Vice: The Resource Curse & Deliver Us from Drought

"The Resource Curse" (correspondent: Vikram Gandhi) - As humanity's appetite for energy grows exponentially, the extraction industry scrambles to the most remote regions on Earth to satisfy demand. In the undeveloped Melanesian country of Papua New Guinea, America's Exxon Mobil has staked its claim to a $19 billion liquid natural-gas project expected to start production in late 2014. While some see Exxon's mammoth presence as the catalyst that will usher the underdeveloped country into the 21st Century, others predict the initiative could plunge its people into civil war. Vikram Gandhi heads to Papua New Guinea to investigate. "Deliver Us from Drought" (correspondent: Thomas Morton) - Over the past three years, Texas has experienced the worst drought in its recorded history - a calamity that devastated the state's agriculture industry and stripped it of thousands of jobs. 97% of the scientific community agrees that human activity has contributed to extreme weather patterns around the world. But many Texans--legislators, community leaders and citizens--don't attribute their drought to humans, and have taken few if any initiatives to limit the state's CO2 emissions, currently the highest in the country. Thomas Morton heads to Texas to witness the climate catastrophe, and discover firsthand the local responses, which often involve reaching out for divine intervention. (TV14) (AC,AL)