Any digging/destruction of Nature in your neighbourhood?

   by Amos Keppler

   Humanity has changed over 50 percent of the Earth's surface... a process progressively increasing its speed. Take a look around, and tell me what your see.

   I don't know about you, but I've noticed something lately. Something I've always noticed, of course, but not really being consciously aware of.
   I want to dwell on this, before moving on. I've been an environmentalist/rebel during my entire adult life. But we're all fooled, aren't we, fooled by the illusion, the sleight of hand to look away? In bigger and smaller things, we're tricked, trained to not noticing the obvious.
   What I've realized lately, is the fact that there are digging, followed by construction work virtually everywhere. I even saw it in the Norwegian mountains, where there aren't that many people. My claim is that you and any other human on Earth see construction work going on in your immediate neighbourhood It might be a field, it might be a small forest. The small field, the small forest, the remains of some ancient wilderness. A house perhaps, a shopping mall, an office building. In the city there is pressure to remove the tiny, remaining areas of "relaxation space". In the suburbs Urbania is spreading outwards, ever outwards.
   We've grown used to this. As we slave at least eight hours a day under the yoke, we don't see either the smaller nor bigger picture. We may notice a giant poison spill somewhere, and if it happens in our close proximity we may even be enraged... for a while. But we're not consciously aware of the silent march of civilization, the slow destruction of Nature going on in every neighbourhood on the planet, a process that can have only one, inevitable conclusion.