Episode list

Seventy percent of the planet's surface is covered by oceans, and, thanks in part to global warming, they are changing rapidly.

When prolonged droughts occur, the consequences (particularly for those who work and live off the land) are extreme. Typically, drought-affected areas such as the Horn of Africa are suffering severe drought brought on by seasonal changes, climate change, political troubles and population increases. Those worst affected by droughts are reduced to eating boiled flowers, and the negative effects of severe drought are felt for generations.

Of all the planets, Mars has an environment most like Earth. For decades we have been sending probes to mars in the search for water - the essential ingredient necessary for sustaining human life on this planet. We look at the multiple missions to Mars, and the technology employed by NASA in its probes to assist with the search for water and life on Mars. Success has been a long time coming, but scientists found water in a soil sample and so were able to determine that it does indeed exist on Mars.

Areas of wilderness are parts of the world that have been left untouched by modern man. Some places have survived because they are too harsh to be inhabited by civilization. Others have survived because people have worked hard to preserve their natural beauty. High in the Himalayas, India's Valley of Flowers National Park is one of those protected as a World Heritage site. Known for its meadows of alpine flowers, it represents a transition between forest and mountainside. The last great wilderness is Antarctica, which belongs to no country and is protected from exploitation by its subzero climate.