Bill Moyers Reports: Earth On Edge

By James Poniewozik

This special is nominally about the ecosphere; it's really, if obliquely, about money. Moyers travels the globe, linking dwindling Asian steppes and Brazilian reefs to the health of mankind. It's unabashed advocacy journalism but comprehensive; the recurring theme is the economic interests of multinationals and native laborers, of developing nations and Chilean-sea-bass-eating viewers. Moyers only hints at overall solutions (and their costs), focusing on individual conservation successes, but the ecological truism that we're all connected rarely gets such a broad, God's-eye treatment.

--J.P.