iwonder: September highlights

Doco streamer iwonder this month looks to matters of science and climate.

Australia: The Coming Climate Hell?
19th September
Australia – perceived at home and overseas as one of the most blessed and beautiful countries on the planet – is also one of the most polluting. According to the Brown to Green Report, an annual review detailing G20 member countries’ performance in environmental matters, Australia is shockingly one of the worst performing members on almost all counts: deforestation, coal mining, excessive water consumption, and carbon footprint. From fires and droughts to cyclones and floods, Australia is no stranger to bearing the full brunt of global warming. In this provocative documentary, the filmmakers examine the state of play in the fight against climate change in Australia and if impending climate disaster awaits the land down under.

Rewild
21 September
Temperatures are rising and biodiversity is collapsing at an unprecedented rate in the history of mankind. Almost 60% of wild animals have disappeared in the last 40 years. And the reason is always the same: the presence of Man – whose activities emit greenhouse gases and destroy living things through deforestation, intensive agriculture, mining, and fossil fuel extraction. Yet there is a solution: rewilding. The idea of rewilding, in simple terms, is letting nature run its course once again within areas of land that have been cultivated by Man. In Argentina, we follow the reintroduction of jaguars in the Iberá wetlands, 70 years after they were driven into local extinction. In Brazil, Sebastião Salgado has replanted a forest with two million trees. In Mozambique, the return of large savannah animals has replenished a land destroyed by war. And in Siberia, a father and son hope to stave off climate change by reintroducing bison.

Atomic Hope: Inside the Pro Nuclear Movement
28th September
‘Atomic Hope’ follows a tiny global movement of unpopular pro-nuclear activists, who strongly believe we need nuclear power in order to decarbonise our energy systems, before catastrophic climate change occurs. Intimately filmed over a ten-year period, these advocates for nuclear energy come from all over the world, from Japan to Switzerland, America to Australia. But these individual activists face clashes and opposition at every juncture. Nuclear meltdowns, costs, radiation fears, and nuclear waste are just some of the serious issues which traditional environmentalists raise against this technology. In the face of a very real climate emergency, with time ticking towards irreversible climate change – is it now time that people around the world pause to take a sober look at the science, stop the mass closure of nuclear power plants and fully reconsider nuclear energy as a viable solution to this ensuing catastrophe?