When we talk about global warming at the poles, the Arctic tends to get more press than the Antarctic, because it’s happening faster there than anywhere else on Earth. But Antarctica is still a juggernaut. As ice sheets there collapse—a process some scientists now see as irreversible—global sea level could rise 10 feet. The complete meltdown could take hundreds of years, but if you live anywhere near the coast, it’s not hard to imagine why my colleague Chris Mooney called that discovery a “holy shit moment for global warming.”
Tonight, our friends at VICE will kick off their third season of documentaries on HBO, and they’re headed to Antarctica to get a close-up look at the potentially catastrophic changes underway there. We’ll also hear from Vice President Joe Biden, who says denying climate change is “like denying gravity.” Check out the trailer above; the show airs tonight at 11pm ET.
