By Frank Carini / ecoRI News columnist

October 5, 2026

Somehow and somewhere back in history humanity lost its way. We evolved in a biologically rich world over tens of thousands of generations. We destroyed most of that biological richness in order to improve our lives and generate more people.

They are evidently unaware that ecological services provided scot-free by wild environments are approximately equal in dollar to the gross world product. They choose to remain innocent of the historical principle that civilizations collapse when their environments are ruined.

Even if the rest of life is counted of no value beyond the satisfaction of human bodily needs, the obliteration of Nature is a dangerous strategy. For one thing, we have become a species specialized to eat the seeds of four kinds of grass — wheat, rice, corn, and millet. If these fail, from disease or climate change, we too shall fail. Some fifty thousand wild plant species (many of which face extinction) offer alternative food sources. If one insists on being thoroughly practical about the matter, allowing these and the rest of wild species to exist should be considered part of portfolio of long-term investment.

Because of the way my generation and those that preceded us have acted, Earth has already suffered worrisome losses — forests cut down, swamps drained, topsoil washed away, animals and plants driven to extinction, clean rivers turned foul, the very atmosphere unsettled.

Empires come and go. We can reduce interest rates, repair balance sheets, or print money. But once the glaciers and the forests have gone, there is no way to get them back. We may have billions in the bank, but human life on Earth will end.

The biomass we have added to the human race in the past forty-five years has been taken, little by little and day by day by day, from the species around us. When we cut down or burn down a forest to turn the land into cropland or pasture land, the biomass that formerly belonged to the tens of thousands of birds, bugs, foxes, squirrels, lizards, and all the other wildlife is destroyed.

We protect it carefully, because we want it for ourselves. It is our understanding that we need this biomass for ourselves and that we have a right to take it for ourselves — in ever-increasing amounts.

I certainly don’t mean that clearing a thousand acres of forest destroys whole species — though it’s not impossible that it may do so. What I mean is that clearing a thousand acres of forest diminishes tens of thousands of species. And when we clear the adjacent thousand acres, we further diminish those species. And the result is that inevitably species do become extinct.

To put it simply: When the rabbit population grows, the fox population that feeds on them grows. As the fox population grows, the rabbit population declines. And as the rabbit population declines, the fox population necessarily declines with it. And as the fox population declines, the rabbit population recovers and grows. And as the rabbit population grows, the fox population recovers and grows. And so on, through millions of generations and species, living together, some growing as others decline, some declining as others grow.

Except for humans.

Our perennial excuse for increasing food production: we must increase it to feed the starving millions. Except the fact is that, though I have heard this excuse and seen the annual increase in food production for the past 60 years, the starving millions have never gotten fed — ever. Everyone knows that there is food enough for them — if they could afford to buy it. There are no starving rich people anywhere in the world.

The question always is, how can we bring some clarity and focus and purpose to a debate that always seems to be caught up in technical arguments and competing short-term economic ideologies?

These days, we’re practically swimming in knowledge, bobbing around in a great swamp of the stuff called the Information Age, with more gushing in continually via electronic pipes that are constantly being fed.

Doesn’t seem to help solve anything, though.

It would be nice to kick the Information Age up a notch, into an Age of Wisdom. The problem is, philosophers, sages, and moral leaders — religious and secular — have been trying to do that for several thousand years. Yet as a whole, we don’t pay attention. Our libraries are filled with literature and histories of great enlightened men and women. But they and their moral descendants have always been in the minority.

The world is crying out for change — not for tinkering at the margins, but for profound change in the way we lead our lives. The economic model off which the world is working came from an Age of Innocence and is not fit for our purpose in the twenty-first century — the Ages of Consequences.

We have a long way to go to make peace with this planet, and with each other.

It is not too late. We still have options. We need the courage to change our values to the regeneration of our families, the life that surrounds us. We must join hands with the rest of Creation and speak of Common Sense, Responsibility, Brotherhood, and Peace.

In our way of life, in our government, with every decision we make, we always keep in mind the Seventh Generation to come. It’s our job to see that the people coming ahead, the generations still unborn, have a world no worse than ours and hopefully better. When we walk upon Mother Earth we always plant our feet carefully because we know the faces of our future generations are looking up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them.

I must also tell you that I believe we can change our ways, we can choose to do less harm, we can take better care of the soils and waters and air, we can make more room for all the creatures who breathe. And we are far more likely to do so if we think about the many children who will come after us.

Thinking about you draws my heart into the future. I want you to look back on those of us who lived at the beginning of twenty-first century and know that we bore you in mind, we cared for you, and we cared for our follow tribes — those cloaked in feathers or scales or chitin or fur, those covered in leaves and bark. One day it will be your turn to bear in mind the coming children, your turn to care for all the living tribes.

Note: The words above are not mine. They come from Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, a 2011 anthology. The writings of some 80 people argue that scientific data on the climate crisis isn’t enough, and humanity needs an ethical and moral imperative to protect the natural systems that support a rich mix of slumping life. The authors whose words I borrowed are: Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Oren Lyons, Hylton Murray-Philipson, Daniel Quinn, Scott Russell Sanders, Alan Weisman, and E.O. Wilson.

Frank Carini can be reached at frank@ecori.org. His opinions don’t reflect those of ecoRI News.