By changing his environment, man threatens his own existence. The question now is whether he can save himself.
This program, produced in association with The American Museum of Natural History, takes an historical view of this ecological dilemma. Films trace the evolution of life and examine species that have vanished because they did not adapt to changing conditions, notably the dinosaur. (Rare film from the 1920s recounts the discovery of dinosaur eggs in the Gobi).
Man, too, interacts with his surroundings. In Africa, anthropologist Colin Turnbull contrasts pygmies living in happy harmony with their jungle to members of the IK tribe, whose bleak and loveless society reflects a hostile environment. In the South Pacific, Margaret Mead observes the the devastating impact of modern life on a primitive culture.
A montage of 20th-century events and people introduces modern man's predicament: a burgeoning technology that produces pollution and overpopulation as by-products of progress. Will it save man -or take him the way of the dinosaur?
Richard Basehart narrates. Produced, written, and directed by Michael Flaum. ("Let My People Go").