They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

When Joni Mitchel sang the immortal lines “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” in 1970, it was really only the start of the creeping destruction of our natural world. Since then the change has accelerated at an incredible rate. Whereas, we had lush fields full of life, trees containing myriad insects and birds, all living together and cooperating, we now have large barren platforms of concrete. The pursuit of progress in it’s insatiable appetite, has taken more and more and more. It happens slowly enough that the average human doesn’t notice. Occasionally you will hear the screams and shouts of someone who gets it. Who understands that once something is lost, it doesn’t come back. We truly do live in paradise. Imagine for a moment, standing on any other planet in our solar system, if you could. If it was rocky, you would see a barren, lifeless mass of rock and sand. If it were a watery or gassy planetoid, you might see a bit more activity but not the trees and plants, the birds and insects that we see here. The utter beauty of flowers of many different colours and scents. This is the only planet that we know of, that harbours such life. In the film Don’t Look Up, Leonardo DeCaprio’s character, right at the end, says the line “We really had it all didn’t we” and we do. If you believe in life on other planets, which to be fair, is pretty much a mathematical certainty. They would look at what we have here, and be in wonder. The breadth of life on this lump of rock, water and mud is extraordinary. Why are we so eager to pave it all over and turn it into a parking lot?