Home, The Documentary: Our Earth, Our Impact and How We Can Change

I just finished watching Home, a 2009 documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Thanks to the film’s supporters it is available for free on YouTube in English, Arabic, French, Russian, Spanish, plus myriad other languages.

After finishing the movie I felt it was a must-watch. Not only is the aerial footage beautiful and dramatic, but the message is too strong to ignore.

Home highlights the story of humans and our planet, from the origin of single-celled algae cells, to the current state of humans and countries across the globe, and showing the drastic climate changes of the present.

The film sticks to the theme of how all organisms and the Earth are linked in a crucial and delicate balance. Even while 80% of the world’s resources are being used by only 20% of the population, everyone and everything will have to bear the impact.

The majority of the documentary has a human-oriented scope, showing the agricultural revolution, harnessing of oil, formation of industry, creation of mega-cities and the largest rich-poor gap ever. The degrading impacts of our past are touched on and how every human, whether from a developed or third-world country, will be affected in the future.

The facts intertwined with images near the end of the movie are not to be missed. A few that are mentioned include: Species are dying out at a rhythm 1,000 times faster than the natural rate, three quarters of fishing grounds are exhausted, depleted or in dangerous decline, and the average temperature of the last 15 years has been the highest ever recorded.

However, there is hope.

Home gives a time period to change. If we can turn around our damaging ways in the next ten years, we might be able to avoid the worst of climate change. Changing from fossil fuels to renewable energy like wind power and solar power is a start, but making huge-impact decisions like that will have to happen. Costa Rica had to choose between a military and conservation efforts due to their limited budget, they chose conservation.

These ideas are just a few that Home discusses in the end. We have the technology, the brain power and the ideas, now we just have to enact them.

To learn more about Home and to take action, visit GoodPlanet.org.

P.S. Already 1.5 million people have watched Home in English on YouTube — the total number is much larger than that — let’s keep spreading the word!