We need to make an effort to find signs of hope, even if we’re not going to become eternal optimists or hopeless optimists (ha!) This is not only a spiritual exercise, but emotional and intellectual and, in our day and age, often technical and scientific. There may not be easy solutions to problems, but the process of investigation, if well done and significant, can offer hope that these solutions will be found. As one example to start this dialogue, planting a billion trees a year with drones is exciting: Planting Trees Then again, we could encourage more people to imitate Johnny Appleseed! Apparently these machines can tackle terrain that would be challenging even for Johnny… Another video on the Wimp site is about Air Shepherd and its use of drones to combat rhino and elephant poaching. I bet Jane Goodall would like this! Stopping Ivory Poaching
Whenever we immerse ourselves in the natural world we will find signs of hope there and elsewhere in our lives. How much of this is feeling and how much is knowledge? Nature is a laboratory of creativity, a wellspring for spirit and invention.Let nature be your teacher” (William Wordsworth). Comment here on Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv. “A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he” (Walt Whitman) “It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to… The feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures” (Vincent Van Gogh) “It is not half so important to know as to feel when introducing a young child to the natural world” (Rachel Carson) Richard Louv