Blue Planet Page #3

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...is a natural conveyor belt for soil

from the plateau above it.

Now it doubles as a dump

for sewage and industrial wastes.

But an island, far away, has become

the most eroded place on Earth.

Madagascar was once cloaked

in lush forest.

Now loggers and farmers

have cut most of it down.

With nothing to cling to...

...the thin red soil has washed down the

mountain slopes into the Betsiboka River...

...choking its mouth completely.

Off the coast of South America...

...the Atlantic is awash

with brown sediment...

...pouring out from the Orinoco

and the Amazon.

Upriver...

...lies the largest continuous rainforest

in the world.

This is home to nearly half

of all the species found on Earth.

They are sheltered from sun and wind...

...by its great moist canopy.

People depend upon the rainforest

for food...

...and the rare medicines

its plants produce.

Like those who settled in Europe

and North America...

...people in search of a better life

are clearing the land for farming.

The cut trees are left to dry, then burned.

Almost one acre of tropical rainforest...

...is destroyed every second.

Some 100 species...

...most of which we've never even seen...

...are driven to extinction every day...

...lost to the planet forever.

In destroying them...

...we are tampering with the fabric of life...

...cutting the very strands

that bind us all together.

Only from space can you see

how much is burning.

The smoke spreads thousands of miles

across to the Andes Mountains.

Soon we will see roads here, then farms.

Towns will expand to cities.

Eight million people live here,

in Los Angeles.

Six million vehicles

and thousands of factories...

...release chemicals into the atmosphere.

This is the West Coast Air Quality

Management District...

...with an air quality update

for the Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

We're suggesting that persons

with heart or respiratory diseases...

...should reduce physical activity.

Smog permeates the air we breathe.

Not only are we polluting our air...

...we may also be altering our climate.

Around the globe...

...cars and factories belch huge amounts

of carbon dioxide into the air...

...faster than our oceans

and depleted forests can absorb it.

Our numbers are increasing

by nearly one-hundred million every year.

We consume enough energy...

...to be visible all the way from space.

There are now more than five billion of us

spread across the Earth.

In this satellite view,

you can see the continents...

...outlined by the lights

of the great coastal cities.

In North America.

In Europe and in Asia.

But our planet does have limits.

The carbon dioxide

and other greenhouse gases we produce...

...act like a blanket...

...trapping the sun's heat

inside our atmosphere.

Beneath it,

the Earth's temperature may be rising.

Without intending it...

...we are now conducting

an uncontrolled experiment...

...on the Earth's life-support system...

...and we cannot predict the consequences.

But already there are clues.

High in the stratosphere,

a thin layer of ozone...

...shields us

from the sun's deadly ultra-violet rays.

You can't see the ozone...

...but our satellites

and other instruments...

...have detected a hole

bigger than Europe...

...in the ozone over Antarctica.

We have created the hole...

...with chemicals we use

in our everyday lives.

Faced with this evidence,

the nations of the world...

...recently agreed to restrict

and eventually ban...

...production of those chemicals.

Looking out past the shuttle's tail...

...Astronaut Jim Buchli:

Look at how thin the atmosphere is.

Everything beyond that thin blue line...

...is the void of space.

And everything below it

is what it takes to sustain life.

And everything that we do...

...to this environment...

...and our quality of life...

...is below that little thin blue line.

That's the only difference between...

...what we enjoy here on Earth...

...and the really harsh, uninhabitable...

...blackness of space.

That's not very wide, is it?

Our world is a special place...

...where millions of species coexist...

...each one an integral part

of our planet's fabric.

What we do will determine their fate...

...and ours.

We can undo the damage we have caused.

The Earth we inherited

can again be a garden...

...beautiful and bountiful.

Everything we need for life is here.

Shimmering blue...

...it is our haven

in a vast black sea of space.

This is our home.

It will be home to our children...

...and to their great-grandchildren.

It is home to all the nations of the world.

It's home to the people of Mexico.

Home to the people of Greece and Turkey.

It's home to Israelis and Arabs.

It's home to the Vietnamese.

It's home to the aboriginal people...

...and the farmers

of the Australian outback.

It's home to the people of Japan.

It's home to the peoples of the Caribbean.

It's home to all of us.

It`s our only home...

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