"The World Set Free" | |
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Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey episode | |
Episode no. | Episode 12 |
Directed by | Brannon Braga |
Written by | Ann Druyan Steven Soter |
Narrated by | Neil deGrasse Tyson |
Featured music | Alan Silvestri |
Editing by | John Duffy Michael O'Halloran Eric Lea |
Production code | 112 |
Original air date | June 1, 2014 |
Running time | 40 minutes |
"The World Set Free" is the twelfth episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey . It premiered on June 1, 2014, on Fox, and aired on June 2, 2014, on National Geographic Channel. The episode was written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and directed by Brannon Braga. The episode explores global warming, humanity's effect on the Earth's atmosphere, and what we can do to mitigate it, including a look at alternative energy technologies. [1] The episode also examines the planet Venus to inspect the runaway greenhouse effect. [2] The episode's title alludes to H. G. Wells' novel published in 1914, The World Set Free , where Wells predicts that humanity will develop destructive nuclear weapons, perpetuating a devastating global war and forcing the world to come to its senses to create a peaceful society that harnesses the power of atomic energy.
This episode explores the nature of the greenhouse effect and the evidence demonstrating the existence of global warming from humanity's influence. Tyson begins by describing the long-term history of the planet Venus; based on readings from the Venera series of probes to the planet, the planet had once had an ocean and an atmosphere, but due to the release of carbon dioxide from volcanic eruptions, the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus caused the surface temperatures to increase and boiled away the oceans.
Tyson then notes the delicate nature of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can influence Earth's climate due to the greenhouse effect, and that levels of carbon dioxide have been increasing since the start of the 20th century. Evidence has shown this to be from mankind's consumption of oil, coal, and gas instead of from volcanic eruptions due to the isotopic signature of the carbon dioxide. The increase in carbon dioxide has led to an increase in temperatures, in turn leading to positive feedback loops of the melting polar ice caps and thawing-out of the permafrost to increase carbon dioxide levels.
As early as 1896 Svante Arrhenius published a scientific paper regarding Man's emission of carbon dioxide, followed by Edward Olson Hulburt in the 1930s and Guy Callendar.
Tyson then notes that humans have discovered means of harvesting solar power. At the 1878 World's Fair Augustin Mouchot won a gold medal for his solar power concentrator. In 1913 Frank Shuman constructed a solar powered irrigation plant in Egypt, with a view to transforming Sahara to arable land. Tyson points out that in both cases, the economics and ease of using cheap coal and oil caused these inventions to be overlooked at the time. Today, solar and wind-power systems would be able to collect enough solar energy from the Sun easily. Tyson then compares the motivation for switching to these cleaner forms of energy to the efforts of the Space Race and emphasizes that it is not too late for humanity to correct its course.
The episode received a 1.3/4 in the 18-49 rating/share, with 3.52 million American viewers watching on Fox. It placed third and last in its timeslot behind Believe and The Good Wife ; and tenth out of fifteenth for the night. [3]
The scientific community has been investigating the causes of climate change for decades. After thousands of studies, it came to a consensus, where it is "unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land since pre-industrial times." This consensus is supported by around 200 scientific organizations worldwide, The dominant role in this climate change has been played by the direct emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Indirect CO2 emissions from land use change, and the emissions of methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases play major supporting roles.
The greenhouse effect occurs when greenhouse gases in a planet's atmosphere insulate the planet from losing heat to space, raising its surface temperature. Surface heating can happen from an internal heat source as in the case of Jupiter, or from its host star as in the case of the Earth. In the case of Earth, the Sun emits shortwave radiation (sunlight) that passes through greenhouse gases to heat the Earth's surface. In response, the Earth's surface emits longwave radiation that is mostly absorbed by greenhouse gases. The absorption of longwave radiation prevents it from reaching space, reducing the rate at which the Earth can cool off.
Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on.
This glossary of climate change is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to climate change, global warming, and related topics.
Planetary engineering is the development and application of technology for the purpose of influencing the environment of a planet. Planetary engineering encompasses a variety of methods such as terraforming, seeding, and geoengineering.
The faint young Sun paradox or faint young Sun problem describes the apparent contradiction between observations of liquid water early in Earth's history and the astrophysical expectation that the Sun's output would be only 70 percent as intense during that epoch as it is during the modern epoch. The paradox is this: with the young Sun's output at only 70 percent of its current output, early Earth would be expected to be completely frozen, but early Earth seems to have had liquid water and supported life.
A runaway greenhouse effect will occur when a planet's atmosphere contains greenhouse gas in an amount sufficient to block thermal radiation from leaving the planet, preventing the planet from cooling and from having liquid water on its surface. A runaway version of the greenhouse effect can be defined by a limit on a planet's outgoing longwave radiation which is asymptotically reached due to higher surface temperatures evaporating water into the atmosphere, increasing its optical depth. This positive feedback means the planet cannot cool down through longwave radiation and continues to heat up until it can radiate outside of the absorption bands of the water vapour.
The anti-greenhouse effect is a process that occurs when energy from a celestial object's sun is absorbed or scattered by the object's upper atmosphere, preventing that energy from reaching the surface, which results in surface cooling – the opposite of the greenhouse effect. In an ideal case where the upper atmosphere absorbs all sunlight and is nearly transparent to infrared (heat) energy from the surface, the surface temperature would be reduced by 16%, which is a significant amount of cooling.
The terraforming of Venus or the terraformation of Venus is the hypothetical process of engineering the global environment of the planet Venus in order to make it suitable for human habitation. Adjustments to the existing environment of Venus to support human life would require at least three major changes to the planet's atmosphere:
Cosmic Odyssey is a 2002 Canadian documentary television series about the cosmos, created by Avanti Pictures, narrated by William Shatner, and produced by Soapbox Entertainment for The Discovery Channel. In 2003, Schlessinger Media released the series in VHS video format. As of 2007, the series is syndicated on The Science Channel.
Throughout Earth's climate history (Paleoclimate) its climate has fluctuated between two primary states: greenhouse and icehouse Earth. Both climate states last for millions of years and should not be confused with glacial and interglacial periods, which occur as alternate phases within an icehouse period and tend to last less than 1 million years. There are five known Icehouse periods in Earth's climate history, which are known as the Huronian, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan, Late Paleozoic, and Late Cenozoic glaciations. The main factors involved in changes of the paleoclimate are believed to be the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, changes in Earth's orbit, long-term changes in the solar constant, and oceanic and orogenic changes from tectonic plate dynamics. Greenhouse and icehouse periods have played key roles in the evolution of life on Earth by directly and indirectly forcing biotic adaptation and turnover at various spatial scales across time.
The carbonate–silicate geochemical cycle, also known as the inorganic carbon cycle, describes the long-term transformation of silicate rocks to carbonate rocks by weathering and sedimentation, and the transformation of carbonate rocks back into silicate rocks by metamorphism and volcanism. Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere during burial of weathered minerals and returned to the atmosphere through volcanism. On million-year time scales, the carbonate-silicate cycle is a key factor in controlling Earth's climate because it regulates carbon dioxide levels and therefore global temperature.
The biological and geological future of Earth can be extrapolated based on the estimated effects of several long-term influences. These include the chemistry at Earth's surface, the cooling rate of the planet's interior, the gravitational interactions with other objects in the Solar System, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity. An uncertain factor is the pervasive influence of technology introduced by humans, such as climate engineering, which could cause significant changes to the planet. For example, the current Holocene extinction is being caused by technology, and the effects may last for up to five million years. In turn, technology may result in the extinction of humanity, leaving the planet to gradually return to a slower evolutionary pace resulting solely from long-term natural processes.
Planet Earth is a seven-episode 1986 PBS television documentary series focusing on the Earth, narrated by Richard Kiley.
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a 2014 American science documentary television series. The show is a follow-up to the 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was presented by Carl Sagan on the Public Broadcasting Service and is considered a milestone for scientific documentaries. This series was developed to bring back the foundation of science to network television at the height of other scientific-based television series and films. The show is presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who, as a young high school student, was inspired by Sagan. Among the executive producers are Seth MacFarlane, whose financial investment was instrumental in bringing the show to broadcast television, and Ann Druyan, a co-author and co-creator of the original television series and Sagan's wife. The show is produced by Brannon Braga, and Alan Silvestri composed the score.
"Standing Up in the Milky Way" is the first aired episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on March 9, 2014, simultaneously on various Fox television networks, including National Geographic Channel, FX, Fox Life, and others. The episode is presented by the series host astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, directed by Brannon Braga, produced by Livia Hanich and Steven Holtzman, and written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter.
"Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still" is the sixth episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on April 13, 2014 on Fox and aired on April 14, 2014 on National Geographic Channel. The episode explores the smallest particles in the universe, where host Neil deGrasse Tyson "hunts for elusive neutrinos and the distant, early universe." The episode features the underground neutrino laboratory, Super-Kamiokande, located underneath Mount Kamioka in Japan.
"The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth" is the ninth episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on May 4, 2014 on Fox, and aired on May 5, 2014 on National Geographic Channel. The episode was directed by Brannon Braga, written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and featured the voice of Amanda Seyfried as geologist Marie Tharp. The episode explores the history of the Earth starting with the period of the Late Heavy Bombardment, approximately "3.8 to 4.1 billion years ago during which the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth were battered by space debris." Host Neil deGrasse Tyson then delves into the biography of the Earth, expressed "in its continents, oceans and life living on and in them, saying 'the past is another planet,'" alluding to how plate tectonics have shaped the Earth over millions of years.
"The Immortals" is the eleventh episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on May 18, 2014, on Fox, and aired on May 19, 2014, on National Geographic Channel. The episode was written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and directed by Brannon Braga. The episode explores the possibility of the interstellar spread of life and possible alien encounters. The episode also presents the hypothesis of panspermia, where the origin of life is attributed to comets or asteroids carrying radiation-resistant organisms.
"Unafraid of the Dark" is the thirteenth and final episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its series finale. It premiered on June 8, 2014, on Fox and aired on June 9, 2014, on the National Geographic Channel. The episode was written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and directed by Ann Druyan, making this her series directorial debut. The episode explores the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, as well as the contributions and theories of Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who furthered our understanding of "supernovae, neutron stars and 'standard candles.'" The finale reveals a recording of life on Earth - the final message on the golden record of the space probe, Voyager. The episode ends with Carl Sagan's iconic speech on Earth as the "Pale Blue Dot."