"Leaving the World Better..."

“Try to leave the world better than you found it.”  It seems naïve on the surface, but the idea is/can be powerful . . .  Whether parents are still planting this idea in their kids’ heads or not, I don’t know.  Or even whether it was usual for parents of the past.  But that little message, given only once or maybe a few times, is one of the more vivid impressions left from my childhood.  The message struck some chord, and took root . . .

Hippocrates put it more modestly:  “First, do not harm.”  One way or another, though we all “do harm” to something or other.  The greater part of the harm we do to our world is for us Americans, conveniently out of sight and out of mind.

I am optimist enough at heart to believe that it actually is possible, for even an American to leave a balance sheet on the plus side, in one way if not another.

Love—social change vs. environmental change—attitudes.

All this aside, for all the good intentions, for all we do as individuals, it is hard not to see, almost anywhere you look, an apparent clear connection between population growth and environmental deterioration.

Whether you blame it on population, overconsumption, apathy, or Satan, our Eden is eroding.

For thousands of our fellow species, it’s all over already.  

Our great big brains.

Our great big appetites

Our great big fears

Have brought us here.

We are toddlers who inherited a fine mansion and a full set of power tools and a full armory of weaponry, and time.  What could you expect?