Home, de documentaire

Dutch
Scope: 

We leven in buitengewone tijden. De wetenschappers vertellen ons dat we nog 10 jaar de tijd hebben om de manier waarop we leven te veranderen, de uitputting van natuurlijke grondstoffen te vermijden en de catastrofale evolutie van het klimaat op aarde tegen te gaan.

 

Essentially the "Home" movie resumes great part of Human Progress Network's vision.

From the awareness of the incredibly long time and effort it took for the evolution of Cosmos, Earth, Nature and Life to finally create complex intelligent organisms like human beings, to the awareness that modern mankind and society, however, is stupidly and ungratefully squandering all the awesome advantages and benefits that we are given. Seemingly all the beauty and goods that Nature by itself offers us, without asking anything in return except for a just a bit of care, respect and responsibility is simply not enough.

And sure, of course we can blame the "Great Greed" of the bad and evil "Elites" like politicians, banks, big industry and even big crime, which we all know are intensely corrupt, no matter what country, religion or political standpoint, but the point is that we won't get rid of them if we don't massively and collectively acknowledge and reduce our own "small greed" which they happen to thrive on and we generally allow them to. It surely will take a certain effort from our side, but just "being aware" and/or complaining alone simply makes no sense. But no battle can be won without effort.

We need to take true, committed action ourselves!
This does not necessarily mean go out on the streets and protest, because in part it wouldn't be really much more than collective complaining -although it surely helps to raise awareness-, but more importantly it seldom really leads to anywhere (e.g. in the end, how many of the hundreds of corrupt, unethical bankers have been jailed for the "crisis"?).
Real action means changing our own (consumist) patterns we are born in, educated in and where they want to keep us in, because that is what makes them thrive! Even a small change in these patterns on a collective scale yields tremendous effects.
As a playful example (or not so playful after all), simply imagine if everybody would just stop eating hamburgers tomorrow, in the whole world. Think how much rainforest that was cut to feed the cows could be recovered again. Half the size of the Amazon maybe? Think of all the fresh water that suddenly flow to the rivers again. The tremendous reduction of toxic chemicals they use for growing the food for the cattle, or giving the meat a "nicer" color that won't enter your body or the environment anymore... Just think of it, as a mind-game. Wouldn't that be awesome? And then ask yourself, why DO you actually eat hamburgers instead of healthy food? If you dare and allow yourself to think it through deep enough, you may well find that the true reasons are indeed "small greed" or something similar to it, even if you wouldn't really want to confess it. Well, there you have the effort. First of the mind and then of the body, of changing the pattern. Now, if this feels like asking too much (is it really? Doesn't restoring rainforest and rivers compensate? Your own health and that of the environment? And what if you add the picture of the faces of those suit&tie elites that suddenly can't thrive on your eating hamburgers anymore?) then consider simply cutting it into half, instead of reducing to nothing, for example having hamburgers only on even days, weeks or months. Better like this? ;) On a collective global scale, that would still mean an incredible improvement for rainforests and clean water! 

And this is just one example. It can be done on so much more levels.

Anyway, this page actually just was intended to reinforce the message of the HOME video, by extracting some citations to even resume more and stress some key factors. 

For example, Nigeria is the country richest in oil of Africa, but the local population lives in slumps in the fully contaminated delta of the river where the oil is extracted by Shell, Exxon, BP or Texaco to produce the gasoline for your car.