Your Chance to Live - Earthwatch (1973)

[Music] it is cold airless forbidding the very precision of its operation like a surrealistic dream [Music] we can measure its movement and depth but our minds cannot fathom its spiritual geometry are those among us who can comprehend its physical forces but in the inner structure of our beings we have not yet digested its meaning so so impressions of our earth from space swirls of blue and white and green illuminated sharply against a black background a distant cold beauty silent lonely timeless from high above seemingly placid below another more familiar view of earth closer warmer rich with sound and splashes of color timeless too in its way and also seemingly placid standing on the continental divide [Music] two miles high only six feet wide [Music] i see water shed all snowflake melts on desert land a crystal flake brings life to a grain of sand [Music] a veneer of gentleness hides constant restless turmoil sometimes peaceful often suddenly and violently not oh in a very real sense the earth has two completely different personalities one temperament seems calm and benign well in control of the forces locked within the earth or playing around its biosphere the other is a hard hostile often deadly nature a nature racked and tormented by these same forces rampaging out of control given names by man these forces are called tornadoes tidal waves earthquakes hurricanes blizzards floods having buffeted the earth since it was born these are natural forces which when they strike populated areas on an increasingly populated planet become natural disasters affecting people physically and mentally and as if natural disasters aren't enough man has added some of his own disasters whose destructive potential far outstrips anything nature itself has been able to produce the incredible awful and sudden power of a nuclear explosion and the insidious creeping and in the long run perhaps the most destructive force of all the thing called pollution finally the forest fire a hybrid whose origins can be natural a stroke of lightning on a summer's evening or man-made the terrible result of a single act by a careless person or worse the terrible result of a single act by an arsonist although these destructive forces are created by different sets of conditions they all have one thing in common in their wake they leave indiscriminate devastation homes whole neighborhoods businesses sometimes remarkably entire towns and cities are wrecked normal life is disrupted [Music] and perhaps worst of all the frailty of human life is exposed the power of these forces is so enormous that bodies are broken as easily as children's toys and lives are snuffed out with as little effort as it takes to extinguish a candle but it is not enough merely to know about the power of these forces one must also understand the significance of that power because it is from such an understanding that it can hurt you both physically and mentally that preparation to minimize their effects at least on people must begin so preparation must begin before an emergency occurs but to be fully effective it must continue during and after that emergency simply put preparation is man's manifestation of an instinct as basic as self-preservation with few exceptions these disasters give ample warning of their approach before an emergency it is the knowledge of and the ability to recognize these warnings that is preparation during an emergency it is the translation of that knowledge into the proper course of action that is preparation it is common sense to listen to the radio to get accurate information on what to do and what is happening that is preparation after an emergency it is knowing precisely what to do that is preparation taken together these things and others add up to complete preparation and while there is no guarantee that they will ever be needed there is no gap she's do so impressions of our earth from space swirls of blue and white and green illuminated sharply against a black background a distant cold beauty silent lonely timeless from high above seemingly placid [Music] [Music] [Music] you