A Contract with the Earth

3. A Matter of Respect

3 A Matter of Respect Respect. (n) A feeling of high regard, honor, or esteem. webster’s new world college dictionary This page intentionally left blank 21 who among us lacks a fundamental respect for the earth? Without respect, we would not bother to recycle or care for our gardens or brake for the errant squirrel. Parents universally teach their children to respect the environment , encouraging them not to litter or waste energy. We want our schools to reveal the many interconnections and interdependencies between the environment and our personal experience. For most of us, respect for the environment is not some far-out concept; it is an embedded value of mainstream America. Among the college students we have taught in Georgia colleges and universities, we were gratified to find near-universal expressions of respect for the natural world. From kindergarten to college, it is easy to teach respect and concern for the environment. In childhood, family visits to museums, zoos, aquariums , botanical gardens, national parks, monuments, and wilderness reserves inspired us. The palms, peccaries, porpoises , porcupines, pythons, and other oddities we encountered in these natural settings sparked our youthful imaginations. These venerable institutions and venues still harbor a huge potential to inspire and educate young people ; yet, they have been underused and underappreciated as community centers for inspiring learning, shaping attitudes , and changing behavior. Because they so e√ectively inspire and teach, our museums, gardens, and zoos should receive our full support. Family trips to a museum or a zoo are always enlightening and a lot of fun, but we are fortunate to be sur- A Contract with the Earth 22 rounded by unbridled nature in our own backyards. If we just bother to look, we can see a vast population of fascinating local plants and animals in and around our homes. Our neighborhoods may be regarded as ‘‘community preserves’’ that most of us help to manage wisely if not diligently. Helpful environmental groups such as the National Wildlife Federation provide useful information on how to assemble and manage our backyard habitats. We eagerly create them at home, and we build them on the playgrounds of our neighborhood schools. The nearness of nature is an unavoidable and wonderful fact of life. It is here that respect is nurtured on a daily basis. Some of the fauna in our yards instantly evoke respect. Butterflies, for example, have a special capacity to enchant and inform. Callaway Gardens, a botanical oasis just outside Atlanta, is visited annually by hundreds of thousands of people who want to experience the charismatic nature of these frail, enigmatic creatures at the Cecil B. Day Butter fly Center. The blinking blanket of color in constant, silent movement eventually captures the imagination of even the grumpy few dragged along by more adventurous members of the family. Children can never get enough of the natural world. Butterflies have other virtues; scientists have discovered that butterflies are highly sensitive to changes in the environment. A healthy population of butter flies is a sign that all is well; a precipitous decline is a sign of danger ahead. Respect and awareness are easily cultivated within a butterfly center or garden. An early ex- A Matter of Respect 23 posure to butterflies will surely influence future botanists and zoologists, but the collective impact of these charismatic insects on humanity at-large is a greater and more enduring legacy. We know firsthand the potency of charismatic wildlife. Americans born after World War II grew up in a land and time that encouraged a heritage of optimism about the future. Doomsday scenarios depicting looming environmental crises and disasters are starkly out of sync with such a state of mind. We argue that they should be. The important lesson of the past few decades of environmental awareness is that the interests of wildlife and the environment are better served by optimism and hope. The environmental challenges are real, but our imagination and innate creativity give us confidence that humanity, against all odds, can and will prevail. The overwhelming complexity, elegance, and grandeur of nature powerfully motivate our concern and our resolve to protect these priceless assets. The esteemed ecologist Garrett Hardin, in his benchmark 1968 essay, ‘‘The Tragedy of the Commons,’’ warned that the earth and its life-forms were in grave peril. He argued that unrestricted access to natural resources and short-term thinking leads...