REleamses

[Anne Kilmer]

Doug Yanega wrote:
> 
> Straying even farther off-topic...
> 
> Paul Weaver wrote:
> 
> >Who are we to think that we can save
> >the planet or destroy the planet.  The planet has been here for billions
> >of years before man arrived and will be here billions of years after man
> >has left.
> 
> The planet, certainly, but all the other organisms on it? It doesn't appear
> impossible for us to reduce the planet to a sterile waste, if we do things
> just right. Are you *POSITIVE* that we cannot push the climate past the
> threshold conditions for it to become permanently overheated? Are you
> *positive* that all the thousands of nuclear warheads around will never be
> used, and that if they are, that this won't eliminate all terrestrial
> vertebrates, and much of the rest? A planet populated by little more than
> bacteria is not a very promising legacy. Myself, I wouldn't put it past us
> to have that sort of destructive potential. It probably *is* our choice, to
> save or destroy. All depends on what we do, exactly, but the worst-case
> scenarios are pretty grim.
> 
> Anyway...
> It's a pretty good padded room. You're welcome to join me. We'll sing 
sad songs about the death of kings. 
Brightness falls from the air.
Nevertheless, I have half a mind to struggle.
What I'm doing here at least gets the kids out into the fresh air 
messing with dirt and bugs.
At a recent gardening party at Wellington Elementary, it was fun 
watching the grownups about to tell the kids to quit messing with the 
centipedes and get to work digging ... and then suddenly, all at once, 
realize that the centipedes were the point and that digging was 
secondary.
I think, I hope, that if we get all the world's kids out looking at bugs 
with loving affection, the earth may relent and decide to put up with us 
a while longer. 
Putting it less teleologically, children taught this lesson will treat 
the earth tenderly. And so will their parents. It is the duty of 
children to teach their parents. Always has been.
Habitat preservation, habitat restoration are the keys, of course. And 
how do we get starving people to care for their environment? 
Oh well. 
Anne kilmer
South Florida