Strange Days on Planet Earth w/ Edward Norton. Episode 2

[wacki]

I missed the first one, "the 1 degree factor" but the second one was really good. It was much better then I expected and amazingly I learned a lot.
Introduced in this thread

Episode 2 was about how the life on our planet is has been dying over the past few decades. Since 1960 90% of the large ocean fish have disappeared. Also, in Yellowstone not a single aspen tree has popped up since 1930. All of the aspen in Yellowstone is at least 70 years old.

The reason? The removal of predators. It was amazing, wolves were killed off in Yellowstone in 1930 and the herbivores went out of control, and the landscape became barren. It has remained that way for 70 years. Beavers, birds, and ducks have been absent from many parts of Yellowstone for decades. Many parts were like a desert. 4 years after the wolves were reintroduced beavers came back, ducks, came back, and the vegetation started growing again. The aerial photos from 1930, modern pre wolf reintroduction, and 4 years after wolf reintroduction were amazing. It was hard for even me to believe the difference.

The ocean is being over run with algae which kills the coral reefs and then everything ends up dead. This is because fisherman are catching all of the fish that eat the algae. Like I said before, the ocean has lost 90% of it's big fish since 1960.

I had no idea.....

Episode 3 is about our water supply.