Can We Hack the Planet?

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another episode of the acclaimed documentary series “Through the Wormhole” hosted by veteran actor Morgan Freeman.

Humanity is under threat from storms that seem to get ever fiercer, earthquakes that seem ever more deadly, and killer viruses that are engulfing the globe.

Evacuate Earth ~ Monster Storm

Today on Far Future Horizon we present another horrific scenario. Imagine an immediate runaway greenhouse effect due to an explosive outgassing of the potent greenhouse gas methane from the ocean floor. 

This will drastically alter the climate of our planet.

Antarctica ~ Secrets Beneath the Ice

Today on Far future Horizons we visit the vast frozen wasteland of Antarctica to glean the secrets of our planet’s climatic history and perhaps a glimpse of our future.

NOVA Power Surge

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the acclaimed PBS science series NOVA. “Power Serge” attempts to answer two fundamental questions Are we finally on the brink of a clean energy revolution? And, can emerging technology defeat global warming?

The Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic indicator made famous by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists since its inception in 1947, was moved Tuesday January 8, 2013 from six minutes to five minutes before midnight as a warning about nuclear dangers and climate change.

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer Quoting from the Bhagavad Gita

 

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another episode of the acclaimed documentary series Modern Marvels which tells the story behind the "Doomsday Clock" of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The Doomsday Clock symbolizes all the existential threats currently facing the human species. According to the Doomsday Clock the World will end at the stroke of midnight!

The World Set Free

Today on Far Future horizons we present the twelfth episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

This installment explores the nature of the greenhouse effect (discovered by Joseph Fourier and Svante Arrhenius), and the evidence demonstrating the existence of global warming from humanity's influence.

The Next Ice Age

Today on Far Future Horizons we present two documentary features that explore the possibility that global warming, as paradoxical as it may sound, may be rushing our planet into the next ice-age.

Stone Age Atlantis

Satellite view of Northwest Europe - showing Britain as an Island (the land that once joined Britain to the rest of Europe has been destroyed by a tsunami)

Melting ice, rising seas and a huge tsunami heads for the coast. These are not headlines from the twenty first century. But they are stories from prehistory. Today, we worry about the effects of global warming, but humans have lived though eras of extreme climate change before. During the Middle Stone Age, the world's seas were rising far more rapidly than today.

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the story of a vanished kingdom - a Stone Age Atlantis.

Earth Under Water

Today on Far Future Horizons we explore one of the major catastrophic scenarios predicted by climate change models – Rising sea levels.

Through cutting-edge CGI, this National Geographic documentary explores the potential effects of sea level rise on our civilization over the next few centuries. 

Earth Overhaul

It is claimed by some scientists that climate change is being felt the world over and if global warming continues the effects could be catastrophic.

Some scientists and engineers are proposing radical, large-scale ideas that could save us from disaster. Although these ideas might have unknown side effects, some scientists believe we may soon have no choice but to put these radical and controversial plans into action.

Will humanity engage in a massive program of Planetary and climatic engineering, in order to maintain the natural life support systems that sustain humanity and the other life forms that call this Earth home?

In essence will humanity embark on a program of Terraforming the Earth?

Catastrophe! Part 2: “How the World Changed”

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the second installment of a two-part documentary titled Catastrophe! — “How the World Changed” from the acclaimed PBS series Secrets of the Dead.

The Justinian Plague

Catastrophe! — Part 1: The Day the Sun Went Out

Did a major cataclysmic event plunge humankind into the period known as the early Dark Ages? Scientists now believe the early Dark Ages may have been triggered by a natural event that occurred around 535 A.D.

Prehistoric Megastorms ~ Hypercane

Hypercane viewed from space

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the acclaimed documentary series Prehistoric Megastorms.

Many scientists generally accept the theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a ten kilometer wide asteroid, which crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula sixty five million years ago.

This celestial projectile is alleged to have been responsible for wiping out seventy-five percent of all life on earth. But was this asteroid solely responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs?

An impacting body of this size would have released a colossal amount of heat energy into the Earth’s atmosphere generating massive shock waves and winds of unprecedented speed.

The End of the World?

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” 
~ Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Today on Far Future Horizons we join host Dallas Campbell as he delves into the Horizon archive sto find out how scientists have tried to predict the end of the world, from natural disasters to killer diseases and asteroid impact. 

Five Ways To Save The World

How will humanity survive the coming century if our global civilization never manages to overcome its addiction to fossil fuels, curb carbon emissions and global warming continues unabated? What effect will a four degree Celsius rise in temperature have for our planet and the future prospects of our world’s ability to support and sustain a global population of some nine billion people?

The World: 4⁰C Warmer

According to an article by Gaia Vince from the weekly science magazine New Scientist of February 25, 2009 the human species is facing a major existential risk that places our long term future into question. We face a nightmarish scenario:

ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 °C.

The Earth of the year 2099 may be so altered by global warming and sea level rise that the carrying capacity of our planet is debilitated to the extent that we may see a massive die off of the human species and may face the prospect of a massive relocation effort of its surviving members to the few remaining slivers of land that can sustain them.

If humanity does indeed face such a bleak prospect then it has clearly reached the point in its history where it must take a more active role in managing its planet and all its life sustaining resources as well as the activities of its inhabitants on an unprecedented scale.

Clearly this is a vision of the future that no one wants, but it might happen. Fearing that the best efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions may fail, or that planetary climate feedback mechanisms will accelerate warming, some scientists and economists are considering not only what this world of the future might be like, but how it could sustain a growing human population. They argue that surviving in the kinds of numbers that exist today, or even more, will be possible, but only if we use our uniquely human ingenuity to cooperate as a species to radically reorganise our world.

Why Ancient Egypt Fell

Once the envy of the ancient world, the mighty civilization of Egypt stood for thousands of years until it underwent a swift decline and eventual fall. Find out how such a magnificent empire could collapse so entirely given its wealth, power and rich culture.

Ice Age Meltdown

Today on Far Future Horizons we travel back in time some twenty thousand years to witness a major climatic upheaval, an Ice Age Meltdown.

Twenty thousand years ago there was a sudden change in climate which ends a global freeze which had lasted for several thousands of years. Melting ice caps drive up sea levels to create coastlines we recognize today and great glaciers thaw dramatically tore-sculpture the landscape.

A mass extinction took place and as the human race adapted to these breath taking changes to their familiar environment, the seeds of our modern society were sown.