Is it just my impression, or has there been a spate of nature and environment-related document­aries recently?

Last year alone brought us The Age of Stupid, Home, Earth 2100, The Cove and Food, Inc., to name a few. And let’s not forget such recent efforts as An Inconvenient Truth, The 11th Hour, Planet Earth, March of the Penguins, Everything’s Cool, Grizzly Man, The End of Suburbia and King Corn. Several of these were nominated for Oscars, some were unjustly overlooked, and three won Best Documentary Feature. Quantity and awards may be impressive, but what are these films telling us?

It's 2060. Your grandchildren are sitting in their classroom. On the wall hangs a photograph of a blue planet. But it isn’t Earth. It’s a planet in a distant star system. And we know that this planet harbours life. Humanity is not alone. Now imagine a different scenario. Suppose our search for planets with alien life finds nothing. What if Earth is the only fertile oasis in the galaxy and there is nowhere else to go? Wouldn’t that make preserving our planet’s environment even more important?