BIO105 - Environmental Biology

In this 2009 documentary, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines why it’s so hard to keep our waters clean. Through interviews with scientists, environmental activists, corporate executives and average citizens impacted by the burgeoning pollution problem, Smith reveals that a growing environmental threat came not from the giant industrial polluters of old, but from chemicals in consumers' face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that found their way into sewers, storm drains and eventually into America's waterways and drinking water.

Go inside the decades-long failure to confront the threat and increasing impacts of climate change in “The Power of Big Oil.” This deeply researched docuseries reveals what scientists, corporations and politicians have known about human-caused climate change for decades, and the missed opportunities to mitigate the problem.

Part two, “Doubt,” chronicles how, as scientific evidence of human-caused climate change mounted in the 2000s, the industry continued to question the science, and went to new lengths to shape American politics and stall climate policy.

Three months later, the leak was stopped. BP fell silent, and all seemed back to normal.
In this explosive documentary, oil industry insiders, fishermen, lawyers, and marine toxicologists shed a different light upon the backlash. The cheap, toxic clean-up methods chosen by BP, and the growing difficulties of the oil industry, which is caught between needing more oil to meet rising demand, and the urge to cut corners to maximize profits. So what really happened in the Gulf of Mexico? It’s a story about the power-play between our thirst for oil, nature and the greed of international corporations.