THE FUTURE IS WILD (nxt prog=nxt sun @ 1pm bbc2)
EVOLUTION OF THE FUTURE
The idea, in essense,is simple. Imagine the world millions of years in the future, without the overbearing presence of mankind. The stories yet to be told are sure t be extraordinary and intriguing.
' The future is wild ' team began by consulting geologists. The movements of earths' land masses in the past have been thouroughly reconstructed. Using this information it is possible to predict how continents will continue to move. Next climatologists can start to build the plants and ecosystems into our future maps. This information in the hands of biologists enabled them to fill all the future lifestyles with new animal species.
The end result is a rich fantacy world, made all the more exciting by the fact it could really happen. No event or animal in ' The future is wild ' is outside the realms of possibility. A world this detailed could not be constructed by just one person. It has taken experts in the fields of geology, marine biology, neurobiology, biomechanics, botony,insects, evolution, mass extinctions and many others to create this world. Their ideas and feed back have been harnessed by an award-winning team of Natural History documentary makers. They brought the animals to life through the creation of stories that examined the new creatures behaviour. The process was now complete, and the "simple" idea was ready to be shared with the world.
FUTURE GEOGRAPHY
5 million yrs in the future
The earth is in the last throes of the current ice age.Humans are extinct and much of the world's fresh water is locked up in the huge ice caps that reach as far south as Paris and north to Buenos Aires. On the edges of the ice, animals have adapted to the vicious cold and bitter winters; in the tropics, the rain forest has all but dissapeared, replaced by dry savannah. Yet change is in the air- a sudden increase in volcanic eruptions pours greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the planet begins to warm up, and the melting ice creates massive, devestating floods.
100 million yrs in the future
Volcanoes belching out greenhouse gases eventually turned the earth into a hothouse - sweltering, steamy, wet. Rainforests coat the land and the atmosphere is rich in carbon-dioxide and oxygen. Animals adapt to the damp warmth; insects grow, flying insects have metre wingspans,and the world's biggest creatures walk the earth.But the earth itself is restless. Although volcanoes have been active throughout,now, huge eruptions bring the planet to the brink of it's worst disaster ever. Most of life is annihilated, leaving the world barren and empty.Or is it?
200 million yrs in the future
After the last great mass extinction, just a few life forms had survived, and free from old pressures and competition, the have evolved into strange and bizarre creatures - beyond imagination. The slow drift of the continents over the globe has finally brought the landmasses together in one super-continent, and most of the world is covered in a huge ocean. What new life has evolved in this ocean? What has the process of evolution done to life on the super continent? And what will happen nxt?