When we were in Africa,  in 2013 we were stunned by the amount of wild life we saw. One of the best places was Chobe National Park in Botswana.  It seemed like around every corner every couple of minutes, there was more to see. When we travel from Manitoba to Arizona each winter we rarely see any. Yet when Europeans arrived on the North American continent there were more wild animals than in Africa! Where did they all go? You  know where they went.

Although the Holocene era was fantastic it was not all perfect. As Dickens said, about another era, they were the best of times, they were the worst of times. Really our times were better than the times of the French revolution the time he was referring to in his great novel A Tale of Two Cities. But life created by humans was far from unmixed forward progress. We created the atomic bomb.  Our actions led to the Great Depression. We conquered some diseases; we ushered in others. We created the holocaust where we killed 6 millions of our own species.

By 1954, when I was 6 years old the population of the world had increased to 2.7 billion, carbon in the atmosphere increased to 310 parts per million in the atmosphere, and the remaining wilderness around the world had shrunk to 64%. But few of us noticed things had already changed. Even less were concerned. After all, we were the lucky ones living in the Holocene. So we thought. Actually, we were wrong. Another epoch had begun, though the exact starting date is still not certain.

Our technologies were making life easier. And the pace of change was speeding up dramatically. Our ideas were bearing fruit. And it all seemed good. Though there were a few shadows on the horizon. One was shaped like a mushroom in the sky. The Holocaust was behind us. We were convinced it was an aberration. We had learned from it and progress would proceed unhindered. Lucky us. These were illusions. There were problems out there. Big ones. And they were real.

By 1960 the world population increased to 3 billion people.  Carbon in the atmosphere increased to 315 parts per million and the remaining wilderness shrunk to 62%.

A lot of those problems have been created by the immense pressure on the planet by so many people and so many of those people getting richer so they could afford to affect the planet more drastically.

As a result, people were not realizing that the traditional attitude to nature—that it was a resource for us to do with as we pleased was exactly the wrong attitude.  We need a new attitude to nature, and we need it fast.