WASHINGTON & BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--US News and World Report has declared that “the 2016 presidential election may be America’s last chance to elect a leader who will halt climate change.” National Geographic Channel (NGC) (@NatGeoChannel) today announced that the second season of the Emmy award-winning documentary series Years of Living Dangerously will premiere on a special date and time — Sunday, Oct. 30, at 8/7c — just over a week before the presidential election. Years of Living Dangerously will move to its regularly scheduled time, Wednesdays at 10/9c, beginning Nov. 2. The new season of the critically acclaimed series will air exclusively on NGC in 171 countries and 45 languages. For more information, visit yearsoflivingdangerously.com or our press room at foxflash.com, and follow @NGC_PR and @YearsOfLiving on Twitter. Link to view trailer here and downloadable here: http://files.natgeonetworks.com/_h1WgmoGwlsiATR.
Produced in collaboration with The Years Project, Years of Living Dangerously once again features some of Hollywood’s biggest influencers who are passionate about environmental issues, and it reveals emotional and hard-hitting accounts of the effects of climate change from across the planet.
The full list of season two correspondents includes Jack Black, Gisele Bündchen, Ty Burrell, Don Cheadle, America Ferrera, Thomas Friedman, Joshua Jackson, David Letterman, Aasif Mandvi, Nikki Reed, executive producer Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ian Somerhalder, Cecily Strong, Sigourney Weaver and Bradley Whitford. They give first-person accounts from locations — some shockingly close to home, others in far-flung corners of the globe — where the effects of climate change are most prevalent. They cover crucial issues, like severe hurricanes, deforestation, the solar energy crisis, climate migrants, historic droughts and the rapidly increasing extinction rate of our planet’s wildlife. The result is a gritty and raw look at not only how our species has impacted our planet but also how we can save it for future generations.
The first season was hailed as “the most important television series ever,” “unexpected, character-driven stories” and “compelling, and frankly terrifying.” Years of Living Dangerously won the 2014 Emmy award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series and was executive produced by James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with Emmy-winning “60 Minutes” producers Joel Bach and David Gelber, and climate expert Daniel Abbasi.
Season two episodes and stories will include:
Years of Living Dangerously: A Race Against
Time (wt)
Featuring David Letterman and Cecily Strong
Premieres
Sunday, Oct. 30, at 8/7c
The energy market has an estimated
global value of $6 trillion — a number that could be greatly affected by
an increase in renewable sources, especially solar. In his first
television project since retiring as host of CBS’s “The Late Show,” David
Letterman travels to India for the first time to find out what the
world’s soon-to-be most populous country is going to do to expand its
inadequate energy grid, power its booming economy and bring basic
electricity to 300 million citizens who have never plugged in. Letterman
interviews the prime minister, travels to rural villages where power is
a luxury few can afford and finds out why the U.S. may play a key role
in India’s energy future. “Saturday Night Live” cast member Cecily
Strong travels to Florida and Nevada to investigate what’s blocking
the growth of solar energy in the U.S. — and she gets the real story
from industry insiders and a retired commissioner now willing to tell
their stories.
Years of Living Dangerously: The Rising (wt)
Featuring
Jack Black and Ian Somerhalder
Premieres Wednesday, Nov. 2,
at 10/9c
If nothing is done to curb carbon emissions, Miami is
in danger of being underwater by the end of the century. Jack Black
is there to find out if and how the city and other low-lying coastal
areas can survive rising seas. He finds a political and business
community in denial and talks to a few lone legislators, residents,
activists and scientists trying to do something before it’s too late. Ian
Somerhalder journeys to the Bahamas to investigate the future threat
of superstorms, caused by rising sea temperatures, whose devastating
effects could reach biblical proportions. At the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute, he joins scientists on a deep dive to explore
blue holes, underwater caves that have collected the remnants of past
storms for centuries.
Years of Living Dangerously: The Battle in the
Woods (wt)
Featuring Gisele Bündchen
Premieres
Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 10/9c
The battle to save the Amazon in
Brazil — the “lungs of the planet” — is the ultimate race against time.
There are ever-increasing threats from cattle ranching, drought,
deforestation, massive hydroelectric dams and illegal mining. Supermodel
and activist Gisele Bündchen travels to her home country to see
the extent of the damage and investigates what’s being done to save the
rainforest for all of us. Deep in the Amazon, she joins the national
environmental police on a mission to put an end to illegal
deforestation; in Alta Floresta, she meets with Greenpeace for a flyover
of the forest, which reveals huge patches of deforested land, logs piled
high on trucks and barges, drought-stricken fields, burnt rainforests
and vast cattle ranches that were once lush, thousand-year-old tropical
rainforests.
Years of Living Dangerously: A Better Way
Forward (wt)
Featuring Ty Burrell and Arnold
Schwarzenegger
Premieres Wednesday, Nov. 16, at 10/9c
Almost
one-fifth of all carbon emissions in the world come from the
transportation sector. Actor Ty Burrell takes to the road to see
the environmental revolutions being made in electric vehicles (EVs) and
automated vehicles (AVs). Burrell visits Silicon Valley to learn about
AV advancements and hear how big automakers are pouring major capital
into AV technology. In Atlanta, where some of the country’s most
generous EV incentives were recently killed, Burrell makes a visit to
see the effects and hear firsthand from EV advocates. Action hero,
politician, climate crusader and Years of Living Dangerously
executive producer Arnold Schwarzenegger sets out to explore the
military’s relationship with a changing climate, including how our armed
forces are dealing with an increasing number of climate-related
disasters and how the military is working to reduce its own carbon
footprint. Schwarzenegger travels to Kuwait to visit soldiers and travel
in a fuel convoy (where more than 3,000 soldiers have been killed or
injured since 9/11). He learns how serious a threat the military
perceives climate change to be, talks to top-level military leaders and
meets the brave men and women who are dealing with climate change
threats and disasters on the front lines.
Years of Living Dangerously: The Uprooted (wt)
Featuring
Tom Friedman and Don Cheadle
Premieres Wednesday, Nov. 23,
at 10/9c
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman
investigates the increasing population of climate refugees — migrants
forced to leave their homes due to climate change-induced sea-level
rise, natural disasters and destroyed livelihoods. He travels from the
COP21 climate conference in Paris to the Sahel region of a parched and
war-torn Africa, where he hears from refugees themselves. He explores
this new wave and what the future may bring. Actor Don Cheadle is
on the ground in California, where the worst drought in 1,200 years is
devastating the nation’s most populous state and the world’s
seventh-largest economy. He investigates how Gov. Jerry Brown’s
administration is fighting the drought while also fighting climate
change. Along the way, Cheadle meets a scientist who warns of a global
water and food crisis as well as a family of farmers whose lives may
never be the same as they struggle to find water in the parched Central
Valley.
Years of Living Dangerously: Warming and
Winning (wt)
Featuring Joshua Jackson and Nikki Reed
Premieres
Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 10/9c
Joshua Jackson investigates
the one place on Earth where the impacts of climate change are most
profound yet practically invisible: the oceans. Josh travels to
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to look at the devastating impacts of
ocean warming on the world’s largest reef system, and he explores the
predicted impact of ocean acidification. In the Philippines, he looks at
the impact of climate change in a place where hundreds of millions of
people rely on healthy reefs for food, income and protection from
storms. Actress and activist Nikki Reed explores what some
believe to be the ultimate solution for climate change: putting a price
on carbon. She joins a group of passionate students at Ponoma College in
Southern California on a mission to put it into action and travels to
Vancouver, a carbon-pricing success story, for a sit-down with the mayor.
Years of Living Dangerously: Saving What’s Left
(wt)
Featuring Aasif Mandvi and Bradley Whitford
Premieres
Wednesday, Dec. 7, at 10/9c
Animal species around the world are
disappearing at an alarming rate, and climate change is only worsening
the trend. Former “Daily Show” correspondent Aasif Mandvi sets
off on a quest to understand just how much of a threat climate change
poses to endangered species. He travels to Kenya’s wildlife preserves to
meet the people on the front lines of conservation efforts, discovering
that increased drought and irregular rainfall are compounding poaching
and loss of habitat. Meanwhile, “West Wing” star Bradley Whitford
travels to Capitol Hill to explore the growing movement to get
Republicans to admit that climate change is real and to commit to doing
something about it. He tells the story of Jay Butera, who has spent the
past 10 years lobbying Republicans on climate. For Butera, it’s not
about brow-beating lawmakers with facts; it’s about providing solutions
they can get behind to forge a bipartisan majority to act. Whitford
follows Butera and some of the members of Congress he’s convinced, to
see if this movement can be sustained.
Years of Living Dangerously: Uprising (wt)
Featuring
America Ferrera and Sigourney Weaver
Premieres Wednesday,
Dec. 14, at 10/9c
Even though coal plants are shutting down
across the country, coal remains a major source of energy, and burning
it emits toxic pollutants and climate-altering carbon dioxide. America
Ferrera journeys to Illinois, where a still-functioning coal plant
is creating tension between those who want to shut it down and those —
like the local mayor — who want to keep it open. She meets a group of
activists fighting hard to close it in favor of an option that can
provide clean energy and green jobs. Sigourney Weaver explores
China’s explosive economic growth and the impact it is having on the
environment not just locally but on a massive global scale. In New York,
she sits down with the former U.S. ambassador to China before traveling
to Hong Kong and China to see whether the world’s biggest polluter is
fulfilling promises to reduce emissions — even as its populations and
industry continue to grow.
For previous episodes and more information, visit yearsoflivingdangerously.com and follow @YearsOfLiving on Twitter.
Years of Living Dangerously is produced for National Geographic Channel by Years of Living Dangerously LLC. For National Geographic Channel, executive producer is Robert Palumbo, vice president of production is Matt Renner and president of original programming and production is Tim Pastore. For The Years Project, executive producers are Joel Bach, James Cameron, David Gelber, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Weintraub and Maria Wilhelm; co-executive producer is Jon Meyerson; supervising producer is Ellin Baumel; and senior producer is Sydney Trattner.
About National Geographic Channels
Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channels US are a joint venture between National Geographic and Fox Networks. The Channels contribute to the National Geographic Society’s commitment to exploration, conservation and education with smart, innovative programming and profits that directly support its mission. Launched in January 2001, National Geographic Channel (NGC) celebrated its fifth anniversary with the debut of NGC HD. In 2010, the wildlife and natural history cable channel Nat Geo WILD was launched, and in 2011, the Spanish-language network Nat Geo Mundo was unveiled. The Channels have carriage with all of the nation’s major cable, telco and satellite television providers, with NGC currently available in nearly 90 million U.S. homes. Globally, National Geographic Channel is available in more than 440 million homes in 171 countries and 45 languages. For more information, visit natgeotv.com, find us on Facebook at facebook.com/NatGeoTVUS or follow @NatGeoChannel on Twitter and Instagram.
