Water is one of the most important resources, and potable water is about to become the most important resource.
Selected Facts from the documentary, Flow
- Of the 6 billion people on earth, 1.1 billion do not have access to safe, clean drinkingwater (www.charitywater.org).
- The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims
through guns (http://www.water.org). - Water is a $400 billion dollar global industry; the third largest behind electricity and oil. ~CBS News, FLOW.
Watch Flow for free:
Fakoman, this is awesome composition: the view, timing, and calibration is perfect. I have enjoyed lots of such scenes abroad. However, seeing your work in this forum makes me think of home, wondering what it will take for us to "develop" our towns and cities in Cameroon so that the "waterside" streets are equally clean without the hidden effects of industrial pollution in the West? Look at the streams and rivers that flow through our cities, how they have become avenues for garbage disposal.
Where's the problem what's to be done?
I have also checked your photostream and I really admire your work. Stay inspired and post us some more!
Posted by: J. Dobgima Somgait | Saturday, 29 May 2010 at 01:05 PM
J. Dobgima, I really appreciate that you have noticed. Occasionally I post something, perhaps a flower or a striking face here and wonder if anyone noticed. To me, a flower is not just a flower, but an incredible and unique miracle, a transient, but potent concentration of the beauty in this magical world in which we inhabit. I do not need to go to church to experience awe, because every waking moment is full of it. We live in heaven, but we do not know it. The picture you have commented on is a three minute walk from my door in the United States. Most people who live nearby do not notice it, because they are caught up in the busy-ness of survival, but true wealth is in what enters the senses, not as much in ownership of goods and coin.
Back to your question, regarding the fact that we are burying our environment in trash. I grew up in Buea, when the place was innundated in flowers and was covered for about 2 months of the year with some amazing butterflies. All of a sudden, about 1972, that stopped happening, and I had to wonder then whether there was some human activity that had caused such impoverishment of the bounties of nature. Perhaps the CDC had extended plantations and insecticides into their breeding grounds. Who knows?
If you are following American news, you have heard about the big hole that British Petroleum dug into the bottom of the sea, and it is now leaking oil that is killing sea life and polluting the beaches. There are oil rigs like that off Victoria and around Mallabo. What will we do if God forbid, one of those has an accident and devastates us? In America, that disaster is setting off the second coming of the environmental movement. The rivers in the US used to stink and were dark with industrial waste until the 1970s, when people decided that they had to be better stewards of nature. The rivers are not perfect but they were cleaned up considerably and the fish returned.
It is people who must come to terms with the destructive power of man, and the meaning of true wealth. What is the meaning of wealth from minerals and oil, if the pristine waters have been replaced by toxic swamps, people who used to live in villages and nourished themselves from productive farms are relegated to urban slums, have over reproduced themselves and cannot find sustenance of mind, soul and body for their children?
Just something to think about...
Posted by: Emil I Mondoa (fakoman) | Saturday, 29 May 2010 at 05:02 PM