Earth: The Operator's Manual
I hadn’t seen this – just received from a PGH member. FYI.
Subject: Earth: The Operator's Manual
“EARTH: The Operators’ Manual” (“ETOM” for short) is a rigorously researched, beautifully filmed and ultimately uplifting antidote to the widespread “doom and gloom” approach to climate change. The program opens with a thorough grounding in Earth’s climate history and an overview of the current dilemmas, but its main thrust is an upbeat assessment of our many viable sustainable energy options.
To illustrate the evidence and the way forward, “ETOM” takes viewers on a High Definition trip around the globe. In New Zealand, the audience follows Richard Alley into a deep crevasse to understand how the advance and retreat of massive glaciers during Earth’s Ice Ages are tied to changing levels of carbon dioxide. In Denver, Colorado, we peer over his shoulder at the National Ice Core Lab to see how records of temperature and atmospheric composition trapped inside chunks of ancient ice conclusively demonstrate that today’s levels of CO2 are higher than at any time in the past 400,000 years, due largely to our burning of fossil fuels over the past several hundred years.
Then it’s on to locations where developments in sustainable energy are already proving it’s possible to do things differently. A solar power plant near Seville, Spain, will soon provide electricity to 200,000 homes – promising news for the sunniest place in the world, the deserts of the U.S. Southwest, where solar energy could account for 80% of Earth’s current use. On the North Island of New Zealand, a geothermal generating station is a reliable source of carbon-free energy.
We travel to Brazil, a land of cars running on flex fuels using sugarcane ethanol, and on to the gas-guzzling city of Houston, which is working to support e-vehicles. At the Army’s Fort Irwin and the Marine Corps’ Camp Pendleton, we learn why the U.S. military has made it a priority to significantly reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. And in Xi’an, Shanghai and Beijing, we see how China, the world’s largest energy consumer, is evolving from “the factory of the world” into “the clean-tech laboratory of the world,” in the words of Peggy Liu, chairperson of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy.
From low-tech solutions to high-tech innovations, “ETOM” shows the wide range of practical options available to meet Earth’s growing need for energy. Says producer Erna Akuginow (who directed the critically acclaimed “Childhood” series and the Passport to Knowledge series of electronic field trips): “In creating this program, we were awed by the raw power of the Earth and of human ingenuity, and happily surprised by some of the most ambitious goals for clean, low-carbon options.”
“ETOM” was produced in High Definition and taped worldwide in Xi’an, Shanghai and Beijing (China); São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Ceara and Iguaçu Falls (Brazil); Marrakesh and the Sahara (Morocco); Seville (Spain) and high on the heavily-crevassed snowfield of the Franz Josef Glacier and at “Hell’s Gate” hot springs and geothermal reserve, Rotorua (New Zealand.) Production continued across the United States, from New Orleans to the California coast, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to the Algodones Dunes, near Yuma, Arizona, at the National Renewable Energy Lab, and at the National Ice Core Lab in Denver, Colorado.
"EARTH: The Operators’ Manual” is produced by Passport to Knowledge/Geoff Haines-Stiles Productions, Inc., and made possible by a major grant from NSF, the National Science Foundation. The program is available for teachers to download and use in class for one year after the PBS premiere. It is also available for purchase on DVD.
Cars and computers come with manuals. So why don’t we have one for the most complex operating system of all, the Earth? Now we do. Is the planet due for an oil change? Could we meet our growing need for energy with renewable options? What actions could keep Earth operating at peak performance? Check out ETOM on-air and online for answers.
http://www.
- Janet Brown
