[speaking brazilian portuguese] [chiwetel] they are looking for contraband timber, extracted illegally from protected areas. [speaking brazilian portuguese] [chiwetel] the bosses are missing. little can be done but to book the low-grade workers who are left behind. to those who want to save the rainforest, ibama have always been the good guys. but the odds have turned heavily against them.

while this film was being made, a new president has come to power in brazil with a different agenda. ibama's strength has been drastically reduced. budget cuts, senior officers fired, operations cut back. even the loggers they catch are going unpunished, as the new government paves the way to open up the rainforest to agribusiness and mining. in the six hours it took to make the raid, elsewhere in the amazon another 1,300 acres of rainforest have disappeared forever. [antonio] everything thats living obeys the same principles, the circulation in the human body, the circulation in the rainforest.

when we started looking into the water and how the water flows and how the water is manipulated by trees in so many ways, i start feeling like there should be a better parallel with human physiology or human workings, metabolism, and they found the, the, the analogy was a heart. 'cause its actually pumping. then, you have the rivers coming off the amazon. they are draining the tissues of nature. the tissues of the landscape. and you see, that is precisely what the blood does in our body. when the blood go through your tissues, it collects all the waste, and then bring it back to the heart, which pumps it again. its refreshed in the lungs and go all around your body.

and this is precisely what happens in, in, in a large scale, in a continental scale, uh, in the amazon. but instead of blood, you have water. so water is the blood of the landscape. [chiwetel] all things in nature are connected and water is the common thread of circulations that links all forms of life. what is happening in the amazon affects all of us. in nature, what goes around, comes around. [antonio] the notion that the forest functions like a heart is a new one. once you take it out, the heart dies and then the whole system dies. we are crossing the point of no return right now.

[chiwetel] since the new government came to power in brazil, the pace of destruction has accelerated. an estimated loss of two-and-a-half-billion trees every year. in their place, cattle ranches. eighty percent of the deforested amazon has gone to supply the world's rocketing appetite for beef. in exchange for the rainforest, brazil now boasts the second largest cattle herd in the world. anyone can buy a brazilian hamburger in new york, london, moscow or beijing. meanwhile, as professor nobre predicted,

brazil's great cities are already beginning to pay the price for deforestation. diminished rainfall in rio and sao paulo, severe drought in belo horizonte. [waves crash onto the shoreline] [antonio] what would you do if you know what i know? [chiwetel] the question that has haunted antonio nobre's working life has come to haunt us all. [antonio] world war ii was nothing. what is coming our way is 1,000 times worse. [chiwetel] the filming of this story began in a very different world than the one we live in today. everything has changed.

coronavirus has taught us that some warnings do come true. [antonio] it's absolutely essential that humanity, uh, understands what kind of risks we are running right now. i mean losing our habitat losing the planet where we have evolved it means really losing the capacity of continuing to live on earth. [woman] more than 15,000 scientists are sounding an alarm about climate change, they call it a warning to humanity. [indistinct chatter] [newscaster] there's a frantic effort underway tonight to find survivors. [man 1] the warmest year in the earth's recorded history

and it's only getting hotter. [man 2] as we see the climate warming, the one thing that we're most clear about is you'll have more cold events and more heat events. [chiwetel] the world is experiencing a perfect storm of climate change and rising population. [male 3] more than 1,200 people are believed to have died-- [chiwetel] experts say it's through water that most of us will feel the effects of climate change first. [male 4] nobody can say when the next flood will be but everybody knows the waters will rise once more. [chiwetel] but for many, the water crisis has already begun. until now, day zero was something that could only happen to other people in far-off places. the fight back begins when the message comes closer to home. fighting back is what the farmers on the high plains are doing

to protect their water from over-exploitation. -[whistling and jeering] -[somber music plays] fighting back is what has been happening in city after city as water shortages drive protesters onto the streets. [crowd jeering] but day zero is more than a local problem. -[whistling and jeering] -[somber music plays] it's a global problem -[whistling and jeering] -[somber music plays] and involves us all. to the world leaders, and those in power, i would like to say that you haven't seen anything yet! [chiwetel] australia. cape town. california. kansas. behind all these local day zeros, science has discovered a common denominator and a common solution.

[background insect noise] [chiwetel] "what would you do if you knew what i know?" well, now we know. and now it's up to all of us to do something, before it's too late. modern life on earth, the life we've grown used to, is unsustainable. there's not enough nature to go round. they used to say that water was nature's way of talking to mankind. well, we've reached the point in time where we're going to have to start listening. [ethereal choral music plays]