It always moved me when Ray Charles sang it, but it also made me think of how we have taken this beautiful land for granted. Nearly 150 years have passed since Henry David Thoreau wrote the following words in his essay “Walking” in 1862:
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil – to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.”
John Muir, who died in 1914, wrote these words in A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf:
"Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit - the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.
President Theodore Roosevelt understood, respected and acted on John Muir’s call for preservation and stewardship of the environment:
"We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.”
Even today, there are those who still believe that global warming is not an emergency. Hurricane Katrina showed us painfully what can happen when we are not prepared. The Bush administration’s record on the environment is an embarrassment. Vote for real change. Write your senators and congressmen. Don’t give up. Make America Beautiful and lead the world by example.
“I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize…We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level”. Al Gore 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
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