Journey to Planet Earth; The State of the Planet

Matt Damon and welcome to journey to planet Earth. In this episode we'll investigate some of the most critical questions of the 21st century. Our population soaring out of control. Will there be enough water and food for future generations. And global warming a false alarm or a gathering storm. Will visit parts of the world suffering from human overcrowding hunger. And despair. Places where disease is rampant. But we'll also bring you stories of hope and courage. And celebrate the beauty and diversity of the natural world. Ultimately our story is really about why we as individuals and members of a global

community should take these issues seriously before it's too late. I think we owe it to our children and grandchildren. So please join me now as we begin our journey. Major funding for Journey to planet Earth was provided by. The National Science Foundation America's investment in the future. Additional funding was provided by.

Arthur Vining Davis foundations. Since the first of time. Before our ancestors even thought of time. First light reveals a treasure almost beyond imagination. The elegance of diversity. And the rich tapestry of the natural world. Ours is also a world shaped by people by

those who are strongly tied to the land. Who draw from its bounty. Suffered during hard times. Only to be renewed by the birth of each new generation. This is also a place our ancestors never could have dreamed of. Mega cities of glass and steel. Home to expanding populations powered by a global economy fueled by never ending images of consumption. Even when the sun gives way to the glow of neon we found a way to continue the frenzy a way to freeze time until we reach the very edge of night.

Yet all too often first light brings a more sobering reality. That perhaps all is not well with the state of the planet. I think that the earth has been sending us distress signals and the distress signals have to do with the pressures of human population the pressures of the human economy on the eco systems. If current trends continue by 2050. Something on the order of 30 or 40 percent of all species will either have become extinct or will be on the threshold of going extinct. More than a billion people don't have access to safe drinking water. 2.6 billion people almost almost half the world's population. Doesn't have access to adequate sanitation services more than a hundred and thirty million children who are under the age of 5 and still remain malnourished by 2020. We are in effect outgrowing the earth we need another planet. But there is no there is

no other habitable planet that we can go to. How could this have happened. How could our planet be faced with a seemingly unprecedented environmental challenges. Perhaps it's best to start with numbers numbers that have literally shaped the human condition. From the time of our prehistoric ancestors it took until about eighteen hundred for our planet's population to reach 1 billion people. It took another one hundred twenty five years to reach 2 billion. Less than 50 years to reach 4 billion. And only twenty five more years to reach six billion people. Incredibly the world's population grew more in the past 50 years

than in the preceding four million years. Today our numbers have surged to nearly six and a half a billion and our population is increasing by nearly 80 million people each year. 200 20000 each day during the course of this program. 15000 children will be born. Yet as ominous as these statistics are. The population explosion that began in the mid 1960s is finally slowing down. And it's happening in some of the most unexpected places. Bangladesh is one of the world's most densely populated countries. This is where nearly one hundred forty five million people roughly half the population of

the United States are crammed into an area the size of Wisconsin. Not very long ago. The average births per woman was just over six. Today it's half that. And still falling. Bangladesh is one of the success stories of the effort that's been going on really since the 1960s. This isn't the result of population control. This is the result of governments and health care providers and nonprofit organizations making available to women and men the means to basically plan their own pregnancies and have children when they want to have children. Throughout Bangladesh is countryside thousands of community health workers are helping to reduce fertility rates. The greatest success story in the world is that population is slowing. Women are getting what they want. They're getting family planning. They're

getting men means to slow their own family size. And when they get that not only do you give these people a healthy family you give them hope. Most experts predict that in about 50 years our planet's population will level off at around nine and a half billion. And then slowly begin to fall. Despite this extraordinary achievement there's a dark side to our victory over the population explosion and it can be found in the crowded urban slums and rural shanty towns of the developing world. This is where families want great distances just to gather water from tainted ponds and streams. Where women search barren landscapes for scraps of firewood for heating and cooking. And men scratch out a meager existence on small plots of arid land.

While the unemployed suffering from extreme poverty and anger often turn to violence and even terrorism. It's because of years and years of deprivation or sanitation. Scarcity of drinking water and generally less degraded enlightenment that a kind of rage builds up. And it just needs small sparks to set it on fire. And riots can break out. And. It's very easy for the billion or so people in rich countries to forget exactly what life is like for for the three to four billion very poor people on this planet. We have to remember that three billion people on this planet survive on less than $2 a day. Somewhere around one to one and a half of the land survive on less than a dollar a day. Too often those of us living with the luxuries of the West assume that the

battle to save the environment will be fought here amid the turmoil of the developing world. But now we are told that there's another more familiar battleground and it's located in our planet's richest country. The United States. As a result of immigration and low infant mortality over the next 50 years the United States population is expected to reach 400 20 million. The implications are enormous. Americans use a tremendous amount of energy a tremendous amount of natural resources more even than the average European or Japanese. The average person in the United States produces five times the global average of greenhouse gases. And and when you compare it to Bangladesh it's more like 100 times. When

you add 140 or 150 million Americans to the world population in terms of. Consumption. That's a really big impact. Americans live in a high tech world of automobiles and factories. Requiring huge amounts of energy. Our lifestyles impose more than a hundred times the stress on the planet. And many of those in the developing world. This raises one of the most fundamental questions of our time. Can our planet provide future generations with even the basic necessities of life. Though our planet is covered by an extraordinary amount of water over 97 percent is under seawater.

And another 2 percent is locked up in our polar icecaps. Satellite imagery shows a more promising site. The vast amount of water vapor circling the Earth the widest there is indicate rain or snow. The only source of our planet's freshwater. A closer view shows intense activity over the Amazon basin of South America. We have journeyed here to dramatize the inequitable distribution of our planet's fresh water. The amount of rainwater collected by the Amazon is enormous. In fact. The river carries one fifth. Of the world's fresh water. However the Amazon also flows through one of our planet's most sparsely

populated regions. A treasure of biodiversity and indigenous cultures isolated from the rest of the world. But as a result of its remote location relatively few can benefit. Unlike the Amazon many of our planet's greatest rivers are in danger of running dry. That includes the Amu Darya the Nile the Colorado the MI Kong and the Yellow River. In a world that's growing by 80 million people each year and where the demand for water doubles every 20 years. This doesn't bode well for the state of our planet.

Especially in the cities of the world. Recently our planet's urban population reached a watershed mark in recorded history. It may have happened when a Kurdish refugee sought relief in Istanbul. For a woman left Peru's countryside to give birth in the slums of Lima. Or an unemployed student left his village in Guatemala for a job in New York City. Or a young rice farmer started a new life working in the food stalls of Shanghai. The exact person or location is not important. But the event was truly historic. For the first

time the urban population of our planet. Outnumbers those living in rural areas. In 1950 there were 86 cities with a population over 1 million. Today there are more than 400. Within 10 years 600 cities will each be home to over a million people. The health effects are significant. Particularly in the developing world. In places like Africa. In places like the shanty towns of Kenya. And the Americans ever romantic view of Africa. They think about the Savannah and these huge herds of elephants and antelope and lions. But in fact modern Africa is really much more like this with large cities like Nairobi that act as magnets to bring people in from the

countryside where they're having trouble making a living. When they come into a city like Nairobi. They bring with them to a nucleus for epidemics in Nairobi the biggest health problem is the lack of clean water. Perhaps the greatest failure of development. In the 20th century. Was our failure to meet basic human needs for water for everyone. And the direct implication of this failure to provide basic human needs for water are water related diseases three to five million people die a year 20 or 30 thousand perhaps a day from water related diseases that are easy to prevent. We now live in a world where the quality of water can be considered a major human rights issue. In the poverty stricken slums of the developing world. People have little choice other than to dump raw sewage into their local river. Elsewhere in the world the advantage of newly acquired wealth is clearly apparent.

Sue Jo Creek is an ancient canal cutting through the heart of Shanghai. Today it's the city's lifeline. Each day thousands of barges carry food and construction materials in and out of Shanghai. A few years ago the canal was literally a sewer. Like the local waterway in Nairobi. Sue Jo Creek received massive amounts of waste water and pollution from factories flanking the canal. The only difference is that Shanghai was a city in the midst of an economic boom. To remedy the problem. Authorities invested billions of dollars to build a series of huge tunnels to collect Shanghai's waste water. Which was then treated and

flushed out to sea. The cleanup of Suge Oak Creek was made possible because of one thing. A thriving economy. Located 600 miles off the southeast coast of the United States is the Caribbean island nation of Haiti. This is the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. And unlike Shanghai. It suffers from severe economic depression and political instability. In the slums of Port au Prince the nation's capital a quarter of a million Haitians are at the mercy of local gang members who control all forms of commerce including the sale and distribution of safe drinking

water. The children that live in these back alleys are the innocent victims of poverty. Their life expectancy is almost 30 years less than children born in the United States. Or squatter settlements need large amounts of water and you'll find that often rich groups or powerful groups who control the water resources will use their power to to basically extract huge profits by selling water to the squatter cell in Haiti a week's supply of water could be equal to a day's wages. When a nation can't afford to provide the basic necessities of life. Water becomes a rare and often unaffordable commodity. Fortunately even in the world's poorest countries.

There are small victories. In a remote corner of Zimbabwe and southern Africa. During the dry season it may not rain for months watering holes and grasslands disappear. Elephants invade farms and pastures in search of food. An unforgiving sun turns villages. Into dusty wasteland. Seasonal drought has always been part of this nation's history. But when the rains don't come. Most farm families are forced to struggle with hunger. Sometimes famine as their tiny plots of land turn brown. Yet there are communities in Zimbabwe that have found ways to cope with the lack of

rain. And the village of Jinnah Mora. Singing is a way to share in the joy of the harvest. And the small miracles that come with water. For the past 10 years the women who tend this communal farm have prospered. Even during times of severe drought. It happened because an elementary school principal decided to build a small dam. I built this one physically myself using these hands. Very tough. It all began in 1992 never old. Until 1995 on the 14th of December. That's when I put on finishing touches. Of this war. It

was pretty tough. What David sure did was capture the spring runoff from local streams. His dam remained sustainable because he limits the amount of land that can use the water collected each year. So we're going to use this water here for you negation. For the communal people. They will benefit. By providing a reliable and sustainable source of water. David bettered the lives of the women of China more. And despite the seasonal challenges of an ancient landscape these farmers won a small victory. They're not unlike farmers throughout the world. Those who live on a thin edge. An edge sharpened by unpredictable harvest. And severe drought.

Even in places. Closer to home. The Rio Grande river marks much of the twelve hundred mile border between Mexico and Texas. Compared to the Amazon. It's a rather insignificant river. In fact more water flows down the Amazon in an hour. And flows down the Rio Grand. In a year. But for those living in one of the most arid regions of North America the Rio Grande. Has always been. A primary source of water. Jimmy Stein Dinger. A Texas citrus farmer. Has prospered because of the Rio Grande. You know without water it's just like without money. If you go the first thing I ask is if you got any water on your. Farm or for your crops.

If you don't they want hard to loan any money. So water main is like having money in a bank because without that I can't my crop went out in my going to crop I don't make no money. I've been farming thirty six years now. I never did worry about the water because I always felt like I was going to have plenty of water. Even in times of drought. The river always provided. It. 50 years ago the Mexican and United States governments built the Falcon dam across the Rio Grande. They also created a huge reservoir that was supposed to supply the region's water needs well into the 21st century. But in the five decades since the dam was built. Much has happened in the Rio Grande Valley. New cities sprang up on both sides of the border. Commerce flourished.

And as the population exploded from 200000 to 20 million the demand for water increased. Along the Falcon dam reservoir. The history of the water crisis is literally etched in stone. A series of high water marks along the shore show a dramatic and steady loss of water. The first to suffer. Were local farmers. Jimmy Stein Dinger has been forced to destroy 20 acres of productive grape fruit trees. There's simply not enough water for irrigation. For Jimmy the destruction of a mature and fertile crop is both an emotional and expensive experience.

I feel pretty bad trade the planet 11 years ago it was because they don't have enough water. Jimmy Stein Dinger has just become a statistic. Another victim of a global water crisis that threatens to be even more serious in the years ahead. 40 50 years ago a water shortage wasn't on anybody's radar screen 20 years ago. It wasn't on anybody's radar screen. That's typical of the way a lot of population environment interactions are happening in the world. Things just get gradually a little bit more stressful and an ecosystem or an environment. But people figure they can live with them. And then suddenly some kind of tipping point is reached. Suddenly water that was available for generations just isn't there anymore. Another casualty in the global competition for water is the world's wetlands.

Fed by the seasonal flow of streams and rivers. This is a rich habitat for thousands of species of plants and animals. With its own sense of time. And rhythm. Once covering 12 percent. Of the planet's land area. Today. Half the world's wetlands are gone. The victims of rivers running dry. For their conversion into farmland for human settlement. Gone are irreplaceable breeding grounds for plants and animals. Gone are aquatic ecosystems that cleanse the rivers Water's.

Gone our woodlands that ease the burden of floods. Little more than a decade ago the loss of wetlands in the United States resulted in a catastrophic flood. It happened when a series of storms stalled over the upper Mississippi River basin. For months the rains kept coming. Though the weather pattern was unusually severe. The actual amount of rainfall along the Mississippi. Hasn't changed for thousands of years. What did chance was the loss of more than 90 percent of the flood plain wetland. That once absorbed the season or high waters of the Mississippi. As the waters began to rise riverside communities in a final act

of desperation reinforced their lines of defense. But in the end the Mississippi. Hit by thousands of surging streams and rivers. Crashed through the levee. You're level. Without the protection of the Mississippi's original wetland ecosystem. The river. One. In addition to the world's wetlands. There's another water resource under siege. To meet the needs of a thirsty planet. Aquifers are being pumped out. Faster than nature's ability to replenish them. But these natural underground reservoirs hold more than 30 percent of the world's supply of fresh water. This does not bode well for those living in the less developed countries.

Where aquifers are often the only source of on polluted water. More than half the world's people now live in countries where water tables are falling and wells are going dry. In many ways I think it's the most underestimated resource issue in the world. In recent months we've been hearing a lot about world oil prices the depletion of oil reserves and then trying to estimate when world oil production will peak and turn downward as reserves are depleted. And this is obviously important but it's not as important as the depletion of underground water resources. We do live for millions of years without oil. We would live only a matter of days without water. There are substitutes for oil. There are no substitutes for water. But the depletion of underground water resources is not limited to poor

countries. Fly over the prairie's of the United States and you'll see thousands of dark circles matched into the desert landscape. Each circle is cultivated land. Irrigated with water pumped from the largest Aqua for in the world. A gift left behind by melting glaciers during the last ice age. Called the Ogallala Aquifer. It supplies water to 25 percent of the country's irrigated land. It helped to make the Great Plains the bread basket of the world. During the time of harvest. Farmers worked around the clock. In return. They managed to produce more than a third of the world's grain exports.

But in a sense farmers are also exploiting our country's only irreplaceable source of water. It's not an easy tradeoff. Each year irrigated farming draws almost a foot and a half of water from this ancient aquifer. While nature puts back in the form of rain. Less than half an inch. In the past 50 years. The Ogallala Aquifer. Has lost over a third of its volume. This has farmers worried. They just don't know how long the water will last. The only thing they're sure of is that if things don't change the aquifer

will ultimately run dry. What happens to water resources is it's going to shape our future in ways that I don't think we can we can l is Lee imagine. This raises another question of great concern for the state of the planet. Can we provide enough food to satisfy the needs of our children and grandchildren. If you were to visit the flea markets of the world. Yeah. One thing I would be immediately pound for. More food is available to more people. Than ever before. It's a testament to the ingenuity of the world's farmers. Ranchers.

And fishermen. The current status of global food production is relatively good. If you look at the population increase that has taken place in the last three decades despite the addition of almost three billion people we have actually increased the available food per person by almost 20 percent. Do we have enough food to feed the world. Yes. Does everybody have access to that food. Unfortunately no. Despite the global abundance of food more than 800 million people go hungry each day. It's not just a question of increasing food production increasing production on the farm. It is getting that production out to the people I think cost effective ways. Of compound ing the problem. Hunger frequently leads to a cycle of environmental decline. Desperation can leave

the land over cultivated and overgrazed. You know feeding the poor remains a pressing challenge much can be learned from the world's most populous country. China is a place where past and future intersect. It's steeped in ancient cultures and deeply held traditions. This is also a country of newly founded wealth. It's hard to believe that only four decades ago. Famine. Claimed a staggering 30 million lives. Today the nightmare of extreme hunger is long gone. Local markets overflow with fresh produce and once unimaginable luxuries

like milk eggs and meat. The abundance of food is both a monument to the country's economic boom and a glimmer of hope to the poorest countries of the world. The Yangtze River Delta contains China's most fertile soil. On this flat watery landscape. Every available acre of land is under cultivation. The results are remarkable. In a country of over a billion and a quarter people. Very few go hungry. Yet China's agricultural success does not come cheaply. And it is at the center of fierce competition for water and land between farmers.

And developers. In this competition farmers almost always lose. For example. If you have a thousand tons of water in China you can use that to produce one ton of wheat which is worth at most two hundred dollars. Or you can use that thousand tons of water to expand industrial output by fourteen thousand dollars or seventy times as much. If your goal is economic growth and job creation you do not use scarce water to produce wheat. Less than a decade ago these streets were surrounded by farms. They are now home to dozens of small and medium sized industrial enterprises. This garment factory was once farmland. Instead of three tons of rice a yearly harvest is one hundred twenty thousand pairs of trousers.

Almost every worker was lured off the farm. And their farming skills honed year after year are disappearing. Along with China's most productive land. Despite these problems China has found ways to feed its population. The challenge for the poor countries of the world is to somehow duplicate that achievement. It won't be easy. Especially when an even greater threat to the State of the planet. May be looming on the horizon. A few years ago Chicago was at the epicenter of an extraordinary weather event. Almost seven hundred fifty people died thousands more were hospitalized.

The victims did not suffer from a terrorist attack. Or an industrial gas release. Their deaths were due to a dramatic and unprecedented 10 day heat wave. This is the worst. Feeling plane crashes. Train crashes they would think this is the worst I've never seen anything like this in the history of the Cook County medical examiner's office. By the third day Chicago's morgue was full. And refrigerated trucks were called in to store the dead. Since the Chicago tragedy heat anomalies have struck dozens of cities like Paris London Calcutta and Melbourne. Tens of thousands have died. The scientific community now tells us that we all live in a world where the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. And global temperatures are rising

faster than in any other time in recorded history. The consequences of these human induced changes are becoming more and more profound. The world's glacial regions have long been a treasure of natural beauty and biodiversity. Today they're also under attack. Glacier National Park is a good example of how the air service is responding to climate change. Today there are about 20 glaciers left in the park. One hundred fifty years ago it was probably two and a half times that number. In other parts of the world we see between two and three degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature in the last century. Our Planet's polar regions also show signs of dramatic change because of global warming. Climate change is not a theory it's a reality. Here in the Arctic

we are getting ice forming much later in the year and breaking up much earlier in the year. We're getting that have never been up here in the Arctic before. We're getting birds here before our whole world is being altered up here in the Arctic and I think the world has to pay heed to that. And as glaciers and polar sea ice melt the world's oceans are slowly rising. Thousands of miles to the south. Louisiana's coastal marshes and wetlands have always been prime breeding grounds and nurseries for birds and animals. Today they are slowly being covered by the Gulf of Mexico. Just a few years ago this bay was a sugar beet farm and a

pasture for grazing cattle. Dead oak trees are recent reminders of a once healthy coastline. What we see now is so lost obviously of a strange thing in the situation that we now see them they didn't grow with this thing in the salt water. So they really are very good indicators of environmental change and also really on on the environment change on the ceiling kind of time scale. Each year over 25 square miles of Louisiana coastline are washed away. If a foreign country was invaded the United States and it was taking five or 10 square miles and nothing would be spared to stop that foreign country from taking our land. But when it's a process like the Gulf of Mexico taken people said that's natural. I disagree. There's no question the sea level is rising. The big question is is how fast lek continue and how big a sea level rise will we get. I think one of the things we've really learned about the climate system is

that our hands are on the implications of that are really quite severe. Glaciers melting sea levels rising heat waves. These are only a few of the early warning signals of man's greatest environmental challenge. The planet is sending us these distress signals and we need to understand what it is say what we are doing and how we can stop what we're doing. The point at which you see change may be too late. You may not be able to stop those changes. Fortunately there are ways to respond to the dangers of global warming. Remember the tomato farmers of China Mora and how they benefited from the water provided by David juror's dam. Though they managed to avoid famine during times of drought. They still lose water and soil to evaporation and erosion.

In a warmer and drier world. They will need new ideas. Eight thousand miles away are the gently rolling hills of southern Pennsylvania. Steve Croft may have some answers. Steve is a tomato farmer. And like the women of Jenna more deeply attached to the law. But the devastating cycle of topsoil loss does not exist on Steve's farm. Instead of plowing the land. In the fall he plants a cover crop that is rolled onto the earth. To form a protective carpet. A specially designed tractor then places the tomato seedlings directly into this natural mulch. The sort o is never turned off.

Several months later the land is ready to be harvested. This is called no till farming. And it is now practiced by 23 percent. Of our country's farmers. The reason I got away from plowing the soil. Was because I saw too much soil erosion was washing away when we had rain. And so the soil is my. Number one asset I want to try to night in such a way to keep my soul in place. The other thing that. Cover crops have done for us is being able to reduce our insecticides and or fungicides in our vegetable crops. We have done some testing. Comparing a conventional versus no told to natives and our farm here we got about 10 percent yield increase. There are no global views on the minds of these Pennsylvania farmers. Yet how they meet their economic needs. Speaks volumes to people all over the

world. Especially to the Women of China moral. And a schoolteacher who built a dam. Far from the Proteas farms of Pennsylvania the Negev desert is one of our planet's driest regions. Though temperatures soared to over 110 degrees this is become the perfect laboratory for a team of Israeli scientists most of whom is Rocky is developing heartier types of plants and better irrigation techniques for areas of the world that may suffer from the severe effects of global warming. Water is the first and the most important limiting factor. And I would conditions the drip irrigation system was developed in Israel and this is the most efficient system in the world.

You are supplying the water with the fertilizer directly to the root zone so you're not wasting water if you will sprinkle. Think what that will evaporate and you will lose a lot of water but if you use the deeper at the base of the plant you apply as much as needed to the root zone. Doing this research to produce plants that can be produces when the warming tendency will go up in the globe. Here we have a plan that under these conditions can be a producer for you. And it produces very nice in a collective effort. I could open it and you can see it with the looks of the finishes at the booth. You can eat it. While some scientists labor in the harsh desert climate of the Middle East. Others are creating their own weather conditions in the middle of a far milder Iowa landscape.

Here researchers are developing new high yielding varieties of soy corn and wheat that are drought resistant and require fewer chemicals. We test products across many many different kinds of environments we like to expose our varieties and hybrids to drought to heavy disease pressure to heavy insect pressure to heavy rains. We want them to be stable enough to handle almost any kind of weather that can be exposed to. Breakthroughs in genetic engineering can go a long way towards feeding almost 80 million extra mouths each year. Even in a warmer world. But to help future generations slow down or stop global warming we need to conserve energy and limit our dependence on fossil fuels. Wind power provides one of several alternatives.

In a remote valley in California. 4000 turbine generators produce enough electricity to serve about eighty four thousand households. Clean and renewable. It's a technology that could provide up to 10 percent of the earth's electricity within two decades. But wind power coupled with alternatives like solar energy and fuel efficient cars represent far more than just a response to the challenges of global warming. It's a testament to the power of human ingenuity of man's ability to cope with our planet's most pressing problems. Yet in the end. There are no easy answers. No quick fixes. In many ways the most important challenge to the State of the planet

is recognizing the seriousness of the problems that lie ahead. Climate change water scarcity land degradation loss of energy supplies around the world because of the depletion of forests. These are problems that are facing humanity as a whole. What happens in China what happens in India what happens in Asia and Europe and South America affects us environmentally it affects us economically it affects us culturally it affects our stability. If I had to use one word to describe the environmental state of the planet right now I think I would say precarious. It isn't doomed. It isn't certainly headed toward disaster but it's in a very precarious situation right now. In the end all we want is for first light to still reveal the rich tapestry of the natural world

and with each new day a chance for every child born into poverty to share the same dreams. We in the West so often take for granted. What we need are the efforts of people everywhere. All those who are willing to find ways to strike the right balance. Between what we want and what nature. Can provide. Those separated by distance and culture. For the six and a half billion who draw sustenance from the resources of the world there are common bonds bonds that are renewed by each generation bringing new ideas new attitudes new hope. Planet Earth. This is our home and this is where our

journey of discovery must begin. To discover more about today's featured stories educational resources or download teachers guides and other information about the environment please join me on the journey to planet Earth website at PBS dot org. On the next episode of Journey to planet Earth we investigate the link between environmental change and the health of our planet. We will visit places in the United States and overseas where millions of people must cope with the spread of toxic pollution. But our story is also an exciting adventure. Filled with unexpected twists and turns. Coming soon on PBS. Journey to planet Earth. Major funding for Journey to planet Earth was provided by.

The National Science Foundation because investment in the future. Additional funding was provided by. Arthur Davis Foundation.