Not that long ago most of us on planet Earth lived on the land, that is to say with nature. Today there are many more billions of us and we live in megacities from Cairo to Karachi and Mexico City to Beijing. Away from nature. We have largely distanced ourselves from the natural world. Concrete barriers separate us. We have constructed networks of highways. We have paved over our gardens and fields to build malls and subdivisions. We put up parking garages to accommodate cars while people have nowhere to live. The embedded assumption of the current path of what is called development is that nature will always be there providing its bounty. Will it? How much more pounding can the environment absorb? What are the emotional and spiritual costs? What kind of legacy are we leaving future generations?

David Suzuki, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, is a leading environmentalist and science educator. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science. He is the host of the long-running CBC-TV program The Nature of Things. He is the author of more than fifty books, including The Sacred Balance and Everything Under the Sun.