Nova on "Climate Change"

Watched a three hour rerun of Nova last night, the three shows on human evolution. Actually three one hour shows rebroadcast back to back on Vermont public TV. Not bad stuff, they described some newly discovered human fossils that I had never heard of. They described the rise and 2 million year existence of a human precursor with a chimpanzee size brain, but who walked upright. The famous fossil Lucy was a member of this group.
They glossed over some things. They described the Neanderthal DNA sequencing, including creation of the Neanderthal genotype. Neanderthals are very close to modern man DNA wise. Then they said very few Neanderthal genes exist in modern humans. If Neanderthal and human genotypes are very similar, how can you tell which genes are Neanderthal and which are modern? This was used to support the idea that modern humans "out competed" (wiped out) Neanderthal man, as opposed to the less blood thirsty idea that modern man interbred with Neanderthals and so absorbed them. They made no mention of some fossils that surely look half modern and half Neanderthal. I saw one such fossil on display in the Peabody museum some years ago. I ought to go back and see if it's still on display.
And they seemed obsessed with climate change. Every few minutes they described massive and life threatening climate changes over the last 10 million years. With one exception they didn't connect climate change with human evolutionary progress, but they sure let us know that climate change was out there and to be feared. The one connect that makes sense is walking upright. That seems a perfectly reasonable adaptation for a tree climbing, tree living ape, when the lush tropical jungle dries out to grass lands, where you gotta walk and run to get around, as opposed to Tarzan style swinging thru the treetops on handy vines (brachiation I believe they call it). But other than that one idea, the connection between massive climate changes and human evolution was left unclear. But they sure let you know about all that dreadful climate changing.