Discovery Project Earth

You've heard the dire warnings and seen the detailed slide shows, and you've even bought that lightbulb with the swirls. You wonder, though, how can small, individual measures like switching to CFLs and using canvas grocery bags in lieu of plastic be enough to save the planet? Tune in to Discovery Project Earth and watch as some of the world's leading scientists put the most ambitious geo-engineering ideas to the test in order to tackle global climate change.

From covering acres of Greenland's glaciers in protective blankets to stop the ice from melting, to constructing rockets to send tiny reflective lenses into orbit, to planting thousands of saplings via a mass aerial drop to reforest barren areas — these are experiments on an epic scale.  Each one will push the boundaries of science and technology, but will they produce groundbreaking environmental results?

Working with the uncompromising visionaries whose large-scale experiments will be featured on the program is the Discovery Project Earth task force. Members of the task force include Jennifer Languell, an eco-house-building engineer for whom no task is too daunting; Basil Singer, a scientific boy wonder who, at 29, has a doctorate in astrophysics and builds robots for a living; and finally, Kevin O'Leary, a billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist who can fund the impossible.

See what happens when "what if?" meets "why not?" Discovery Project Earth re-engineers the planet's possibilities and literally spans the globe, pinpointing areas of both concern and opportunity in confronting climate change.  Here are brief descriptions of the experiments that will be highlighted by the series.

Wrapping Greenland

Dr. Jason Box, a glaciologist from Ohio State University, wants to prevent glaciers from melting by covering them with blankets that will reflect the powerful rays of the sun.  Box is convinced that his specially chosen material is resilient enough for Arctic conditions, but just how indestructible is it really? The team goes airborne to reproduce some of the worst weather experienced in the Arctic Circle: a hurricane-force ice storm. After testing, they deploy a 10,000-square-yard, reflective geo-textile blanket on the Greenland ice sheet.  Will the blanket indeed reflect the sun and block the wind?

Raining Forests

Following the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, thousands of acres of Gulf Coast mangrove forests have been left bare. The huge swath of land presents a perfect proving ground for scientist Mark Hodges. Hodges believes he has devised a way to reforest large areas of Earth from the air. His idea? To use an aircraft to drop tens of thousands of canisters, each holding a tree seedling. The task force will carry out a series of tests to determine the type of aircraft, the delivery mechanism, canister design and whether or not the seeds will self-plant.

Brighter Earth

John Latham, an atmospheric physicist based at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, and Stephen Salter, an Edinburgh University engineer, believe that by changing the size of water droplets in a cloud they can increase the cloud's ability to reflect the sun and stop global warming. Their vision is to build a flotilla of ships that will roam the world's oceans and seed clouds with minute particulates.

Infinite Winds

Fred Ferguson, a Canadian engineer specializing in airships, has designed a revolutionary wind turbine that will use the constant winds that exist at 1,000 feet above sea level to produce energy. Testing a 70 foot prototype for the first time, they will need to prove that is can convert this untapped energy into electricity.

Hungry Oceans

Oceans cover 70 percent of our planet and are one of the most important carbon sinks we have, but the phytoplankton that convertcarbon dioxide into living matter are declining – and many scientists believe that Climate Change is the culprit. Dr. Brian von Herzen of The Climate Foundation joins forces with some of the world's foremost oceanographers — Professor David Karl of the University of Hawaii and Professor Ricardo Letelier of Oregon State University — to deploy three wave powered pumps. They head into the huge swells of the North Pacific in an attempt to restore this critical natural mixing effect.

Space Sunshield

Astronomer and professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the power of the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade. He intends to use electromagnetic propulsion to get the lenses into space.  Professor Angel has produced a diffraction pattern that will be etched onto each lens. The pattern will cause the sun's rays to change direction. The task force tests this pattern by etching it onto a lens. A scale model is built in a giant hanger with a model of Earth, a single lens representing the sunshade and a laser representing the sun.  When the laser is turned on, it should hit the lens as a single beam and then split into a number of smaller beams that are diffracted away from the model.

Orbital Power Plant

We could have a source of never-ending power and, at the same time, reduce our carbon emissions to virtually zero. This is the astonishing vision of former NASA physicist John Mankins. He has a plan to send thousands of satellites into space, which will gather energy from the sun and then beam the solar energy down to Earth as microwave energy. The microwave energy will be collected by antennas on the ground. These then convert the energy to electricity. Can Mankins make it all work?

Fixing Carbon

What if we could solve the problem of global warming by just scrubbing the air clean of carbon dioxide, before it has the opportunity to add to the blanket of greenhouse gases smothering the earth? Canadian professor David Keith, the 2006 Canadian Geographic "Environmental Scientist of the Year," believes we can do exactly that. He's building a prototype of a machine that will eventually be almost 400 feet high. It will suck ambient air into one end and spray it with sodium hydroxide solution, then expel clean air out the other end. Keith thinks he'll prove that his machine will be even more efficient than trees in cleaning C02 from the air.