For You , For Me and For Our "HOME"

PS: @IntoSippysLense does not hold the copy rights to this image.

Yann Arthus Bertrand's 120 minutes documentary about planet earth and its system is such a beautiful piece of art and information. Released on 5th June 2009 , the video shows spectacular Arial shots  and angles of the planet. I strongly recommend , its a one movie that is worth your 100 hollyhood movies. don't forget to watch!!! and below you can read My reflection.

Formation of planet Earth is referred to as a miracle of the universe because of its ability to sustain life. Initially the planet did not look anything like what it has become now. Volcanic eruptions are one of the causes of shaping our planet.  History reads that earth was initially just a molten hot ball of fire that was formed when millions of atomic particles combined. In its birthing process the molten from the volcanic eruption cooled down and created a solid crust

Yann Arthus Bertrand

After the solidification of the earth crust the volcanic gases filled the earth. It was not possible for life form to survive without oxygen but the law of nature balances them.

Archaea was the first life form that survived in the hot springs.  The tiny microorganism tapped carbon from the atmosphere and dissolved in the ocean clearing open spaces in the atmosphere.  Algae were the first living species of plant kingdom that filled the spaces with oxygen. Earth was able to sustain water in the liquid form because it lies at a right distance from the sun to condense the water vapor.

It took 4 billion years for trees to form. Trees could tap light energy just like the Sino bacteria’s were able to tap carbon. 

The very answer to the question ‘How humans changed the Earth?’ is fairly stated by the narrator in the opening scene of the “HOME” video. Although we Homo sapiens came into existence way later than the existence of earth, “we have managed to disrupt the balance that is essential to life.” It indicates that the time we are taking to destroy is faster than the time it took for the planet to be created.

Homo Sapiens are the youngest species  to come into existence that started as hunters and gatherers but with time and exposure  our range of hunting shifted from hunting animals to hunting new technologies for an easy lifestyle and from gathering of berries to gathering ideas that will boom a nation’s economy or looking for a new planet.

The growth of our species began on the banks of rivers, oceans and coastal areas. Some civilization include along Yangtse River in China or the Indus Valley in India. The earlier roles of every species were to survive. Human fed on natural found edibles until they could figure out the use of land and the beauty of tilling the land to cultivate food. That is when agriculture evolved. 

Agriculture to manufacture, human beings kept growing the areas of sufficiency for food to survive. Machineries substituted human labor force but at the cost of huge oil intake for its operations. Modern agriculture has been practiced not only for humans to feed but cultivation is carried in large scale as  cattle fodder too. Petro chemical is seeping into our system in soil water and atmosphere through pesticides and fertilizers

Human beings existence has changes the face of the Earth till date and the element of surprise of what will happen in the future is unpredictable considering the abilities of human brain. Earlier in the beginning of the earth formation it is said that the volcanos were responsible for shaping the landscape of the earth but after the introduction of Homo sapiens not only the land scape, the aerospace and the hydrospace has also been redesigned by our species to yield and exploit resources.

“All species have a role to play” but our species is dominating the others. Humans have managed to conquer a large territory with our growing population. With populating growing we also need enough food to feed the population.  Malthusian theory of population proposes that the food production grows at an arithmetic rate while the population is growing at a geometric rate. Humans have extended the use of land, air and water exceeding the carrying capacity.

Ariel view of the mountains 

 The land is now seen in two dimensions, one called the city and another, the country. Humans were able to allude a replica of a natural forest to a concrete jungle which is called the CITY. We can find tall skyscrapers and highways that exhibit the man made concrete carnival. It is strange that we humans have been able to build the tallest building in the world like the Bruj Khalifa in Dubai  but the irony is that more than half of that building is unoccupied. So there is no point in building so tall when no one can afford to live there?

As Happy as a Whale 

All the nations have been exploiting their energies and in the fight of power it has caused so much chaos. Diminishing resource has led to social deprivation to safe drinking water and electricity. On the other hand hunger and poverty is killing numbers of people. On a global scale we have disrupted the climatic balance and the consequences are no longer unknown to us. The arctic ice sheet is thinning and  causing the water levels to rise in the oceans. The glaciers are receding, adding more water to the ocean.

The Video HOME is an autobiography of planet earth. Its shows the evolution of a hot molten fire ball to an overcrowded planet battling to survive its species and sustain the left overs of the mother Earth. “A trap is a trap only for creatures which cannot solve the problem that it sets”-Sir Geoffery Vivkers. Lots of countries have manages to give justice to the nature by reserving lands dedicating to conserve the nature while some have managed to be a responsible consumer . The ultimate source of energy is looked back to the sun and with artificial process we are able to tap solar energy, just like the plants. It’s not too late to reflect on our past and move into the future with solutions that we are already equipped with but yet to implement.  “What are we waiting for?”

Expansion of our species 

I loved the video as it carries a strong message about the journey of planet Earth and it also shows the convex future image if we do not change our system of interaction with our nature and environment. The visuals are very beautiful and the graphics are perfect guidance to the visuals. The narrator uses so many beautiful metaphors that gave a dramatic effect of the visuals and the meaning of the words. For example “Trees are a pinecal of perfect living sculpture. They defy gravity. They are the only natural element in perpetual movement towards the sky.”

In a nutshell it is an eye opener or as the experts coined the term  "Anthroposphere" the only sphere that will survive the longest of all because at the rate of which they have managed to grown it’s a suicide mission for "Anthroposphere" itself. 

“You don’t need to be out in the country to see a cow in India”- Russel Peters

Hey! If animals receive love and respect as a living form or because our religions preach so, hail all religion.

In the cardinal virtue of Hinduism, a cow, heads the hierarchy of animal attention as, it holds the importance of a mother; a giver. I can actually see the allusion of a cow’s  motherhood to human beings. After a child stops breast feeding, they are brought out of the lactose bankrupted situation by dairy milk for compensation.  it’s a sad story  for those who had to feed on canned milk or milk from factory udder, labeled “100% pure dairy milk”. 

I once caught this amazing sight with my lens, of what I felt an ethical connection deeply rooted to how one responds to the idea of benefits they yield from another living soul. Thank god some of those are actually born who knows the equality or of give back gestures.

Early in the morning making my way through the streets of Jaigaon, Russel peters cow comedy just stood up in front of my eyes (No offence). 

A man opened up the shutter of this store  and finished setting up his store , then a cow walks at the door step of his shop. He walks back to his store and pulls a hand full of Bengal gram and chickpeas   and feeds the cattle. He then bowed his head in a Namaste posture to the cow.

After the cattle happily finished munching the breakfast from the shopkeeper it walked it's way to the next shop. I felt the myths of-  Welcome to Incredible India. 

It was indeed a great sight for a day  to begin J

                                                                                                                                                                      

The Deads Voice: The Right to My Bones

 How many of them are left? How far do they fight the battle of extinction?  What are their abilities of survival? Is it fair on them?  The reference to “THEM” in  the above questions   are the other half animal species that share the niche on every aspect of survival on planet earth while the other  half, hunts them down. One species is over powering the other species  is defying the law of balance of nature and if it continues for long the game of survival of the fittest starts.

Hundreds of wild plants and animal are harvested every year for their medicinal value , for food or as pets. A lot of these activities of human intervention in the wild cause exploitation to other species as well as their natural habitat. It also poses risk of people engaging in activities against the law  for possessing  of  the plants and animals.

In Buengkan Province every Tuesday and Friday there is an street market open called “Talat Lao”. 

Talat Lao

A lot of the vendors are from Laos. The market has variety of products for sale from clothes to fresh vegetables, fruits, household items and wildlife products.  I was in real state of shock to see how freely some people had displayed wild animal products on sale. I always thought people had a black market system for dealing in animal product.  There were  police walking around but it seemed fine to sell them. Wild life trade seemed so normal in the locality.

Rhino horn

Wild Life products on display for sale 

The products range from Rhino horns of all sizes, bear claws, elephant tusks, animal hide, birds, flesh of wild boars, dead  squirrels , frogs, birds, and some dried lizard species.

Animal hides

For Fur and For Flesh

The Horns are here , Where's the animal?

A bird in a cage is far worst situation than a bird with broken wings  - Sippy

The animal product is sold because of the medicinal value and as a  trophy. Rhino horns, elephant tusk and the bear tooth or claws are seen as  objects of good luck and as a gems. While some of the vendors did not let m touch it because I was with a camera but upon asking them about the products they did answer some of my questions. It seemed that some of the vendors did not even know if it were fake or original products because they bought it in Laos and were selling in Thailand where as some of the Vendors were very convincing that they were real(good salesman ship)

In any sense to sell animal product, real or fake it is ethically wrong.  Selling real wildlife product is Illegal in most countries, while the fake product equally poses threat to wildlife because it is encouraging wildlife trade. Animal print fashion trend should not be encouraged as well. The message these trends passes is wrongly interpreted by those who buy the product and those who sell. The ones who buy develops the urge own a real animal hide which is in fact tempting the people who sell to provide them because the cash flow high in this business. In this whole transaction the animals lose their live and in bigger scale they lose their entire species.

                                                          Spare Lives of Living