RESPECT THE LAND
By treating our planet as a community, we can save our natural riches for future generations
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BY AL GORE
When we consider a subject as sweeping as the environment, we
often focus on its most tangible aspects--the air we breathe,
the water we drink, the food we put on the table. Those things
are critically important. But to me the environment is also
about something less tangible, though no less important. It is
about our sense of community--the obligation we have to each
other, and to future generations, to safeguard God's earth. It
is about our sense of responsibility, and the realization that
natural beauty and resources that took millions of years to
develop could be damaged and depleted in a matter of decades.
Those are values I learned firsthand, as a young boy on my
family's farm in Carthage, Tennessee. We didn't call it
environmentalism back then; it was simply common sense. My
earliest environmental lessons came from our efforts to prevent
soil erosion--by stopping the formation of gullies that would
wash away the vital topsoil on which our farm depended. For a
time, some large farmers who leased their land for short-term
profits didn't worry about soil erosion; that's one of the
reasons more than three hectares of prime topsoil floats past
Memphis every hour, washed away for good.
As a teenager, I learned that such short-term thinking was
causing even more serious problems. One of the books that we
discussed around our family table was Rachel Carson's classic
Silent Spring, about pesticide abuse. As it did for millions
around the world, Carson's book helped awaken in me an
understanding that our planet's life is too precious to squander.
Today, the threats to our environment are even clearer to
see--and much greater in scope and number. We live in a world
where climate change, deforestation, holes in the ozone layer
and air pollution are growing sources of concern. Our challenge
is to find new ways to address those problems by reaching back
to our oldest values of community and responsibility--by
inspiring a greater respect for the land and the resources we
share--even as economies and societies advance and develop
around the world.
Fortunately, as I have raised a family of my own, I have learned
that we have millions of powerful allies in this cause: our
children. It is often children who remind their parents to
recycle their cans, or to bundle their newspapers. It is often
children who remind their parents of the simple miracles of
nature--the crops that come from our farms, the parks and lakes
and campsites where families and communities gather.
If we are to protect and preserve our environment on a global
scale, we all must do our part, as nations, as families and as
individuals. The need for awareness has never been greater, and
the opportunity for us to make a difference is just as great. If
we practice and teach the right kind of care and commitment for
our environment, it will continue not only to bring us its
natural gifts, but also to bring us together.
The U.S. Vice President is author of Earth in the Balance |
