Saving Nature - Q #3

This is a really tough question to answer, because I have about three or four different memories running through my brain right now. But the one that sticks out the most was a night that I spent up in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. It was over the summer, I was backpacking with a friend, and we decided to spend the night outside of our tent since the weather was so nice. That night, lying in my sleeping back I had a panoramic view of the night sky, dotted with thousands of stars. But I think the thing that was so “magical” about it was that they way I was laying and looking at the sky, you could see the curvature of the Earth, like a reminder that the mountain I was on was part of an enormous thing, much bigger than my own existence.

The experience that I described above is probably the biggest reason why I think preserving nature is one of the biggest factors in working to reverse environmental harm. Not only is recreationally-speaking an important part of a healthy lifestyle, its a scientific fact that the benefit of spending time in nature as a child is a huge factor in management of things like ADHD, etc. Look at Richard Louv's book “Last Child in the Woods”, in which he argues for the therapeutic value of outdoor time for children. I think the best thing for our society is to return to an appreciation and awareness of the benefits of the natural world.