Dry Season

The series premiere of this globetrotting series about the human impacts of climate change explores the devastating effects of extreme drought and deforestation. Harrison Ford travels to Indonesia to investigate how the world's appetite for palm oil—an ingredient in everything from candy bars to laundry detergent—has led to massive deforestation and turned that country into one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Back in the U.S., Don Cheadle visits Plainview, TX where a community once reliant on a meat-packing plant for its livelihood is looking for answers. Many blame the drought that caused the plant’s closure on the will of God or say it’s part of a natural cycle; however, Katharine Hayhoe—a climate scientist and Evangelical Christian—has a very different explanation. And, Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas Friedman embarks on his first of three Middle Eastern trips to examine how climate change can be a stress point in a volatile political situation and push it over the edge. In his first stop, he investigates how drought contributed to the civil war in Syria.