already too late.

I'm going to try to write more about it and would love to hear your thoughts after you get the chance to watch. Of course, The Reaper comes first, but do make the effort to DVR.

Thanks again for your comment,
Olivia Zaleski

[MadMadWorld]

Pretty cool for you to respond. Thanks. I'll check it out.

[TucsonEd]

Let's hope Sanjay brings more objectivity to this than he did to his critique of Micheal Moore's Sicko. After that crap I don't put much store in anything he has to say, so WHY did they chose to use him?