Season 1
Climate Wars (also known as Earth: The Climate Wars) is a British nature documentary series produced by BBC Science which examines the climate change debate from a variety of angles, from its history to its implementation to continued skepticism over how real the threat is.
The series aired in the UK on BBC Two from 7-21 September, 2008. There are three hour-long episodes in the series.
Climate Wars premiered in South Africa on DStv's BBC Knowledge channel on Wednesday 14 October 2009, at 21h30. New episodes air weekly.
Repeats
Thursdays: 02h05, 08h55
Saturdays: 23h00
Sundays: 07h40, 18h05
Synopsis
In the early 1970's scientists warned that we faced a new ice age. Now they're convinced the greatest threat to civilisation is global warming. In between times – and until very recently – confusion has continued to reign in the issue of climate change.
Al Gore said it's the biggest issue facing the planet. David Bellamy said it was nothing to worry about. Some said it would turn Britain into a desert. Some said it would make the planet wetter. Some said it would become far hotter. Some said it was all man-made. Others said humans had nothing to do with it at all.
With all this conflicting information is it any wonder that sceptics sat on the side and scoffed, claiming that climate change was just a scare story put about by publicity-seeking scientists?
Now, after 30 years, we know the truth. The world is warming and mankind is the cause. So why has it has taken this long for us to understand just how sinister the threat of global warming is?
This authoritative series travels the globe to chart this astonishing scientific turnaround, and shows how we know what we know.
Over three episodes – The Battle Begins, Fight Back and Fight for the Future – it explains how we became aware that climate change was happening, examines the proof that it is a man-made problem and asks how close we are to the point of no return.
With sceptics and advocates of all sides of the debate explaining how the most heated and politically charged scientific question of our age has now seemingly been solved, this is the definitive – and most timely – guide to climate change.
Episodes
Episode 1: The Battle Begins
In the 1970s the world seemed to be falling apart. From acid rain to overpopulation, ecological concerns were at the fore. And it was at this time that climate change first became a hot political issue. But it wasn't global warming that frightened scientists, it was the complete opposite; a new ice age.
Dr Iain Stewart traces the history of climate change from its very beginning and examines just how the scientific community managed to get it so very wrong back in the Seventies.
Along the way he uncovers some of the great unsung heroes of climate change science, and introduces us to a secret organisation of American government scientists, known as Jason, who wrote the first official report on global warming as far back as 1979.
He shows how - by the late 1980s - global warming had already become a serious political issue. It looked as if the world was uniting to take action. But it turned out to be a false dawn. Because in the 1990s global warming would be transformed into one of the biggest scientific controversies of our age.
Episode 2: Fightback
Dr Iain Stewart investigates the counter attack that was launched by the global warming sceptics in the 1990s.
At the start of the 1990s it seemed the world was united. At the Rio Earth summit the world signed up to a programme of action to start tackling climate change. Even George Bush was there. But the consensus didn't last.
Iain examines the scientific arguments that developed as the global warming sceptics took on the climate change consensus.
The sceptics attacked almost everything that scientists held to be true. They argued that the planet wasn't warming up, that even if it was it was nothing unusual, and certainly whatever was happening to the climate was nothing to do with human emissions of greenhouse gases.
Iain interviews some of the key global warming sceptics, and discovers how their positions have changed over time.
Episode 3: New Challenges
Having explained the science behind global warming, and addressed the arguments of the climate change sceptics earlier in the series, in this third and final part Dr Iain Stewart looks at the biggest challenge now facing climate scientists.
Just how can they predict exactly what changes global warming will bring?
It's a journey that takes him from early attempts to model the climate system with dishpans, to supercomputers, and to the frontline of climate research today: Greenland.
Most worryingly he discovers that scientists are becoming increasingly concerned that their models are actually underestimating the speed of changes already underway.