make sure everyone you know has seen "home"

Video above shows the 3-minute trailer.  Watch the full film here.

In 200,000 years on Earth, humanity has upset the balance of the planet, established by nearly four billion years of evolution. The price to pay is high, but it's too late to be a pessimist: humanity has barely ten years to reverse the trend, become aware of the full extent of its spoliation of the Earth's riches and change its patterns of consumption.

"Home" is a quiet documentary on the state of the Earth, with aerial shots of mountains, forests, cities, farmlands filmed by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand.  Beautiful vistas, worth a look even for just the visual treat. It has been translated into 20 languages and was released simultaneously in cinemas, on television, on DVD and on Internet in over 50 countries around the globe on June 5th 2009 the World Environment Day.  The English version is narrated by Glenn Close. 


I hailed this movie to family and friends as "life-changing".  Sat through it twice in one weekend (first time alone, the second with my parents), only to sit through it again the following weekend to make sure my brothers watched it until the end (the last few minutes are critical!).  I've given copies to friends and our office staff--and I will keep urging people to watch it until the message comes across:  Our earth is dying.  We can't sit idly and worry about our own concerns anymore.  Each of our spheres of influence has gotten wider--whether by our choice or not--and to maintain that climate change is a hoax or that it won't affect us is to lie to ourselves.

The film is a tribute to our earth--it's non-alarmist and doesn't end with doomsday themes to make us paralyzed with depression or fear.  It gives us hope, but does so with urgency: we must do our part.

Director Arthus-Bertrand insists that the movie remain free, and his team has created so much material for educators to use with it. Wrote more about the project in have you seen "home"?

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Climate change update from UNEP as of Sept24,2009

This new report from the United Nation Environment Progamme says the impacts of climate change are coming faster and sooner, making it all the more urgent for governments to address climate change issues NOW. 

...the newly emerging science points to some events thought likely to occur in longer-term time horizons, as already happening or set to happen far sooner than had previously been thought.

Pressing concerns include "ocean acidification linked with the absorption of carbon dioxide in seawater and the impact on shellfish and coral reefs" (happening decades earlier than existing models predict, and melting glaciers, ice-sheets and the Polar Regions (example: the Greenland ice sheet is melting 60 percent higher than the previous record of 1998), which can cause sea levels to rise by up to two metres by 2100 and five to ten times that over following centuries. The report says "thresholds or tipping points may now be reached in a matter of years or a few decades including dramatic changes to the Indian sub-continent's monsoon, the Sahara and West Africa monsoons, and climate systems affecting a critical ecosystem like the Amazon rainforest."   

Damaging and irreversible impacts as a result of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere include:
- Losses of tropical and temperate mountain glaciers affecting perhaps 20 percent to 25 percent of the human population in terms of drinking water, irrigation and hydro-power.
- Shifts in the hydrological cycle resulting in the disappearance of regional climates with related losses of ecosystems, species and the spread of drylands northwards and southwards away from the equator.
 
The good news is there is hope:

Recent science suggests that it may still be possible to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. However, this will only happen if there is immediate, cohesive and decisive action to both cut emissions and assist vulnerable countries adapt.

United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, says: "This Climate Change Science Compendium is a wake-up call. The time for hesitation is over. We need the world to realize, once and for all, that the time to act is now and we must work together to address this monumental challenge. This is the moral challenge of our generation."




See Impacts of Climate Change coming faster and sooner: New science report underlines urgency for governments to seal the deal in Copenhagen. Click here for the full UNEP report.

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Climate change awareness: do your part

Global environmental expert Nicky Perlas recently appeared on ANC to talk about Climate Change and Typhoon Ondoy.  He confirmed one thing most of us already knew to be true but hoped against: that Super Typhoon Ondoy is just the first of many.  Global warming is upon us, and now is not the time to be in self-denial and dillydally.

What can we do?
 
Here's a great suggestion from Roy Cabonegro, Sec-Gen of the Partido Kalikasan Metro Manila:

Each of us has communities. Many of these were affected by the flooding.

The flooding is both induced by climate change and because of our lack of preparedness as communities for necessary adaptation measures for more of this that is now inevitable due to the ill effects of climate change and our bad governance.

In each of our barangays, town/cities, province and region, as we become more organized and link together, citizens must claim our right for appropriate immediate and long term plans, programs and actions for climate change adaptation. Such adaptation measures must be specific to each community and sufficiently financed.

Let us do that now. Let us involve ourselves in direct governance now!

Those who live in Paranaque, Las Pinas, City of Manila, Pateros, Taguig, Pasig, Makati, Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela, Quezon City, Marikina, Antipolo, Tanay, San Mateo, Montalban-- we are mobilizing local PK MM chapters in these areas now to engage our LGUs (barangay up) to work on this. We need to work together on this.

Contact us (roy@partidokalikasan.org)

Thanks

Roy Cabonegro
Sec-Gen, Partido Kalikasan Metro Manila

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