PBS’s Frontline “investigates how the world’s largest corporations and governments are responding to Earth’s looming environmental disaster.” The two-hour investigation by award-winning producer and correspondent Martin Smith airs tonight, Oct. 21, 2008, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS. Details here and below:
“I have reported on the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the rise of Al Qaeda, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Smith. “But nothing matches climate change in scope and severity.”
The world needs to dramatically cut the carbon emissions responsible for wreaking havoc on the planet’s climate, according to Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, whose organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shared last year’s Nobel Peace Prize. “If we don’t take action immediately, we face a crisis,” Pachauri tells Smith. “Climate change is caused by human actions, and we need to do something about it. The sooner we realize that, the better.”
With that sense of urgency in mind, Smith traveled to 12 countries on four continents to investigate whether major corporations and governments are up to the challenge. HEAT features in-depth interviews with top policy-makers and with leading executives from many of the largest carbon emitters from around the world, including Chinese coal companies, Indian SUV makers and American oil giants. The report paints an ominous portrait. Despite increasing talk about “going green,” across the planet, environmental concerns are still taking a back seat to shorter-term economic interests.
Smith’s journey begins at the epicenter of new industrial development: China. In the midst of unprecedented growth, the Chinese are clearly moving in the wrong direction. He visits Shenhua Energy, one of the largest and fastest-growing power companies in the world–a coal conglomerate with a huge carbon footprint. But its CEO, Ling Wen, tells Smith that he answers not to the public but to his shareholders. “We must create money, not lose the money,” Ling says. “It’s my responsibility as a CEO of this company.” And when pressed whether he should make climate change a higher priority, Ling says that he would if his shareholders asked him. But, he says, “I’m afraid maybe all the shareholders, they cannot accept that concept.” In the meantime, China continues to build two new coal-fired power plants every week.
Smith finds a similar situation in India, where rapidly rising income levels have prompted an explosion in the demand for new cars. Automakers are thriving, pushing out new models, including the Nano, a small car aimed at helping even the poorest citizens get behind the wheel–no small thing, as India stands to overtake China as the world’s most populous country by mid-century. With several hundred million new drivers taking to the streets, India’s carbon emissions will soar….
I was interviewed for the story, but I’d still be calling this “must see” even if I hadn’t. This is obviously the most important story of our lifetime and I’m expecting HEAT to be as thorough and hard-hitting as any Frontline piece.
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This will be great for use in classes in the coming weeks. Just like Reagan and the political and economic establishment did not see the appeal of energy conservation i the 1980’s to the industry itself. Hopefully the specifically involved industries will be pushing forward on this issue, which will drag along political will.
We certainly need more of this kind of stuff. What’s weird to me is if this greenhouse gas, global warming is so bad, how come those with the show business skills and the people who have the money to pay for these things doing more.
Websites like Realclimate are good, but this is a video world. Scientists need to put out some DVD’s and put on cable and airwaves TV, on the science of global warming to be made available freely to evevybody. Volume 1 of the DVD’s would be on the science, Volume 2 would be on debunking the misguided and inaccurate ‘Global Warming isn’t caused by Man’ points that are wrong, but keep coming up.
Yep, I’ve been looking forward to this since I saw the ad for it on PBS.
There’s nothing quite like looking out the window of a runaway train going downhill and hearing someone say, “That there looks like a sharp curve!”
Despite positive ‘chatter’ amongst politicians and pundits about ‘change’ do you really believe that it will occur in the degree we need it? Look in your heart of hearts and ask.
Oh, we’ll get lip service up the ying yang. Promises galore spilling forth from pie holes everywhere. Everything will be green, green, green!!!
The truth is, the truth you know in your heart of hearts, is that behind the curtain of ‘green wash’ it will be, to quote Jim Hansen, BAU (business as usual).
The consequences are going to be staggering, the earth in a slow motion train wreck.
Dill Weed
In his review (in NYR) of Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Bill McKibben comments critically:
“There is, therefore, no escaping the need for politics, for a robust international agreement that, among other things, commits America to sharing the burden for helping China and India develop without burning their piles of coal…”
To be sure, Friedman is not, at all, suggesting we can escape the need for politics or government action. To the contrary, he is very clear that we, for instance, need government to completely redesign the (domestic) energy marketplace.
So far, so good.
But when it comes to extra-domestic policy, it seems (although this may be an unfair reading), Friedman falls back on the, what-to-call-it?, “aspirational” approach?
Writes Friedman:
“A truly green America would be more valuable than 50 Kyoto Protocols. Emulation is always more effective than compulsion.”
On McKibben’s reading, Friedman, while not opposed to international treaties, dismisses their value and the need for them.
It does seem odd of Freidman to pit international diplomacy against the influence of domestic government action. There’s no inherent conflict between the US leading internationally by domestic example, and ALSO leading, or at least sharing the lead, in international diplomacy, is there? We need “both of the above.”
I was disappointed in the program. The experts who were on-camera, including Joe, were excellent, along with the interviews of industry representatives by Martin Smith…especially when he pointed out to the Exxon lady that she had not answered his question about the probity of Exxon’s funding of Heartland and CEI. If only more reporters would do that.
But much of the rest was weak. Maybe I have read too much ClimateProgress, but the program had very little to say about what we ought to be doing. Wind got some attention only via Pickens but there was no discussion of how big a player it could be and no rebuttal of the standard critiques of wind. There was only a passing mention of solar. No real discussion of efficiency. Instead we get a lot on CCS!
Topic after topic was developed, then dropped in midstream. When the program switched (abruptly) from Pickens to the next topic, my wife said, “Wait! What is happening with Pickens’ project?” His plans were presented but the viewer would be excused for not knowing how far along it is. It would have taken only a couple of summary sentences to provide closure. My impression is that the program was put together in a rush with little editorial oversight.
In short, the viewer will have come away with the idea that there is no coherent strategy for dealing with either GW or energy. Very little for the viewer who wants to write his/her congressman to ask, “Why aren’t you supporting (blank)?” In the end I was hoping that this was Part 1 of a multi-part series.
And not only that, but it painted a false view of why the EU is ahead of us.
It is because of their different political system: when they elect a leader (PM, president) they get a whole new cabinet that matches, so if they elect a Democrat (equivalent)they can try out an entire Democratic renewables policy.
As a result, they get to try renewables policy for years at a time. Many times that has paid off, before getting submerged again in conservative swings backwards.
We don’t.
It is only sheer chance, due to ourextremely under-informed voters, that we ever get a Dem pres and true congress control. Last had it in 92-94.
And that program contributed to misinforming voters. It is not true that gas prices derailed L_W cap and trade, bipartisanly. Republicans derailed it, as they derailed rps and ptc repeatedly for decades. Same as they ever was.
They didn’t start derailing renewable policy this summer. They have done so for at least 30 years to my knowledge.
I disagree somewhat with the last two commenters, in that in a two-hour show, much can get covered but not everything. It was an overview show on the politics of the situation. It was not an overview of the solutions. It talked about what we have in front of us and how we got in this mess (per what Susan said).
There IS NO coherent strategy.
Best,
D
Well, I’ve just watched it online. As a European, (English), I was both disturbed and fascinated by the program. I was expecting and hoping for more about the climate changes, I would have expected more on the real potential of the many and various renewables.
But it was a very interesting program, well worth watching, and from this side of the pond a revealing glimpse into American politics and the dominance of business interests. It was worth the time spent watching it.