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Flying over the skyscrapers of New York City, we pass through the windows
of a high-rise apartment where a family is finishing breakfast. Today's
cities feel as if they will last forever. Everything we need is at our
disposal. But do we ever stop to wonder where all this comes from? Before
we realize what is happening, the camera moves towards the faucet where
the father is filling a glass of water, follows the stream of water, and
swims up into the faucet.
In a wild IMAX ride, we drop down through the building's water pipes,
twist through city mains and valves into the great aqueduct, and finally
burst out of the subterranean system and up to the sunlit surface
of the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskill mountains. Because most of
us live in cities, it's easy to forget how much we depend on nature.
If New York had to build water-purification plants, it would cost
billions. Here, in the Catskills, nature provides that service free
of charge.
We follow rainfall into the soil, past giant grubs and truck-sized
mites. What we call "dirt" is actually a miniature metropolis far
busier than New York—a living, breathing world where tiny organisms
forage for food. These organisms break down leaves and organic matter
in soil and water: they are the agents that purify our water, create
the soil we grow our food in, and condition the air we breathe. We
don't know exactly how they do this, but we do know that the answer
lies in the number of different life forms present and the relationships
between them. Scientists call this complex variety of life "biodiversity."
The health of each ecosystem is determined by the diversity of life
within it.
Everywhere, life has found ways to thrive. Each place, each ecosystem,
shapes its own community of plants and animals. In an aerial montage,
we fly from the polar ice caps to the equator. The soundness of each
ecosystem depends on the maintenance of the balance of the interrelationships
of all the organisms within it.
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