So many of us live in cities these days that when we think of The Environment, we think of it as something separate, elsewhere, an entity apart from our daily lives. 

Design & Nature shop window, Paris. Photo: PKR

We see slogans like Save The (Insert habitat or animal name here) and it’s not a place or creature we know like we know our own piece of green, or our family pet. 

We can say we are all part of a whole, but we go to a park and don’t take off our shoes to really feel that. 

We see a new construction project go up and like it or don’t like it, but don’t apprehend that this, too, is our own creature environment changing, and changing us. 

Design & Nature shop window, Paris. Photo: PKR

What does the loss of a glacier, a forest, a species of songbird have to do with your daily life? Go out and find the nearest patch of dirt or green or tree. Take off your shoes. Look around and be there, a part of it just for a moment. You are there as much as any of the creatures and habitats – no more, no less. 

It’s World Environment Day. Protecting parts of life doesn’t mean putting them in a museum or under glass any more for them than it would for you. It means protecting ourselves.