As beings interconnected with and completely dependent on our ecosystem, we are obliged to participate in it. Our society’s anthropocentric priorities have led us to believe we have the ability and responsibility to exert control over our environment. For me a fruitful community is one that makes it possible for all organisms to fulfill their role in their ecosystem. Introducing native plants to support native pollinators and rebuilding a displaced community this way is fruitful because increased biodiversity helps create an ecosystem that can support even more life. In the ideal community, we would steward the land in a way that enables all organisms to benefit from a habitat abundant in sources of nourishment.
I want to fight climate change because I have no other options. I have felt powerless in the destruction of my ecosystem for a long time. I was born and raised on Tybee Island, Georgia. The development and degradation of its landscape over the course of my life is staggering. I want to fight climate change because as Lord Byron wrote,
“I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learn’d the language of another world”