There's something I have been wondering about for a long time, so I guess this rainy day in October is as good a time as any to get up the courage to ask.
What if, over many generations, humans had had to pay Nature for her resources...the resources themselves (not for the labor to extract them, cut them down, whatever)? I mean, these things have effectively been free gifts from Nature (or items freely taken by humans, depending on your perspective). Would it be possible to have our modern profit-based economies -- or any kind of money economy at all -- if we had been charged for these valuable assets?
I don't know the answer to this, and perhaps it would be impossible to calculate. But as every day brings news of efforts to address climate change -- taxes, new technologies, laws, suggested personal choices -- I can't help but sense ever more acutely the need to fill in the most gaping hole. At the very least, for starters, can we (individually and collectively) just thank Nature? I can't see how any of these other actions will work if we cannot respect Her, express gratitude to Her, and listen to what She has been trying to tell us. It isn't too late to gratefully acknowledge the immense value of what She has given us for free over the centuries, and to do this unconditionally.
