Thoughts inspired by the Pacific

When we arrived at the San Francisco airport, we were met by my sister’s red-headed hippy fiancé, stuffed ourselves into their bio-diesel sedan, and drove off to the beats of Michael Franti. We headed strait to the YMCA Center at point Bonita in the Golden Gate National Park, where my sister teaches environmental education. We walked around their garden, ate some kale picked fresh off the stalks, and harvested some basil to put in our dinner. We hiked around the beach before driving back to their house in the park where we ate dinner from the farmers market, went to sleep early and woke up bright and early, eager to begin the new day.


One of the session I attended yesterday, “Re-Weaving the Web of Life: Conserving Global Biodiversity”, focused on how we can start repairing the ecosystems that we have so vehemently degraded. The first speaker opened impatiently and powerfully: We are from Nature and we need the Natural world; we are separating ourselves from Nature at our peril; and environmental education is crucial for our return to our Natural roots, which we must do in order to survive. “We are living in a tumultuous but pivotal time,” he went on. Nature is becoming an abstract concept as it disappears around us. If children never go outside, “who will be the environmentalists of the future?"


As media disseminates a disproportionate amount of fear into our daily lives - in an hour the average cable news channel gives over 26 minutes of their time to crime coverage - the radius we let ourselves travel into nature shrivels. Since the 1950s, the area in which children are allowed to roam and play has shrunk by 90%, and the amount of time they are given to play has drastically diminished as well. Some of this “bogeyman syndrome” also translates over to the environment. Fears of snakes and sharks keep people from enjoying their natural habitats, and are grossly out of proportion with reality. 80% of snakes are not venomous, and 50% of snake bites are dry. You are more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than by a shark attack. And on the other hand, kids who don’t spend time outside are statistically more likely to be obese, and that can kill you too.


This warped view of nature is occurring at the same time as we’re developing a warped view of science. In that same hour of coverage, cable news channels might cover 1 minute of scientific reports. Over 90% of Americans say that they are “Interested in Science” but at the same time, these surveys show that 50% think that humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs. But on a happier note- zoos, aquariums, and museums in America are better attended than sporting events. This is important, as it shows that we can still feel our deep connections to Nature and still yearn to learn more, and it reveals to us a hope for the future.


WE NEED ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION. We need Nature in the classroom and for Nature to be the classroom. Then we need children to be outside, in unstructured, un-programmed free play. We need children in national parks plucking fresh kale and walking the beach with sand in their toes.


On that first day, at the YMCA, we took a walk down to the beach and were immediately swept away into a cloud of fog and refracted light. I took my shoes off and felt the waves lick my ankles and the sand cling between my toes. Walking the edge of the pacific ocean, you remember that this earth is sacred. Seeing the footprints you leave behind, you remember to the impact you make. And watching them get swept away, you remember our time here is short. We need to make a difference, while we still can.