ENVIRONMENT

If we're going to try and make the world a better place, one of the first things we need to do is protect our natural environment. Without clean air and water and a healthy ecosystem to support life, we'll all be dead anyway; so there's not much point in working to reduce poverty or fight crime. Of course, it's possible that all of these problems are interconnected somehow; but we'll consider that elsewhere.

It seems that we in the Western world, and the US in particular, have a problem with living within our limits. Far too many of us take after our government and spend more money than we actually have. This keeps us from saving for our childrens' future and could even force them to pay for our extravagance.

In the same way, we have been destroying the natural heritage which should be saved for future generations. We continue to destroy natural areas and replace them with shopping malls and parking lots. Today our human civilization and its toxic byproducts cover the globe. What we call wilderness is actually a few tiny pockets of life struggling to keep the planet from dying. Ancient trees steadily producing oxygen as they wait to be turned into toilet paper, newspapers and cardboard boxes. Clever foxes chasing speedy rabbits while both wait to have their bodies ripped apart and turned into fur coats and good luck charms. Lumbering grizzlies and packs of wolves searching for food and occasionally killing a fat cow or dumb sheep which were too stupid and frightened to even run away and thus too good a target to pass up.

This complex system is much like a spider's web which can be ripped apart by the wind, a stray branch, or the deliberate swipe of a human hand. But like that spider's web, the web of life can be rebuilt - not by humans, but by Mother Earth herself. However, its structure and composition may be different from what it originally was. Life will continue, but many species are being lost. Perhaps someday humanity will be one of them. If we wish to survive, we need to protect the ecosystem on which we all depend. That means protecting the wild areas which remain and reclaiming what we can. It also means celebrating the joy, diversity and sacred beauty of the natural world rather than destroying every piece of it we touch.

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