HOME is an environmental documentary featured on YouTube that focuses on human impact on natural resources. You can watch this short movie here. It mixes concepts such as human rights, globalization, and global warming all together.
The introduction of the movie tells about how in 200,000 years out of the 4 billion since life first appeared on planet Earth, the presence of humans has unbalanced our own environment. The movie is my story, it is your story. This is what I/you have done.
The Earth is made up of intricate processes that create a balance in life. The balance itself is of these links; it allows us to live, our food to live, it provides our society with resources. The life of one being depends on that of another, and so forth. Even the death of natural elements helps to maintain the balance. For example, when a tree dies, it decomposes and goes to creating soil. Are we just a species that is going to disappear? Will we go extinct just as millions of other have over all of Earth’s history?
The documentary makes us seem like such an invasive species. The narrator makes the point that we have taken control of every habitat we could. We’ve taken control of a large portion of coastal region. However, we are the only species to be able to adapt to every environment. The first humans were very labour-oriented. Children were considered assets if they would help around the house and food was tough to find.
Then came agriculture. Humans experienced food surpluses for the first time. To this day, agriculture is still the occupation to a vast majority of the population. Most of this work is even done by hand in most cases.
We then found oil. Oil was really the changing point of humanity. We use is every day for many uses. In 50 years, the health of the environment has degraded quicker than at any other point. This change came about most particularly in the US. The country has particularly harnessed the power of fuels. Pesticides came about in order to kill parasites. Famines and bad harvests became a distant memory, the biggest problem nowadays being where to put all the surpluses. Pesticides and herbicides would be absorbed into the soil, and discharged of into our waterbeds…
Which humans drink water from. Yes, these can be harmful to our species.
Our abundant use of water has caused problems also. We have been able to transform the most arid land into vast green fields. We can raise more cattle for our increased meat production. The cattle eats grain… it takes 1,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of potatoes, 4,000 litres for 1 kilo of rice, and 13,000 for 1 kilo of beef. The numbers are revolting. Our agriculture is oil-dependent. Imagine the amount of it we use a day. Time is most relative now to our oil; when we run out of it, we’ll run out of time too.
We also severely stress the world’s minerals. Due to excessive mining, we will have exhausted all of the planet’s reserves. It’s a terrifying thought. A good example of a high consumer of minerals is Dubai. The country itself has few natural resources, yet has been able to achieve the impossible. It even created its own separate island by shipping desert sand into the ocean. But because of the key resource it does have – oil – they gain enough profit in order to import millions of tones of minerals.
Our society focuses strongly on consumption. In 50 years, we’ve increased our fish consumption from 18 to 100 million metric tones a year. We’ve caught so many large fish that the adults don’t have enough to reproduce, leading to an exhaustion of fish supply.
Then there are wetlands, which take up 6% of the Earth. But even their moisture is being reduced. The Amazon’s river has been depleted by 20% due to the deforestation. In Borneo, important forests were chopped down to replace it all with palm trees. Borneo happens to be the largest producer of palm oil, which is not only used in food, but in cosmetics, detergents, and even as fuel.
Humans have created huge disparities. Nigeria, for example, is the largest oil exporter in Africa.
The Earth is made up of intricate processes that create a balance in life. The balance itself is of these links; it allows us to live, our food to live, it provides our society with resources. The life of one being depends on that of another, and so forth. Even the death of natural elements helps to maintain the balance. For example, when a tree dies, it decomposes and goes to creating soil. Are we just a species that is going to disappear? Will we go extinct just as millions of other have over all of Earth’s history?
The documentary makes us seem like such an invasive species. The narrator makes the point that we have taken control of every habitat we could. We’ve taken control of a large portion of coastal region. However, we are the only species to be able to adapt to every environment. The first humans were very labour-oriented. Children were considered assets if they would help around the house and food was tough to find.
Then came agriculture. Humans experienced food surpluses for the first time. To this day, agriculture is still the occupation to a vast majority of the population. Most of this work is even done by hand in most cases.
We then found oil. Oil was really the changing point of humanity. We use is every day for many uses. In 50 years, the health of the environment has degraded quicker than at any other point. This change came about most particularly in the US. The country has particularly harnessed the power of fuels. Pesticides came about in order to kill parasites. Famines and bad harvests became a distant memory, the biggest problem nowadays being where to put all the surpluses. Pesticides and herbicides would be absorbed into the soil, and discharged of into our waterbeds…
Which humans drink water from. Yes, these can be harmful to our species.
Our abundant use of water has caused problems also. We have been able to transform the most arid land into vast green fields. We can raise more cattle for our increased meat production. The cattle eats grain… it takes 1,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of potatoes, 4,000 litres for 1 kilo of rice, and 13,000 for 1 kilo of beef. The numbers are revolting. Our agriculture is oil-dependent. Imagine the amount of it we use a day. Time is most relative now to our oil; when we run out of it, we’ll run out of time too.
We also severely stress the world’s minerals. Due to excessive mining, we will have exhausted all of the planet’s reserves. It’s a terrifying thought. A good example of a high consumer of minerals is Dubai. The country itself has few natural resources, yet has been able to achieve the impossible. It even created its own separate island by shipping desert sand into the ocean. But because of the key resource it does have – oil – they gain enough profit in order to import millions of tones of minerals.
Our society focuses strongly on consumption. In 50 years, we’ve increased our fish consumption from 18 to 100 million metric tones a year. We’ve caught so many large fish that the adults don’t have enough to reproduce, leading to an exhaustion of fish supply.
Then there are wetlands, which take up 6% of the Earth. But even their moisture is being reduced. The Amazon’s river has been depleted by 20% due to the deforestation. In Borneo, important forests were chopped down to replace it all with palm trees. Borneo happens to be the largest producer of palm oil, which is not only used in food, but in cosmetics, detergents, and even as fuel.
Humans have created huge disparities. Nigeria, for example, is the largest oil exporter in Africa.
However, though the country has wealth, 70% of the inhabitants don’t have access to it. Half of the world’s poor live in resource-rich nations. Half the world’s health is in the hands of 2% of the world’s richest.
¼ of the Earth’s species can go extinct by 2050: 1 mammal in 4, 1 bird in 8, and 1 amphibian in 3. Why do we try to save species? Is it for our own use, or for a less-selfish cause? Are we interrupting as natural rhythm through which some species disappear and new ones appear? Not necessarily.
¼ of the Earth’s species can go extinct by 2050: 1 mammal in 4, 1 bird in 8, and 1 amphibian in 3. Why do we try to save species? Is it for our own use, or for a less-selfish cause? Are we interrupting as natural rhythm through which some species disappear and new ones appear? Not necessarily.
Today, extinction rates are 1,000 times faster than the natural rate should be. Maybe humans are only still alive because we want to survive. We won’t go until we’ve tried our very hardest to stay.
Want to know more?
All pictures are from Google.
The movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU
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