The Amazing "Planet Earth"

What do you normally do at 8pm on Sunday night?
I would seriously consider planting yourself down in front of the tube to watch Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel. It is an amazing mini-series. I think this show has an amazing ability to share some of the world's most unique places and events - all of them natural.
I think that we sometimes forget about how special we are to have such an amazing rock to live on. The scenes and events captured by these cinematographers are so real, so right-before-your-eyes, that protecting them seems the only 'natural' thing to do.
Sometimes we get so lost in the events that shape our own lives that it helps to see things from another perspective. I think that the folks who created this series legitimately wanted to share the 'natural' world with the 'developed' world. After you watch a show like this, the ideas that Al Gore or other environmentalists discuss have a richer, more concrete context.
This whole concept of 'Global Warming' comes from a line of thinking that many people just don't get - and that is understandable. Our society seems to be somewhat polarized on the issue of the environment, but it doesn't have to be that way.
We are an amazingly powerful animal, we humans. We have the power to flatten, deforest, develop, and homogenize the landscape. But we also have an amazing power to understand, explore, photograph, and protect places. Especially those places we see on "Planet Earth."