The Truth About Climate Change

Amiably hosted by famed naturalist David Attenborough, The Truth About Climate Change is a two-part British TV documentary (also available separately for $149.95 each) that opens with the episode “Are We Changing Planet Earth?”, which finds the avuncular Attenborough revisiting locales celebrated in his earlier series to assess the effect of global warming on both the environment and native wildlife. Conversing with scientists, Attenborough underscores the fact that one of the major culprits bringing about climate change is human use of fossil fuels, a destructive practice that releases greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with demonstrable negative impacts on the environment. In the second episode, “Can We Save Planet Earth?”, Attenborough concentrates on policy changes and individual choices that can help to slow—and perhaps reverse—this damaging trend. Unlike Al Gore's stagebound lecture An Inconvenient Truth, this thought-provoking two-parter roams the world, mixing striking visuals with impressive graphic effects (including disturbing shots of London and Manhattan underwater), while sounding the alarm about the increasing fragility of life on Planet Earth. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (F. Swietek)