A brand-new documentary series on global warming has just started on VRT TV1 and is also available on our VRT Max platform across the EU and the EEA. In ‘2050’ West Flemish journalist and documentary filmmaker Eric Goens takes us to Antarctica. Viewers see how the Antarctic region serves as the perfect barometer of the changes taking place on our planet and these are changes that are happening at an ever-increasing pace.
New Flemish documentary ‘2050’ explores Antarctica and the climate challenge
'2050' features stunning images of the magnificent landscapes of the White Continent. The series also tells the personal story of professor, researcher and glaciologist Eric Rignot, who was one of the first scientists to realise how quickly Antarctica was coming under pressure. He made it his life’s mission to raise awareness of this.
The 5-part documentary series illustrates just how alarmingly fast Antarctica is changing. Polar explorer and mountaineer Alain Hubert takes us across the endless snow-covered plains to the Princess Elisabeth Station, where a great deal of scientific research is being carried out.
We also see the dangers of the continent, such as life-threatening crevasses. Hubert reflects on an earlier expedition with Dixie Dansercoer, the explorer, endurance athlete and photographer who died in 2021 after falling into one such crevasse.
How soon will the Earth’s ‘air conditioning’ start to fail?
Climate disruption is making itself felt rapidly not only in Antarctica, but also in the Arctic.
The difference with the North Pole is that the South Pole is a real continent, with a mass of snow resting on solid ground. Antarctica covers approximately 14 million square kilometres, making it larger than the whole of Europe. The mass of snow, ice and glaciers stored there is enormous. If that entire mass were to melt away, sea levels worldwide would rise by several tens of metres.
We are talking about the very long term here, and it need not even come to that if, as humanity, we intervene in time and rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But there is another impact with even more immediate consequences. Antarctica currently acts as a giant air-conditioning system for our planet. The more that system fails, the faster global warming will continue to accelerate.
In the documentary, viewers see how researchers meticulously check and monitor all sorts of parameters: the thickness of the ice sheet, the quality of the snow that has fallen, the wind direction, right down to the presence of dust and sand from other continents.
It also shows how quickly everything is changing. “We risk losing this before we really get to know it,” says glaciologist Rignot.
After the film, the documentary series
The name ‘2050’ might ring a bell. A year ago, a film of the same name was released; now, however, it refers to a series of five standalone episodes, each lasting just over half an hour. “In the series, we delve deeper into the climate story,” series creator Eric Goens tells VRT NEWS.
There is a clear common thread running through the five episodes, featuring not only Eric Rignot’s personal story – he returns to his burnt-out home in California - but also last year’s launch of the NISAR satellite. It’s a story that takes us beyond Antarctica's shores.
The NISAR satellite, launched by US space agency NASA, will, for the first time, map the surface of Antarctica in great detail and monitor changes. Meanwhile, researchers are hoping that the Trump administration will not hinder the processing and monitoring of the data too much.
Primordial Power
Just like the film, the documentary also showcases the beauty and primordial power of Antarctica. Goens himself had the chance to experience this at first-hand. ‘At one point, we were standing in a remote area by a glacier crevasse when a fierce wind, with gusts reaching 150 km/h, suddenly picked up. You could hardly see a thing in front of you.’
Goens adds a philosophical reflection: 'Humans imagine themselves to be all-powerful beings. The idea is: we’ll find some way to solve the CO2 problem (and global warming) with some new technology. 'We own the world'—that feeling. Well, anyone who experiences the primal force of nature will feel very small indeed. At that moment, human ingenuity will solve very little.'
The climate crisis has been completely pushed to the background, yet it is by no means over – quite the contrary. It is a crisis that will persist, even if other wars have, hopefully, long since ended. The title also alludes to this. 2050 is more or less the deadline for resolving this issue.
Goens views it all with a touch of cynicism. ‘We’re failing to solve the climate crisis and ensure it isn’t passed on to the next generation. Perhaps things will turn out all right if the superpowers realise that climate change is rendering the planet uninhabitable, leading them to conclude, ‘We really must do something now’.’
‘We know both the problem and the solution’
The series certainly aims to bring hope for the future. Because we know that the climate is changing rapidly, and we have the knowledge to do something about it. ‘We are the first generation to know both the problem and the solution. It is our duty to protect this planet from even more and even greater disasters. We owe that to the generations that come after us’ Goens says.