Home

In conjunction with World Environment Day a documentary titled Home was released worldwide, with Youtube as one of its platforms.

And gosh was it gorgeous!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

Unlike ordinary videos where they are subjected to 100MB size and 10min time limits, the one-and-a-half-hour documentary was uploaded in a single video and weighs in a heavy 1.4GB. With no loss of quality, there was a occasional lag when playing it on my Pentium D.

I found myself losing concentration to the background narration at times because I was engrossed in the stunning and flawless images of our Mother Earth. Too bad I had no High Definition equipment to enjoy them.

I find that Dubai is strikingly similar to Singapore, especially after listening to the commentary.

"Dubai is a sort of culmination of the Western model, a country where the impossible becomes possible. Building artificial islands in the sea, for example. Dubai has few natural resources, but with the money from oil it can bring in millions of tons of material and workers from all over the planet. Dubai has no farmland, but it can import food. Dubai has no water, but it can afford to expend immense amounts of energy to desalinate seawater and build the world's highest skyscrapers in the world. Dubai has endless Sun, but no solar panels. It is the totem to total modernity that never fails to amaze the world."

The difference is that we did not depend on oil to be where we are today, otherwise we might be the subject of controversy in this documentary now instead of Dubai.

Just like many other documentaries, Home gave some numbers to drive the message furthur. One particular number that got my attention was:

"The world spends 12 times more on military expenditures than on aid to developing countries."

Ha! Try telling that to our country!

Then again, I guess most people will just watch and forget.