BEVERLY HILLS — Award-winning documentarian Ken Burns (“The Civil War,” “Baseball,” “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea”) sets his sights on “The Dust Bowl” in a two-part, four-hour film, premiering Sunday at 8 p.m. on Channel 2.

We sat down with Burns and his longtime collaborator Dayton Duncan at the Television Critics Association press tour to discuss the documentary and the dust. “There’s no way to soft-pedal it,” says Burns. “There’s humor in it. There’s heroism and perseverance, but this is the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history.”