"The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope."
(Wendell Berry)
The recent easing of lock-down restrictions, and subsequent increase in traffic through our village, made me cast my mind back to when I was a child playing in the street outside our house in Thornbury, Bradford. I don't remember there being a single car. We could play with freedom and safety. The only vehicles I recall were the ones that made deliveries to our home: the milk float, the coal wagon, the fizzy pop lorry.
In the sixty-odd years since then a lot has changed, much of it for the better. The Clean Air Act in 1956 meant that we eventually no longer burnt coal; mill chimneys stopped belching out black smoke; 'pea-souper' fogs seemed to disappear. Yet we are told that our air, land, seas and rivers are now more polluted than ever. I hardly dare think what our beautiful world will be like in 500 years' time.
What a legacy we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. Fortunately, they seem to be acutely aware of the need for urgent action. The message (above) from poet Wendell Berry seems to be reaching them. Here is an interesting website, aimed at the younger generation, about the need to care for the environment.
Writing prompts:
- Write about the environmental changes you have witnessed during your lifetime - good and bad.
- What have you done this week to care for the earth? Write about it.
- Whose responsibility is 'the care of the earth'? Explore this question in your writing.
- Write about what you 'cherish' the most about our world.
- Make a list of all the things you, and others, could do to 'foster its renewal'.
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