Earth thought 1 of 365: Our moral thought is too individualistic. It lacks economic, organizational, and ecological context.
Earth thought 2 of 365: Our actions are inconsequential, but our patterns are not. To think of our action as part of a pattern that leads to ecological stress or collapse.
Earth thought 3 of 365: Promissory justice -the Earth's given us a chance to live; do we act to show we deserve it? (Compare: You're given a job; does your work show you are deserving of it?)
Earth thought 4 of 365: We used to experience the sky's vastness as unaffected by us. Now its vastness is different -a slow moving effect we can't really steer, although we can steer ourselves.
Earth thought 5 of 365: There is a gap between character and consequence. Decent, responsible people produce horrible consequences (the sixth mass extinction, toxicity, climate change).
Earth thought 6 of 365: We focus on things like this ("Israel resembles a failed state", Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 27 December 2009), instead of on the ecological threat to billions in the future, because injustice now cries out. But what if we -even Israel and oppressed Palestine- heard the far future cries?
Earth thought 7 of 365: It is foul weather. Do I stop to think how lucky I am when it's good weather? But even foul weather is still livable. How can gratitude for the livable permeate my day?
Earth thought 8 of 365: A symptom of philosophy's blindness -the question, who am I?, has been asked for thousands of years, mainly without starting from the environment.
Earth thought 9 of 365: "My head is on fire.". Why not, "My head is a radiator"? Elements are smoother in their analogies, more evocative. Why?
Earth thought 10 of 365: Some say the Earth has a fever, caused by us. It will sweat us out. We warm the globe, the Gulf Stream stops, Europe gets covered in ice. Why aren't these nursery rhymes a part of everyday life?
Earth thought 11 of 365: Identification and ecological knowledge are different. We identify with the Earth in countless ways; we scarcely understand it.
Earth thought 12 of 365: Is it a waste to scale ourselves back, to be generous to the future? "Invest now, count on the market to adjust. We will profit, fund innovation." But generosity isn't a small virtue, like thrift. It is a great one. Focus on the loss there'd be to children years from now in a dead planet.
Earth thought 13 of 365: When environmental refugees stream over the border into the United States, as countless as drops of water in a stream, it will be too late to halt runaway climate change. Let us stop it now, then, so those poor people do not suffer.
Earth thought 14 of 365: The look on my parents' faces the night before their 45th anniversary. People who have grown together into Love. And money makes little difference beyond modest means, and status likewise is only moderately important. And, and. You would think we'd approach our planet like this, from the perspective of the memorable and the Significant.
Earth thought 15 of 365: People today hold so many different views of the good life. Still, the Earth is the biggest overlapping consensus. Everyone with a life plan needs it -whatever one's view. Shouldn't it, then, be basic to a theory of justice? Communists, liberals, capitalists, religious fanatics, even slackers all need the Earth.
Earth thought 16 of 365: "I heard kids playing today in the playground next to traffic. They were saying, 'One skip, two skip, three skips warm. All our towns are under storms. Oceans up, oceans down, oceans everywhere we drown.'" Then I woke up in the pollution-filled morning.
Earth thought 17 of 365: A society of organized irresponsibility is ill-fit to deal with the environment. When the economy is milked to death by leaders who are bailed out, given bonuses, and who then become the leaders of bail out corporations, and when the government encourages this, how can we count on foresight? People are reckless with impunity.
Earth thought 18 of 365: Thrift and generosity align in your loins. The thrifty loin gives the future a chance. Overpopulation strangles the Earth's ebullient life.
Earth thought 19 of 365: The sixth mass extinction is caused by us. How should we represent the loss in it? Not just the loss of this species or that. The loss of families and genera of species -unlike the extinctions in the history of life on Earth. A species is like a poem. But we are erasing whole genres of genetic creativity. We are burning whole sections of nature's library.
