Biologist and Princeton University professor Shane Campbell-Staton explores the global impact of Earth’s most ingenious, destructive, and adaptive species: Humans.
Human Footprint airs Wednesdays, June 25-July 30 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streams live on the WXXI app.
Follow Shane as he meets farmers, scientists, journalists and business owners across Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas to give audiences a firsthand look at how humans have transformed the planet and the millions of species around us. This season of Human Footprint explores the origins of our complex and controversial global food chain, the alliances humans have formed with species to control other species, and what exactly is happening with bees. The series also examines how fashion has impacted the planet, the human quest to control water, and the species on the brink of extinction.
Episode titles + air dates:
6/25 Shelf Life. Shane travels from New York City to rural Thailand to explore a 20th-century innovation, the Supermarket, that transformed our relationship with food.
7/2 The Enemy of My Enemy. In our conquest of planet Earth, we rely on improbable allies from nature to help defeat our adversaries. But in this new world of “biocontrol,” is the enemy of an enemy always a friend?
7/9 Dressed to Kill. From biotech labs to beaver ponds, and New York Fashion Week to Chile’s textile graveyards, Shane unravels how the trends we chase leave a lasting mark on our planet.
7/16 The Honey Trap. Humans have depended on bees—both wild and managed—for millennia. But as bee populations collapse around the world, can we save them before it’s too late?
7/23 Dammed If You Do. Shane travels from ancient aqueducts to modern mega-dams to discover how humanity’s thirst for control has reshaped rivers, ecosystems, and civilization itself.
7/30 Vanishing Act. Shane traces the arc of extinction on an epic global journey, as he meets species at the brink of oblivion and the people who won’t give up on them.
Photo: Host Shane Campbell-Staton at Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas.
Credit: PBS Publicity.