The problem is the way we see our place in the world is what shapes the way
we act. If you look at our history as a species, for 95 per cent of our
existence, we were nomadic hunter-gatherers. And as a hunter-gatherer, you know
damn well that you're absolutely embedded in, and utterly dependent on, nature
for your survival and well-being. 10,000 years ago – the last five per cent of
our existence – we discovered agriculture; if you're a farmer, you know very
well that the seasons, weather, climate directly affect your ability to survive
or not. They know that winter snow is directly related to how much moisture you
have in the soil in the summer; that insects – yes, some are pests – but
they're absolutely crucial for pollinating flowering plants; that certain trees
and plant species can take nitrogen and fix it as fertilizer in the soil.
Farmers know that we are part of nature.
What's happened is a fundamental shift in the last 100 years that now blinds
us from being able to see our place on the planet. 85 per cent of us in Canada
now live in big cities. We've been utterly transformed in 100 years from being
a farming animal to a big city dweller. And in the big city, people think, “As
long as we have parks out there, where we can go camping and playing in, well
who needs nature? My important thing is my job; I need a job in order to be
able to go out and buy the things I want.”
So, from an urban perspective, then, the economy becomes the source of
everything that matters to us. And when you're living in that world – where the
economy is elevated above everything else – then of course you'll say, “We
can't stop clear-cutting – it'll destroy the economy. We can't stop dragging
huge nets across the bottom of the ocean, because it's bad for the fisheries.
And we can't stop injecting carbon into the atmosphere, because that'll shut
down the fossil fuel industry.” The economy, then, trumps everything else
because that's our highest priority in the city. It becomes very, very
difficult to see the real world. And it's becoming increasingly more difficult
as children spend less and less time outside.
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