8 Billion Angels

Human overpopulation is the root cause of many of our worst environmental problems, and probably more than a few of our social problems. We are literally breeding ourselves into extinction, but it seems to be taboo to even discuss the issue in today's world. At least this short, excellent documentary does look at the problem in an intelligent way, and without beating the viewer over the head with it. But the film does try to show the huge costs we pay for not dealing with our own overpopulation, and it also offers some realistic remedies as well. An important, interesting film about an enormously important topic. A shame that out of almost 8 billion people, I'm the first to even review it here.

"8 billion angels" was a documentary movie by Victor Velle. The film was mainly focused on multiple issues that can be caused by overpopulation. In my perspective, I think this movie is a reminder to all people living on the earth and we must realize we are destroying our planet.

The first issue mentioned in the film is in Japan, the ocean is highly polluted because of overpopulation. They even experimented by putting a tiny amount of carbon dioxide into the seawater, the seawater is chemically changed, and that change can cause damage to the species in the ocean. These carbon dioxides mostly come from us, we burn fossil fuels and fly around the world to import and export goods. These are all reasons why carbon dioxide is increasing in the sea. The second issue is land, and we can use America as an example. Farmers in America found out that they are losing the waters due to global warming caused by overpopulation. The film even mentioned worries to our future generation about a decrease in water. In future generations, are they going to face lacking water issues, which might cause them to death? So we must acknowledge the importance of water. It was our resource to keep us alive we often forgot water is not unlimited. The third issue is the most important issue that can be caused by overpopulation which is air. In the movie, by using India as an example, most Indians claimed that their air is toxic because of smoke from fires, cars, and buses. Rich people in India can buy masks in order to prevent the poisonous air, but these poor people can't. They can only breathe it.

Many scenes from the movie also have proven the problem of air in India. Usually, air doesn't have color, but in India, they do. This toxic air causes 80,000 people's death each year in India. But that is not the only problem overpopulation causes in India. Because of the rapid growth of the population, the amount of garbage has also increased. The Delhi river is the water resource for most people living in that city, but now that river is polluted because of garbage. In the movie, we can see there is full of waste in that river, and the color of the river is almost close to black! Because of overpopulation in India, many "poor" people have to breathe in the toxic air and bathe and drink the black water from the river because they don't have enough money to buy clean water and a mask.

To "save our world," the movie has given us a few options: we can teach the young generation about these issues, or the government can set up the birth policy just like how China does, for each family with only one child. Personally speaking, I truly believe everyone in this world should watch this movie. It was significant and taught us many lessons. Because we often forget we are not the only species living on this planet, we are sharing this planet with other species living in this world. We must be responsible for our own mistakes and start to face and fix these problems.

Movie Review: Eight Billion Angel Eight Billion Angel is a fully documentary movie created by director Victor Velle. It has a very interesting opening which opens with a montage of high-resolution shots of nature: frothy ocean waves, white-blue coral reefs, birds skimming a lake, a tree with a young girl perched on it. The central idea that Victor Velle expressed throughout the movie was the question of : Is there too many people on earth? The movie is talking about this problem the whole time. Moreover, it also talks about environmental problems that the population brought such as air pollution, global warming etc.

The documentary movie was divided into three main sections which are oceans, land, air and rivers. The film connects between an oyster farm in Maine, a marine research lab in Japan, farmland in the American Midwest and the polluted air and waters of New India. Overall the movie examined the effects of overpopulation, how humanity is depleting natural resources, and analyzing possible solutions to implement before it is too late.

One sensitive topic that the film mentioned in the first hour was the china one child policy back twenty years ago. But once China released the two child policy, we can see from the film it illustrated a massive population boost, almost every family wanted a second child, this doubled the number of the next generation which created many serious environmental problems in the future. From warming waters to depleting resources to unchecked industrialization. Whether it's overfishing in Japan or extractive farming in the U. S. or, well, seemingly everything happening in India - bad air, bad water, big poverty - the culprit is always us trying to meet the demands of more "us." The movie is saying that because we have more desire toward many resources, problems appear. One important point Velle illustrated was that sustainability issues start with consumption excess in developed nations, not poor families in depressed places trying to survive. In that respect, we learn one child born to an American of means is the resource-scarfing equivalent of 40 Bangladeshi kids.

One of the Mina point of the movie is not just explaining to the audience of the problem we are facing:Climate change, ocean acidification, depletion of aquifers, toxic air pollution, deforestation - those are just the symptoms. The cause is overpopulation. The movie is trying to advocate for a change in everyone, everyday life.we add 80 million more people every year to the earth, who together consume more resources faster than the world can replenish, and emit more waste than the earth can naturally absorb. It is critical to offer an alternate vision for the future. If we, as individuals, families and nations, band together by pursuing smaller families, supporting the worldwide adoption of accessible and affordable family planning, and strengthening our global commitment to the education and empowerment of women and girls, we will not only bring tremendous social justice, economic prosperity and health equity to billions.

While the stories told are interesting and moving, there is rather little hard data. I missed at least some statistics and diagrams. Admittedly, I am a scientist but even if you aren't, it will be hard for you to grasp the dimension of over-population without some visualization of the hard facts.