Environment - does not exist “outside”, it is around us and within us.

The environment does not exist “outside”, it is around us and within us

What is known is that the world, as we have known it, is disintegrating before our eyes. We are not speaking about societies; they come and go. We are referring to the actual world, what we usually refer to as the environment – nature. 

When nature goes it doesn’t come back. Damage can sometimes be reversed but the extinction of a plant, an insect, a fish, a mammal, or a bird is a final act. It is gone forever. With it goes the function that it served, a thread in the vast tapestry of life. 

Who would do such a monstrously stupid thing? Who indeed? Many people now realize that the existential threat of our actions is rebounding on us. As ice melts, oceans rise, insects disappear, and climate driven fires burn down the forests we consider action but what kind of action. 

The most significant actions involve our personal choices. Paramount among these is the food we eat. Raising animals, growing food for animal production, and the transportation, refrigeration and processing of animal sourced foods are the major cause of environmental damage to the air, water, soil, and seas of the world. We eat every day and our choices can reflect our commitment to a sustainable and healthy world. We can model the future.

We can still reduce, recycle and reuse. We can still vote for those who speak the truth and take action, force industry to clean up their act - all good things. There are many good things we can do but not if we think that the solution is getting other people to fix the problem. Personal commitment and action in our patterns of consumption is the crucial key. We cannot allow ourselves to become victims of a cruel world. The personal is planetary.

Every month, the Human Ecology Project Newsletter will keep you up to date with positive actions you can take to create a healthy environment for all human and non-human life.