PickVidsBest Environment, agriculture & food systems Videos
The 104 Environment, agriculture & food systems videos here were recommended by different people across different months. Choose by who it is for: 2 introductory, 2 intermediate, 100 for a general viewer, and 0 for someone who wants the harder derivation. Most of them are an explainer. What they share is that one picture or analogy is used to supply a missing concept. Channels you will keep seeing include Veritasium, TEDx Talks, Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell.
Freeman Dyson: Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society
Freeman Dyson's 2005 Boston University talk on heretical views about science and society.
Is Meat Really that Bad?
A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on the climate and environmental cost of meat.
Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly
A Motherboard documentary episode from Nebraska about farmers and mechanics fighting manufacturers like John Deere over access to the diagnostic software needed to repair modern tractors.
Regreening the desert with John D. Liu | VPRO Documentary | 2012
A VPRO documentary following ecologist and cameraman John D.
Scavenging rechargeable lithium cells from the roadside
Big Clive shows how to pick up discarded disposable vape devices from the roadside and extract the rechargeable lithium cells inside.
Why Meat is the Best Worst Thing in the World 🍔
A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on meat: why people love it and what it costs animals, the environment and health.
Is Our Food Becoming Less Nutritious?
Veritasium examines whether food has become less nutritious, weighing soil depletion, selective breeding and rising atmospheric CO2.
How to grow fresh air | Kamal Meattle
Researcher Kamal Meattle describes how an arrangement of three common houseplants placed in specific spots can measurably clean the air in a home or office.
Gay Frogs: A Deep Dive
A long video essay on the claim that chemicals such as atrazine are feminizing frogs.
Final Warning Limits to Growth
A documentary on the 1972 Club of Rome study Limits to Growth, which questioned the pursuit of endless economic growth.
Can We Terraform the Sahara to Stop Climate Change?
Real Engineering examines whether greening the Sahara could draw down carbon and slow climate change.
What *Really* happens to used Electric Car Batteries? - (you might be surprised)
JerryRigEverything tours Li-Cycle to show how lithium-ion batteries from EVs, phones and tools are recycled.
Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir?
Veritasium rides a boat across the Los Angeles reservoir covered in 96 million black plastic balls.
Joe Rogan Experience #1385 - Paul Stamets
A long Joe Rogan Experience interview with mycologist Paul Stamets about fungi, medicinal mushrooms and bioremediation.
Plastic Wars (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
A FRONTLINE documentary on whether efforts to fix plastic pollution made it worse.
Cows, Carbon and Climate | Joel Salatin | TEDxCharlottesville
Farmer Joel Salatin gives a TEDx talk on how well-managed grass and rotational grazing support sustainable farming and affect the climate.
Forgotten wrecks are a time bomb | DW Documentary
DW Documentary on the roughly 6,300 ships sunk in World War II that are now rusting and leaking oil into the seas.
The Problem with Biofuels
Real Engineering explains why biofuels, especially corn ethanol, are a poor energy source, looking at energy inputs, efficiency and carbon cost.
Tom Chi: How to Address our Carbon Debt to Heal the Planet
Tom Chi gives the opening talk of a Foresight Institute competition on clean energy and clean air, framing excess CO2 as a carbon debt to repay and discussing large-scale tree planting, including by drone.
Liam – An Innovation Story
A short Apple promotional video about Liam, a robot that disassembles old iPhones so their materials can be recovered.
Why Farmers Can't Legally Replant Their Own Seeds
Veritasium's long documentary on the history of Monsanto's herbicides, including glyphosate, and how patented seeds prevent farmers from replanting.
Plastics: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
John Oliver explains how plastics harm the planet and why recycling is not the solution consumers have been led to believe.
What Microplastics Are Doing to the Brain, Body, and Reproductive Systems
A FoundMyFitness episode on how microplastics and associated chemicals such as BPA and PFAS accumulate in the body, including the brain and reproductive systems.
Forest Man
A short documentary about Jadav Payeng, who since the 1970s has planted a forest larger than Central Park on India's Majuli island, turning barren land into a lush oasis.