Renowned aerial photographer and filmmaker Yann Arthus-Bertrand wants everybody in the world to see his
movie Home. That’s why it’s been distributed free in cinemas in almost every country (except Britain). But never mind, even in the land where the middle-man’s percentage is sacrosanct the film is free to view and download on the internet: www.homethemovie.org
The movie is a powerful and spectacular polemic showing the catastrophic imbalance brought about by mankind’s activities around the globe. It doesn’t mince its words either. The commentary, read in the English version by Glenn Close, is clear and direct in its message. Academic arguments about whether or not climate change or seismic instability are caused by human activity are made irrelevant by the combination of stunning visual evidence and chilling statistics: the world’s population has trebled since 1950; species are dying out at a speed 1000 times faster than the natural rate; three quarters of fishing grounds are exhausted; 2% of the world’s population controls more than 80% of its wealth while more than a billion people have no access to safe drinking water. The list goes on and on.
And yet despite the overwhelming sense of looming disaster the movie declines to end on a note of hopelessness – as the narrative tells us: “It’s too late to be a pessimist.” In much the same way as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth showed us a path forward Home ends with examples of positive and encouraging change and a basic plan for survival: an end to the rape of the Earth for the last remaining sources of fossil fuels; a massive investment in renewable energy sources – solar, wind, and wave power; an agricultural revolution that sees us working with nature not battling to subdue it; a redistribution of wealth and opportunity so that everybody gets a chance at a decent life. It’s a tall order for a world in a permanent state of distraction thanks to political claptrap and financial shenanigans, but the alternative – well, watch the movie and judge for yourself.
The debate is over. What’s needed now is that which should have been the priority four decades ago when the “debate” first started: a coherent worldwide strategy, and urgent action.
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