Last Stand
Correspondent: Harrison Ford
Location: Los Angeles, Sumatra, Borneo, and Indonesia
Story: YEARS correspondent Harrison Ford travels to Indonesia to investigate how corruption, illegality and the world’s seemingly unquenchable appetite for palm oil have combined to ravage the landscape and make the country the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases through deforestation.
Pray for Rain
Correspondent: Don Cheadle
Location: Plainview, TX
Story: Last year, Cargill, the largest privately-held company in the U.S., closed down its huge meat-packing plant in Plainview, TX. The company said that because of the drought there just weren’t enough cattle to make it worthwhile to keep the plant open. Don Cheadle visits Plainview and finds that most people blame the drought on the will of God or say it’s part of a natural cycle. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and Evangelical Christian, has a very different explanation.
Climate Wars
Correspondent: Thomas Freidman
Location: Washington D.C., Turkey, and Syria
Story: The Pentagon has long seen climate change as a “threat multiplier,” a “stressor” that can take a volatile political situation and push it over the edge. YEARS correspondent Thomas Friedman witnesses this effect in three Middle Eastern countries: Egypt, Syria and Yemen.