VICE (2013) s02e02 Episode Script

SHANE SMITH: This week on "Vice", Greenland is melting.
MAN: This is a crime scene that is so covered in our fingerprints.
SMITH: There it goes, there it goes, there it goes! SMITH: Then escaping from modern day slavery in Pakistan.
[Conversations in native language.]
Don't point that camera here! [Yells command in native language.]
[Chanting in foreign language.]
[Gunshot.]
FAZEELAT ASLAM: It's a trap.
Once you get someone in, they can never leave.
SMITH: We're here on the southern lobe of the Greenland ice sheet.
It's melting at such an alarming rate.
Extreme weather events have been in the news a lot lately.
Hurricanes, tornados, super storms, and prolonged drought are not only becoming increasingly commonplace but, tragically, increasingly destructive.
However perhaps the biggest threat humanity faces as the earth continues to warm is sea level rise.
In the last few years, Greenland has hit its highest temperatures in recorded history.
It has also experienced the first full surface melt of its ice sheets in our modern era.
Now, these two events have so much potential impact on the world's oceans that many scientists have become quite concerned.
So we went to Greenland to see what's happening on the frontlines of climate change.
So right now, we've been coming in through an old 1930s glacier boat up the waterway to the actual glacier front to see all the icebergs.
And being a guy who watched "Titanic," I'm like, Isn't it stupid to go near icebergs? But we're going right into a sort of iceberg field, which is a bit odd.
You can see here he's actually pushing the iceberg.
[Chuckles.]
SMITH: Greenland's glaciers are in free fall.
Every year, Greenland loses over 140 billion tons of ice.
This net ice loss is now responsible for a significant amount of our current global sea-level rise.
Now, some of the fastest and most alarming melts are occurring on the country's Western coast, where many glaciers meet the warmer ocean waters, causing massive icebergs to break off from Greenland's ice sheet in a process known as calving.
To witness some of these events firsthand, we met up with one of the world's leading experts on Greenland's ice sheets, Dr.
Jason Box.
In his role as glaciologist for the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Dr.
Box has unique insight into the data and science that helps us understand Greenland's glaciers and the factors that are causing the extreme melt there.
Our route out to the ice sheet took us directly over some newly deglaciated land.
Now, this area would have been totally covered in ice up until recently.
But because of the melt, we had to fly fully five miles further inland just to reach the glacier itself.
MAN: Just ten years ago, much of what you see here was covered in several hundred feet of ice.
SMITH: Wow.
So all this is brand-new.
This is all freshly deglaciated, so we've had the glacier retreat.
JASON BOX: Yeah, yeah.
Just this region here has lost enough ice to supply Los Angeles with fresh water for about 2,000 years.
Wow.
BOX: It's hard to put numbers on this that aren't astronomical.
SMITH, VOICE-OVER: When you first see it, the ice sheet itself seems to go on forever.
And in many places, it's miles and miles thick.
It's then you realize just how much water is tied up in it because the ice sheet covers about 80% of Greenland, which, in turn, is about three times the size of Texas.
SMITH: We're here on the southern lobe of the Greenland ice sheet with Dr.
Jason Box to actually measure how fast the ice sheet is melting because it's melting at such an alarming rate.
Yeah, ok, they're two meters.
How much will this shelf melt in the next year? This site's been melting more than anywhere in Greenland at the surface.
Last year we measured nine meters.
Nine meters.
Nine meters of melting, so that's, you know, like, 27 feet of ice melt.
You know, the size of a house is this, this is how much it's SMITH: So Dr.
Box is going to put the pole down into the ice.
So if you can see all the way up to there, that's how much ice from this shelf is melting.
Every year.
SMITH: Dr.
Box's method to track ice melt here is actually really simple.
After drilling down into the ice, he places a long 30-foot pole into the ice shelf and leaves it there.
When he comes back in a year, he measures how much of the pole has been revealed.
Now, the ice on this glacier is melting so fast that the flag you see here will be 27 feet higher in the air in just 12 months.
One of the reasons the ice is melting so quickly is visible right on the surface.
Contrary to what I thought before traveling to Greenland, the ice sheets are not actually vast expanses of gleaming white ice and snow, because due to increased pollution and airborne soot, the ice is actually very dirty.
Now, this dirty, or dark ice, accelerates melt because its color absorbs the heat rather than reflect it.
SMITH: So you can see that the dark ice here is melting down.
Why does that happen? BOX: Well, the dark material absorbs about three times more sunlight than if it weren't here and that's why it's melting more here locally.
There's always been some dark material on the surface, but we think that there should be more if wildfire is increasing and that is documented.
The soot comes by air up to here.
Yeah.
And the question is if climate warming creates more fire, that's going to be depositing more light-absorbing material on the ice.
And it's sort of cyclical.
The hotter it gets, the more fires.
The more fires, the more soot.
The more soot, the more dark ice.
The more dark ice, the more that it melts.
Right.
SMITH: Rising global temperatures are making the natural fire season not only much longer but also much drier, which in turn leads to more soot and therefore more black ice.
And another contributor is the massive amount of industrial pollution that is carried to Greenland by air currents.
These particles land, then literally drill down into the ice, thereby exacerbating the whole process.
You can see the hole goes all the way down there.
BOX: Yeah.
And then it looks like this fracture here, it may have been that the water filled up and then forced this crack open.
We call it hydrofracture, and that's when water drains down into the cracks because water's heavier than ice and it actually can force the cracks open.
SMITH: The melt water actually hydrofracks down into the interior of a glacier and lubricates the entire glacier from within, causing it to break apart and calve into the sea.
BOX: Then the next thing is, OK, how fast is it melting? And how quickly would that contribute to sea level rise? Climate change has outpaced the worst-case scenarios that was observed 20 years ago.
And so it's just melting as fast as it can here.
SMITH: If all of Greenland melts, how much would the ocean rise? BOX: Well, Greenland contains about 7 meters, or 21 feet, of global sea level equivalent.
Yeah.
So if it melted, 21 feet.
SMITH: So just to be clear on what that means, if all of Greenland's ice melts, which is now being argued as a distinct scientific possibility, then 80 of the world's hundred biggest cities would be under water.
To illustrate his point, Dr.
Box took us to see what sea level rise looks like in real time.
BOX: Now we're heading to the ice front where it's calving.
Here's where the ice is going really fast, like several kilometers per year, and this is like, kind of like a sports car glacier because it's very steep and it's just shoving a lot of ice into the sea.
It looks like the Palace of Jor-El.
Superman threw his krypton in there and it Yeah, it became the Fortress of Solitude.
Fortress of Solitude.
Yeah, absolutely.
Wow.
That is wild.
That's amazing.
Holy shit.
Yeah, that whole front is going to come off there.
There it goes! BOX: There it goes! There it goes! Holy fuck! Whoa! Look at how much the water is Yeah, that's it, man.
An apartment building just fell over.
Wow.
A lot of this water that's bubbling up at theront Yeah.
That's another part of the story.
Because that turbulent water is forcing a heat exchange between this warm ocean and the cold ice.
Right.
So that mixing that's actually forced by melt water is squirting out at depth and then it rises because the freshwater's lighter.
It's undercutting it and promoting calving.
SMITH: One thing that's hard to describe about what's happening in Greenland is the scale of it all.
For example, these ice cliffs are hundreds and hundreds of feet high.
And they are continually calving into the sea.
SMITH: Look at that.
BOX: That's crazy.
Wow.
Look at that.
SMITH: Dr.
Box suggested we set up camp next to the glacier to witness just how fast it's breaking apart.
SMITH: So it sounds like there's a thunderstorm going on right now, but it's odd because it's not coming from the sky, it's coming from below us.
Literally whole mountains, thousands of tons of ice, are just falling into the sea, or the fjord, as we are talking by the fire about climate change.
It's pretty sobering.
It scares the piss out of me, quite frankly.
If you look at the latest data, we're 60 years ahead of the worst-case scenario.
That worst-case scenario is staggering.
So what happens if 80 years from now, we're 60 years ahead of those worst-case scenarios, like we are today? Then we're in a catastrophic situation.
Well, that seems likely because the trajectory that we're on right now is toward climate catastrophe.
There does reach a point where it becomes unmanageable.
SMITH: Now, the worst-case scenarios Dr.
Box and I were talking about were based on the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC's, fifth report which concludes that we have dramatically exceeded our previous worst-case scenarios.
Now, in order to understand what the findings of the latest IPCC report really mean and to make sense of what we had just seen in Greenland firsthand, we wanted to talk to someone who could give us a consensus of what the global scientific community thinks about these issues.
So we contacted Dr.
Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA and a well-respected voice in the oftentimes contentious dialogue that surrounds climate change.
So the IPCC five report just came out, which shows that we're well ahead of worst-case scenarios that we had from the past decade.
Can you give us some context of what is going on? Change in the Arctic Sea ice is way ahead again of the projections that we made even five years ago.
You know, we have a sea level rise coming from the melt on Greenland.
We have more sea level rise coming from glaciers in mountains around the world that are melting.
We have more melt coming from West Antarctica.
And then we've got the warming of the oceans.
We are pouring, effectively, enormous amounts of heat into the oceans year on, year out and that's causing the oceans to expand.
All of those things add up to the sea level rise that we're seeing, and we anticipate that that's going to accelerate over the next 50, 100 years.
To slow down the current rate of sea level rise, we need to stabilize glaciers in Greenland and stop adding so much heat into the system.
We need to cut emissions of, mainly, carbon dioxide by about 80%.
Eight-zero percent? Eight-zero.
So we have to cut emissions by 80% in the next In the next few decades.
What happens if we don't? Well, then we're talking about a scenario where sea level rise is accelerating.
It could reach levels by the end of the century of four, perhaps five, perhaps more feet.
And then it will continue on.
And our emissions are going up, not down.
And our emissions are going up, not down.
How much of this crisis is man-made? All of it.
We look for the fingerprints of change that are associated with the sun or from volcanoes or from natural variability in the ocean.
And we looked for each of those fingerprints, and they don't match.
This is a crime scene that is so covered in our fingerprints.
There is no credible way that you could say it was somebody else.
And it's not going to stop.
Even if we stabilize temperatures, we'd still be seeing sea level rise continue for centuries to thousands of years.
So even if we stop, sea level rise is going to continue, it just hopefully is going to slow down.
That would be the hope.
What happens if, going forward, we keep beating our predictions? Well, then we're talking about a scenario where cities like Shanghai, New York, Kolkata-- all of these places are going to have to either retreat from the coast or build barriers to protect themselves.
And if you're not in a city that can afford that, you're going to be out of luck.
Those cities are just going to more and more disappear.
SMITH, VOICE-OVER: Now, this would all be bad enough if it were just Greenland, but now Antarctica, the largest deposit of ice in the world, is starting to experience large amounts of net ice melt as well.
What happens if Antarctica and the Arctic start melting at the same rates as Greenland? West Antarctica, we're seeing very rapid changes there, so it could well be that Antarctica will start to melt at the same rate as Greenland is.
If Antarctica starts melting at the same rate as Greenland, we're in for trouble.
Indeed.
Sea level rise is the one problem where there are no winners.
Now, if you have a change in rain patterns, if you have a change in temperature, you know, somebody might be able to benefit from that.
Sea level rise-- nobody wins.
Slavery is alive and well in the world.
In fact, it's estimated that there will be nearly 30 million people living in some form of economic bondage in 2014.
In Pakistan alone, there are millions upon millions of people living as slaves or as bonded laborers.
Now, in an effort to combat this problem, the Pakistani government created the Bonded Labor Act in 1992, which banned the use of forced labor.
Sadly, however, not only does it continue to this day, it does so on a massive scale.
So we sent Fazeelat Aslam to Pakistan to see how slavery can exist in our modern age.
[Children speaking native language.]
FAZEELAT ASLAM: It's a little after 6 AM, but this is already a couple of hours into the workday of a brick kiln worker.
ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: There are between 3 million to across Pakistan working like slaves, many in kilns like these.
Families must make a thousand bricks before sundown every day all year round.
Many of the workers are children.
Some are as young as 3 years old.
These kids look strong, but it's not like they're eating a lot.
[Conversation in foreign language.]
Workers don't earn enough to pay for a single decent meal a day, let alone their clothes, bedding, and other needs.
They become badly malnourished, leading to sickness, which they can't afford to treat.
[crying.]
This is 21st-century slavery.
To understand how something like this could be happening in 2013, I went to speak with the director of the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan, I.
A.
Rehman.
ASLAM: Displaced workers come to brick kiln owners with no money.
They ask for loans for as little as a hundred dollars in order for themselves and their families to survive.
The kiln owners, in turn, take advantage of their desperation.
The worker comes and takes a loan from the brick kiln owner.
The brick kiln owner then says, "You work for me, and you'll eventually pay off that loan," but they never do because the contract that they've signed they can't read because they're illiterate, and 3o the brick kiln owner basically makes up the rules as he goes along.
Today you have this much more money to pay, tomorrow you have that much more money to pay.
It's a trap.
Once you get someone in, they can never leave.
How much longer do you think you'll be stuck in this debt? When do you think you'll get out? ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: This is the false hope that all owners give laborers to entrap them.
The truth is, the owners fabricate more debt over time so the workers are forced to bring their children in to help, creating generations of bonded laborers.
I wanted to learn about the tactics of the owners, but they refused to appear on camera.
I went to speak with two sisters--one 14 years old and the other just 4 years old-- who had recently escaped from the kiln.
ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: Stories like these are just one amongst thousands that become worse when you realize that their debt can be paid off with just a few hundred dollars.
These laborers have very little representation, but there is one person determined to fight for them.
[Marchers chanting in native language.]
ASLAM: This is Ghulam Fatima.
She runs the Bonded Labor Liberation Front, one of the only organizations in Pakistan taking action against this modern-day slavery.
[Men shouting commands.]
Over her lifetime of work, she's been beaten, tortured, and imprisoned for her cause.
ASLAM: How do you continue to do this work? Aren't you afraid for your life? [Speaking native language.]
Could you explain to us why don't these people run away from the kiln? ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: Laborers are under the constant fear of retribution if they try to escape.
The kilns are in the middle of nowhere, so even if they run, they can't hide.
The laborers need someone to help them escape safely.
At the Bonded Labor Liberation Front headquarters, laborers from a kiln arrive.
Back at the kiln, everyone thinks they've gone to get food, but they've actually come to ask Fatima to help rescue their family.
ASLAM: Fatima is one of the only people that rescues these people from kilns.
And she gets people coming to her door all the time.
ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: The relatives fear for their lives.
Fatima decides to rescue the family tonight.
She takes the relatives to the police station with jurisdiction over the kiln.
It's common for the police to accept bribes from the kiln owners, so helping Fatima is not in their interest.
ASLAM: So right now we're at the jail, and basically they have to go and file the case so that the police accompanies them to the brick kiln so that they have security when they get to the kiln.
ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: Fatima will need to give enough information to satisfy the police.
But she cannot tell them exactly where the kiln is for fear they will tell the owners.
The guy in charge wants to know exactly which kiln it is, which means he can tell them that we're coming and hide the people we're trying to rescue.
[Aslam speaking foreign language.]
ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: After a long interrogation of the family's relative, the head policeman makes his decision.
ASLAM: They know what kiln we're going to? They don't know which kiln we're going to.
ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: The presence of our camera puts pressure on the police.
They agree to escort us to the kiln in a separate vehicle.
They have not been told the exact location for fear they will tip off the owner.
After 3 hours, we arrive at the kiln.
The kiln owners have near absolute power.
With incredible wealth and influence, they can take complete advantage of an already corrupt system.
The police would rather be unlawful than upset the brick kiln owners.
Once inside, we will only have moments before the ala is raised.
The police won't let the family take any of their belongings.
They're afraid of what will happen if the owners catch them helping the laborers escape.
Everyone's trying to get out before the brick kiln owners realize what's happening.
They got everyone out, but the owner's just here now.
Wait.
Uh-oh.
The owners are here.
Ok, the owners are here.
so Ok, so the owners have stopped the police.
ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: If the owners get a hold of the escapees now, they could be beaten severely or even killed.
Fatima makes the decision to ditch the police and make a break for it.
We return to the Bonded Labor Liberation Front, where the family will finally be safe.
ASLAM, VOICE-OVER: Even though the family has lost all of their possessions, they are overjoyed to have gained their freedom, and they're finally safe from the kiln owners.