Svetlana Litvinchuk

I remember when I first thought about the simultaneous reality of how impossibly beautiful it is to be alive – how impossible it would be to exist anywhere else in the galaxy – and then the cost each human life bears for the Earth. Consider the resources required to sustain the needs of one human life in its entirety, the energy required to produce the goods that make our lives comfortable and how much waste each one of us creates along the way, all of it having to go somewhere; then multiply that by 8 billion. Nature cannot afford for us to be so cavalier with the way we navigate personal responsibility to our planet. We tend to see things as static, as being around forever. But we are losing biodiversity at an alarming rate. It breaks my heart to think that my daughter will read about certain species the way we read about the Dodo as children, and the way we read about the white rhino today.

We live in a privileged time in history where, with the internet at our fingertips, we can communicate across the globe, read about events in real-time, and our intellects can reach further than our ancestors ever thought possible. But we must begin to use these privileges in order to see every action we take as multiplied on a global scale, resonating around the world. From there we can piece together our collective relationship with and responsibility to the Earth, and then we might understand the scale of climate change and the obstacles we have to overcome to steer ourselves toward a regenerative and sustainable future. The scale of natural disasters around the globe is currently affected by our lifestyles being out of balance with principles of sustainability.  When we begin living like we’re not separate from our environment, the Earth may begin to heal, and with that we may leave the Earth habitable for our children.