Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

Narrator: Freezing cold.

(wind whistling)

Oppressive heat, devastating drought,

extreme climate change may have contributed

to the extinction of the Neanderthals

and allowed modern homo sapiens to dominate the earth.

(dramatic music)

All life on earth is subject

to the power of climate.

(dramatic music)

Civilizations evolve or vanish forever.

(dramatic music)

Favorable climatic conditions support the rise

of great empires and promotes trade, prosperity,

and artistic achievement.

Adverse climatic events often lead to war

and other human catastrophes.

(dramatic music)

The earth just before the birth of Christ.

The stars were favorably aligned

for life on our blue planet.

For thousands of years,

the earth had been orbiting close to the sun

and receiving abundant light and heat.

The sun's scorching rays were tempered

by the Earth's atmosphere,

which cooled them to comfortable levels.

(tense dramatic music)

As well as the plentiful sunshine,

there was also regular rainfall.

In Northern Egypt,

Emmer, an ancient form of wheat grew in abundance.

Much of this grain was also used

by a European power to feed its empire.

(tense dramatic music)

Rome was the center of a vast empire.

It's remembered for decadence luxury,

grandiose architecture, and the lavish spectacles

that entertained its people.

This extravagance was possible

because of favorable climatic conditions.

-: So if you look at climate

and what is you could perceive as good climate,

what you really want is enough water throughout the year

so you can have agriculture,

so you have enough drinking water,

but also what you need is stability.

So what you really want is the weather

to be the same each year so you can plan.

(tense dramatic music)

Narrator: The growth rings of ancient oaks

tell today's researchers that around 100 BC

the weather was very stable

and that temperatures were rising gradually.

Average temperatures were

about two degrees centigrade warmer

than in previous centuries.

For almost 300 years, climatic conditions were ideal

for strong, stable growth.

The small rise in temperature had a huge impact

on the Northern Hemisphere,

especially high in the mountains.

Prior to this, the Alps had stopped

the Roman Empire expanding northwards,

but the higher temperatures caused glaciers to melt.

Mountain passes were no longer covered

in ice and snow, allowing Roman troops easy passage.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: The Romans took advantage of the mild climate.

Their troops crossed the Alps effortlessly

and in large numbers.

Nothing stood in the way of their conquest of Germania.

(dramatic music)

Once over the Alps, their superior combat techniques

made the Roman legions invincible.

Region after region came under fire.

The Germanic tribes didn't stand a chance.

At the height of its power,

the Roman Empire extended from Britain to the Caspian sea

and the Persian Gulf and had 50 million inhabitants.

But the Romans weren't the only ones taking advantage

of the climate.

China was also experiencing a golden age.

along the Yangtze River, rice grew in abundance.

The invention of agricultural irrigation systems

improved people's living conditions

as did the use of draft animals.

After numerous military campaigns,

Qin Shi Huangdi united all the warring states

under his rule in 221 BC.

China became an empire.

The Chinese emperor, like his Roman counterpart,

pursued an expansionist policy.

That made him enemies.

The China Empire soon began work on the fortifications,

now known as the Great Wall of China.

(tense dramatic music)

The wall was built of rammed earth and stone

and was meant to protect the empire

against hostile nomadic tribes in the North.

(tense dramatic music)

The Romans used wood to build the walls

that marked their Imperial borders.

The Limes Germanicus, which stretched

for over 550 kilometers controlled the flow of trade

and defended the empire against enemy raids.

All along the Limes were watchtowers

manned with legionnaires,

but that was not enough to protect Rome

from a long series of battles with Germanic tribes.

(tense dramatic music)

With its dense forests,

the Germanian terrain proved a challenge

for the Romans, and they weren't used

to the heavy rainfall in these Northern latitudes.

In 9 AD, three Roman legions entered the Teutoburg Forest.

It had been raining for days and the ground was muddy.

The dense undergrowth meant they couldn't march

in combat formation.

They walked straight into an ambush.

-: The great thing about the actual Roman Empire

was its standardization,

they standardized the way people made roads,

how the army marched and how they fought.

The problem is that they were used to engage armies

on sort of like a battlefield.

However, when you're fighting in dense forest,

in mud with huge amounts of rainfall,

suddenly all of that breaks down.

So there's no organization, you're then fighting one-on-one.

And that gave the Germanic tribes the edge

because they were used to this running,

hit-and-run battle approach in the dense forest.

Narrator: The Germanic attackers fighting equipment

was lighter and better suited for close combat.

-: Germanic tribes were very clever.

They used the weather unto their advantage

to win the battle.

They could fight in the forest in appalling conditions

with huge amounts of rainfall and lots of mud.

And they knew that that weather,

that climate would actually give them the advantage

over the Romans, who were used to working

in teams and also in heavy armor

and were using a large shield and a short stabbing sword.

Narrator: The legionnaires didn't stand a chance.

The "Battle of the Teutoburg Forest"

was the Roman's greatest defeat.

They no longer believed in their own invincibility

and never again attempted

to conquer Germanic territory East of the Rhine.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: Climate change is influenced

by astronomical forces.

It depends on the Earth's orbit around the sun,

the tilt of the Earth's axis,

and the level of solar activity, all of which vary.

Sometimes the Earth's orbit is almost circular,

at others, more elliptical.

One orbital cycle takes 100,000 years.

During a 40,000 year cycle,

the angle of the Earth's axis also changes.

These variations cause regular changes

in the Earth's climate

as the intensity of solar radiation increases and decreases.

At about the time of Christ's birth,

solar radiation probably decreased.

The Gulf stream cooled

and the Earth's climate became much colder.

(tense dramatic music)

Crops died all across North Africa

when the summer rains failed.

Rome's granaries were empty.

Climate change hit the empire at its most vulnerable point.

-: If you look at the stresses of the Roman Empire

and you look at whether it was the republic or the emperors,

the one thing that they worried about was food.

And you see many accounts of rioting in Rome

when there wasn't enough food.

If you're an emperor in charge of an empire,

you have to remember only one thing,

unhappy people cause revolution.

Narrator: The people of Rome rebelled.

For their rulers, the timing couldn't have been worse.

The huge empire was already weakened by corruption

and political discord.

(tense dramatic music)

The outer reaches of the empire were also affected.

Freezing cold winters led to hunger in many places.

The Northern provinces were worst hit.

This bog mummy from Northern Germany provides evidence

of these extreme conditions.

The adolescent's body was found by peat-cutters in 1952

near the town of Enderby.

Because of its light build,

the body was long thought to be that of a girl.

But recent examination of the bones has revealed

that they belong to a 14-year-old boy.

They also tell us why he was so small.

The arm and leg bones show evidence

of years of poor nutrition.

His growth was stunted, and in some years,

he didn't grow at all.

For 12 of his 14 years, the boy was severely malnourished.

It's likely that many others in Germania also went hungry

as the cold, unstable climate

made living conditions more hostile.

(dramatic music)

When invading Huns started to compete with Germanic tribes

for the few remaining resources, they were forced to flee.

A mass migration began.

As they moved South, they displaced others.

Soon, hundreds of thousands of climate refugees

were slowly advancing on the Roman Empire.

The harsh climate had at least one advantage.

(tense dramatic music)

Frozen swamps and rivers were easy to cross

and allowed the migrants to pass through Roman borders.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: In 406 AD, almost 90,000 people crossed

the Rhine near Mainz and entered the Roman Empire.

(tense dramatic music)

More and more tribes invaded,

conquered, and settled the Roman territory.

This spelled the end for the once powerful empire.

As Europe entered the Middle Ages,

the climate was still unstable,

particularly the spring of 536.

The sun suddenly darkened and temperatures dropped.

A Byzantines scholar reported that

the sun gave forth its light without brightness

and seemed like the sun in eclipse.

(tense dramatic music)

According to Chinese sources,

there were summer snows, drought, and famine.

Irish monks also reported crop failures.

For a long time, the darkened sun remained a mystery.

Today though, most experts agree on what caused it.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: A cataclysmic event did take place in 536.

The Ilopango Volcano in what is now El Salvador erupted,

leaving a caldera 17 kilometers wide

and killing 100,000 people.

Climatologist Robert Dull sees a connection

between the eruption of Ilopango and the darkening

of the sun that was observed at the time.

(tense dramatic music)

He believes the volcano caused the climate crisis

in the Early Middle Ages.

-: The volcano is basically the lake.

What you see here is an outline

of the entire area that was erupted all at once

when this volcano erupted 1500 years ago.

Narrator: The lakes dimensions suggests

the size of the magma chamber

at the time of the eruption.

It's 270 meters deep with walls over 400 meters high.

It covers a total area of over 72 square kilometers.

The eruption must have been immense.

(tense dramatic music)

The dimensions of this fast crater are an indication

that your Ilopango could have been

one of the world's few super volcanoes.

(tense dramatic music)

Robert Dull wants to prove that Ilopango was big enough

to trigger climate change.

To do that, he needs to analyze the volcanic ash,

which can reveal a great deal about the eruption.

(tense dramatic music)

The ash from Ilopango can still be found

all around the lake.

In some places, it forms towering cliffs.

The color of the Ash holds the key.

Ilopango ash is very light,

an important fact, according to Dull.

The lighter the ash, the higher the silica content.

Only high energy eruptions produce ash

containing large quantities of silica.

-: When we find an ash that's light and color like this,

it's very exciting for someone like me

because what it tells us is that it's both high in silica

and that it was erupted explosively

in an geologic instant.

It might've been a day, it might've been two days,

but a huge amount of material was erupted all once,

which tells us of the strength,

and magnitude, and sheer immensity of this event.

Narrator: The greater of volcanoes explosive forces,

the more ash deposited in its immediate vicinity

and the further afield the ashes spread.

Some of the Ilopango ash cliffs are up to 400 meters high.

(dramatic music)

But Dull has found the Ilopango ash

a lot further a field.

It formed hills now overgrown by jungle.

The origin of these hills is clear

from the palmer stones Dull digs up.

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-: What we learned from these deposits is just

the tip of the iceberg, really.

Most of the material, by far,

the great majority of this material is outside

of the caldera, not just on the margins of the caldera,

but many hundreds of kilometers away.

Narrator: Ash from Ilopango is found not only

in El Salvador, but also in Honduras,

Nicaragua, and Guatemala, and at the bottom

of the Pacific Ocean.

(dramatic music)

Even core samples

from the Arctic and Antarctic Ice Sheets contain Ash

from the 536 eruption.

-: The amount of material

that was erupted during the eruption of Ilopango

was at least 84 cubic kilometers,

a massive amount of rock thrown into the atmosphere at once.

Some of that material would have blasted horizontally

onto the landscape, but a large amount would have gone up

through the lower atmosphere into the stratosphere.

When that happens, the climate cools, which is exactly

what happened after the Ilopango eruption.

Narrator: During the eruption, enormous quantities of ash

and sulfur dioxide were propelled into the stratosphere.

(tense dramatic music)

Come months, these fine particles floated

at an altitude of 25 kilometers.

Ilopango rised close to the equator.

From there, winds carried the ash and sulfurous gasses

to both the North and South poles.

Within weeks, the blue planet was enveloped

in a cloud of ash that blocked virtually all the sunlight.

(tense dramatic music)

What the ancient chroniclers observed was a volcanic winter.

It lasted for 18 months

and made the natural much more inhospitable.

(dramatic music)

The ash cloud not only blocked the sun

but also brought cold and rain.

It had a devastating effect on human populations.

Harvests failed, stored food rotted.

People were hungry and weak

and succumbed easily to Bubonic plague.

The volcanic winter ended, but the plague did not.

Millions of people fell ill.

In the 14th century,

over 1/3 of Europe's population fell victim

to the Black Death.

Nature recovered more quickly than humans.

After the volcanic winter, it reclaimed its territory.

(dramatic music)

Only a few decades later, dense forests had grown

across vast swaths of Europe.

These forests were wild places

where people only ventured to gray stock or collect wood.

(tense dramatic music)

In the Early Middle Ages,

the forests were the home of wild animals.

Inland wolves found shelter and room to run.

They were feared and hated as man-eating monsters

as were bears, another forest dweller.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: Sheep and goats also grazed in the forests.

They were easy prey for hungry wolves.

Forest became a symbol of an all powerful nature,

and fear became the overpowering emotion of the time.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: Itinerant monks from Ireland

began preaching Christianity

across Europe in the sixth century.

It spread across the continent

at the same time as forest and wilderness.

(tense dramatic music)

Baptism gave believers the promise

of a merciful God who would save their immortal souls.

Such teachings gave people hope in difficult times.

In China, Buddhism became established.

The years of devastating drought

after the Ilopango eruption contributed

to the spread of Buddhist teachings.

Starving farmers found comfort in the possibility

of being reborn into a more prosperous and happier life.

Islam spread through conquest.

According to some experts,

Muslims began their military campaigns

after a long drought on the Arabian peninsula.

In the eighth century, Islam came to Spain,

but climatic conditions did not deteriorate

everywhere on earth.

Weather patterns around the equator were almost perfect.

(dramatic music)

Regular monsoon rains drenched the fertile soil.

These ideal conditions saw the rise

of prosperous and powerful kingdoms.

In Central America, the Mayans built new cities.

Many of them were home to over 10,000 people.

(dramatic music)

In Peru, the Nazca Civilization was based on

the cultivation of corn, manioc, and sweet potato.

They created huge geoglyphs,

which may have been intended to thank their gods

for plentiful harvest.

Then the monsoons failed, fields became deserts.

The Nazca drew even larger pictures in the earth,

perhaps hoping to appease the gods.

Other places also became drier.

The Mayans also felt the effects of a changing climate.

Around 900 AD, they abandoned their great cities.

Prolonged drought threatened their culture.

The Nazca were also struggling to survive.

There're speculation that they became climate refugees,

moving higher into the Andes.

Astronomers now have an explanation

as to why the climate became so warm and dry at this time.

(tense dramatic music)

The reason was solar activity.

The sun continuously produces vast amounts of energy

which are released on its surface

in the form of solar flares and geomagnetic storms.

This heat energy affects the amount

of solar radiation that reaches the earth.

This radiation is strong at some times and weaker at others.

This is because solar activity is always fluctuating.

(tense dramatic music)

Dark patches on the sun surface indicate

how much energy is being produced.

The more patches, the higher the solar activity.

The number of sunspots peaks every 11 years.

Such a peak occurred in 800 AD.

Solar activity was at maximum levels

and solar radiation particularly intense.

The earth began to heat up.

(tense dramatic music)

The North Atlantic,

which had been covered in solid pack ice

became navigable all year round.

A thaw set in from the Arctic to the European mainland,

opening the way for seaborne invaders.

The Vikings reached Britain

at the end of the eighth century.

They came to plunder.

(tense dramatic music)

With their attack on Lindisfarne Prairie

in Northern England, the Viking stormed into history.

Soon, they were feared all

across Europe as bloodthirsty raiders,

but the Vikings were also pioneers and explorers.

The mild climate allowed them to sail west

across the North Atlantic.

-: The Vikings, when they went exploring,

were taking advantage of the medieval warm period.

And during this warm period,

the Gulf Stream was actually coming much further north

and giving much more warmth to Western Europe.

But it also, what it allowed was the retreat of sea ice.

So the sea ice that usually comes to at least Iceland

during the winter was much further to the North,

which allowed the Vikings to not only sail all the way round

to Mediterranean and to exchange goods

with the civilizations there.

It also then encouraged the exploration

of the rest of the world.

Narrator: Wherever melting snow and ice

had uncovered virgin soils, the Vikings settled.

First, they discovered Iceland.

At the time, it was almost ice-free and uninhabited.

In 985, the Viking seafarers reached the next milestone

in their Westwood expansion, Greenland.

They built large settlements along the coasts and rivers.

-: Because of that warmer climate,

you can actually grow crops.

So, all the agriculture from Scandinavia,

they can literally just transport and take

to Iceland and to Greenland.

(tense dramatic music)

Narrator: The warmer weather allowed the Norseman

to make another even bolder voyage of discovery

right across the Atlantic.

(tense dramatic music)

Around 1000 AD, Leif Erikson

reached Newfoundland almost 500 years

before the voyage of Christopher Columbus.

(tense dramatic music)

Meanwhile, temperatures in Europe continued to rise

as the increased solar activity continued.

(tense dramatic music)

The landscape became a sea of color

as temperatures rose.

(tense dramatic music)

Forests began to grow at altitudes above 2000 meters.

(tense dramatic music)

Grain and other crops could be grown,

even at higher altitudes.

The dark years of hardship and hunger were over.

Conditions for agriculture were

the best they'd been for centuries.

Farmers began using new technology

to increase their yields.

(dramatic music)

Knowledge of the hallows spread from Asia to Europe.

It allowed horses to pull more weight

and till larger fields.

The seasons were reliable.

(dramatic music)

Spring, summer, autumn, and winter came and went

in a predictable pattern.

The first weather forecast were folks songs

based on farmers observations of the seasons.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: Agriculture became more intensive.

One field was left fallow,

one was used for legumes, and another for grain.

This three-field system was far more productive.

Farmers were able to produce more than they needed,

so they could trade their surplus produce.

They took it to the markets in nearby towns.

Demand increased, and new products were offered for sale.

More and more merchants set up businesses.

(dramatic music)

Village marketplaces grew into flourishing towns and cities.

This set the scene for the emergence of a new social order

consisting of free citizens and wealthy merchants.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: Amsterdam, Warsaw, Fribourg, Leipzig, The Hague

three-quarters of Europe cities arose

during the favorable climatic conditions

of the High Middle Ages.

(dramatic music)

Venice, with its colonial empire

and vast trade network was Europe's source

for goods from many foreign lands.

It wasn't long before Western Europe began to use coins.

First ones that were valued by weight,

and later the standard silver, denarius.

(dramatic music)

Increasing prosperity created the foundation for education.

The arts and culture,

Europe's first universities were founded

in Bologna, Paris, and Oxford.

(dramatic music)

The moderate climate inspired a new architectural style.

Gothic churches have large windows to let the sun in.

Construction of Cologne Cathedral began in 1248.

Slim arches and stained glass windows dominate

the soaring presbytery.

(dramatic music)

These allow light to flood the interior of the cathedral.

(dramatic music)

This extraordinary building is the manifestation

of a confident and optimistic society.

(dramatic music)

By 1250, kingdoms had been established all over Europe.

(dramatic music)

The Holy Roman Empire expanded.

They concurred Sicily, and was bigger than ever before.

But then, everything changed.

Once again, climate was to make history.

In the second half of the 13th century,

Europe cooled significantly.

(tense dramatic music)

The trigger for this was a number

of volcanic eruptions in different parts of the world.

(tense dramatic music)

Most of them were located

along the world's largest volcanic field,

the Pacific Ring of Fire.

(tense dramatic music)

First to erupt in 1257 was Samalas Volcano in Indonesia.

Then Sicily's Mount Etna spewed fire.

In 1453, the Kuwae Volcano in Vanuatu exploded violently.

Finally, the Laki Fissure in Iceland erupted continuously

for eight months.

It's estimated to have been

one of the deadliest eruptions in history.

(tense dramatic music)

All these eruptions spewed ash

and sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.

They affected the world's climate for almost 500 years.

(tense dramatic music)

The mid 13th century marked the start

of the longest cold periods since the end of the Ice Age,

more than 10,000 years before.

(tense dramatic music)

In Europe, the effects of this Little Ice Age

were described by monks, towns scribes, and chroniclers

in thousands of documents.

(tense dramatic music)

Climatologist Rudiger Glaser

has studied these historical sources.

They described vividly the devastating consequences

of periods of extreme cold

as well as other natural disasters.

These illustrated broadsheets from Flanders depict floods

that hit central Europe on an unprecedented scale in 1342.

Thousands perished in what was known

as Saint Mary Magdalene's flood.

(tense dramatic music)

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: There were destructive floods

from cologne to Vienna,

from the Rhine to the Danube.

(tense dramatic music)

In Frankfurt, the Main River rose to almost eight meters.

(tense dramatic music)

Along the Danube alone, over 6,000 people drowned.

(dramatic music)

But the chroniclers didn't only record catastrophic floods.

In the summer of 1586,

the citizens of Ghent feared for their lives.

A ferocious storm struck the city.

People and even buildings were washed away.

The terrified populous believed

the demonic forces were at work.

(tense dramatic music)

But the terrifying Tempest of August, 1586

was not caused by demons.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: Evidence suggests it was a tornado

that tore through Ghent.

The storm had long-term effects

on the city's inhabitants,

because essential structures had been destroyed.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: People believed that God was punishing them

by sending all these natural disasters.

During the 500 years of the Little Ice Age,

unstable climatic conditions made life

a daily struggle for survival.

(tense dramatic music)

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: But it was not only extreme weather events

that caused suffering.

(wind whistling)

-: The key problem with the Little Ice Age

is the actual cold conditions.

After the population growth

of the Medieval Warm Period, where there seemed

to be abundant food for this growing population,

the Little Ice Age had a huge effect.

The growing season for crops was much shorter

and the climate was much colder.

And so you find that as the Little Ice Age starts,

you get famine throughout Western Europe.

It had a profound effect on human society,

and there were lots and lots of deaths through starvation

Narrator: Records show that sometimes

everything just stopped.

This happened in the German town of Augsburg in 1658.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: Not only was summers too cold for good harvest

but also much too wet.

Continual rain caused seeds and crops

to go moldy and spoiled.

Famine killed many and weakened those who survived.

They succumbed quickly when the plague returned.

Europe's population had soared

during the High Middle Ages, but now it fell by 1/3

in just one century.

Desperate people sought an explanation for their misery.

(tense dramatic music)

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: The witch hunts targeted people

on the margins of society.

Many of those accused of having made a pact

with the devil were lower class, elderly, and female.

(speaking in foreign language)

(tense dramatic music)

Narrator: During the witch hunt

sparked by the Little Ice Age,

around 60,000 innocent people were burned at the stake,

but the weather didn't change.

Temperatures continued to drop,

glaciers advanced all across North America and Europe.

(tense dramatic music)

Many people abandoned villages and farms

in the mountains because of avalanches,

landslides, and glacial ice.

(dramatic music)

Near the town of Shamani in the French Alps,

For example, glaciers engulfed whole villages.

Elsewhere, they cut off important supply routes.

In Greenland and Iceland too,

massive glaciers were encroaching.

(tense dramatic music)

The ongoing climate crisis was reflected

in the political climate.

Unrest spread throughout Europe.

The second Defenestration of Prague caused the collapse

of the uneasy peace between the European powers

and marked the beginning of the 30 years' war.

Soon, most of Europe was involved.

(tense dramatic music)

The war was mostly fought within the Holy Roman Empire.

In some places, up to 2/3 of the population died,

and not just on the battlefields.

Most casualties were civilians.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: In France, cold, damp weather

caused repeated crop failures.

In Paris, the price of bread and other staples soared.

The situation soon escalated.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: The well fed members

of the aristocracy were far removed

from the concerns of their people.

(light dramatic music)

By the time the nobility realized

how explosive the situation had become

because of this lack of basic supplies, it was too late.

(speaking in foreign language)

Narrator: On the 14th of July, 1789,

Paris reached boiling point.

Armed citizens stormed the Bastille.

The guards were forced to capitulate.

The attack marked the start of the French revolution.

In the years to come, the Royal family

and many other members

of the nobility were executed by guillotine.

The French people overthrew the monarchy

and democracy returned to Europe

for the first time in 2000 years.

One slogan from the French Revolution

was liberty, equality, and fraternity,

now France's national motto.

(dramatic music)

In 1815, the Little Ice Age entered

the final dark phase,

triggered by another geological disaster.

Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted.

The massive explosion ejected almost twice as much material

as Ilopango in 536,

including vast clouds of fine ash that remained

in the atmosphere for months.

-: There was a large fraction that went straight up

into the upper atmosphere .

That ash worked its way around the globe

in the upper atmosphere as a dust fail.

And that dust fail reflected the sun's radiation

in a way that would cause climate cooling.

Narrator: 1816 was a year without a summer

all over the planet.

Unseasonal frost and snow caused crop failures

and disastrous famines in Europe.

In Germany, hunger triggered the first

of three great 19th century waves of migration.

Thousands left Hamburg

and crossed the Atlantic to America.

(dramatic music)

Finally, the cold east.

In about 1850, a warm phase began,

bringing stable, moderate temperatures.

It has shaped our climate ever since.

Just before this warm period began,

humans embarked on a time of dramatic technological

and social change.

The industrial revolution heralded the age of machines.

Ever since, technological progress has brought prosperity

to industrial nations,

but it has also caused human-induced climate change

on an alarming and unprecedented scale.

(tense dramatic music)

Natural disasters are nature's way

of sounding the alarm bell.

Our planet has heated up

and is struggling to cope with global warming.

For some time, scientists have been asking us

to acknowledge these signs and change course.

-: We are at that point where we can decide

what sort of climate we want to have in the future.

If we, as a collective in the world,

all the nations actually, reduce climate change,

that will be amazing,

because what it means is for the first time,

instead of climate controlling us,

our global society has decided

we are going to control the climate.

And we're gonna make sure

that we have a stable climate for all future generations.

Narrator: All climate change affects life on earth.

(dramatic music)

Climate makes history.

It always has done, and it always will.

(dramatic music)