''It’s not that I don’t understand this whole notion of valuing what we create more than we value what nature creates. When I was a child—and of course now, I’m horrified and ashamed I did this—I loved making terrariums, even caught lizards and snakes to put in them. I dreamt and dreamt of making the perfect terrarium, which would be so large that none of those who lived in it would ever know they were in a terrarium, but still it would be my creation. Never mind that there was a wild world full of lizards and snakes and everyone else already outside my door, with no need for them to be deceived into thinking they weren’t captives, since in all reality they weren’t. So I understand the impulse. What we create and control has value. What nature creates does not. I still like planting seeds, and I pay closer attention to the seeds I plant than I do to the native seeds who sprout in this forest. Likewise, I love putting food scraps into the forest, and watching for when they’re eaten, whether by big creatures, in which case the scraps simply disappear, or smaller organisms, in which case the scraps can take weeks or months to change color, collapse in on themselves, and finally become someone else. And the point is that I get more excited watching this process for the pumpkin scraps I place in the forest than I do for the dried berries hanging on the salal shrubs. The former are my contribution, and therefore special. I understand all this. I also understand that this overvaluing of our own creations and creativity and undervaluing nature’s creations and denying nature’s creativity helps explain many things about this culture. It helps explain how an astronomer can say we need to explore Mars “to answer that most important question: are we all alone?” as this culture destroys life on this planet. It helps explain how so many foresters can continue to claim, as their “forestry” destroys forest after forest, that “forests need management.” It helps explain how people keep trying to “manage fisheries” as they wipe out species after species. It helps explain how even so many so-called environmentalists state explicitly that they are trying to save, not the planet, but civilization, which so many perceive as humanity’s—and thus the universe’s—most important creation. As opposed to perceiving life itself as the universe’s most important creation. Or the universe itself as the universe’s most important creation. Imagine living in a culture sane enough to perceive life on this planet as more important to save (and worthy of saving) than this culture that is killing the planet''.

Jensen