{"id":616,"date":"2015-09-27T20:16:25","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T20:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/?p=616"},"modified":"2025-01-31T19:41:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T19:41:46","slug":"its-our-environment-not-the-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/its-our-environment-not-the-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Its OUR Environment, not “The” Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

(c) Copyright 2015 David Dilworth<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ocean<\/a>

Ocean <\/b>Amphitheatre<\/b><\/span><\/span>,<\/b>
Big Sur, (c) David Dilworth<\/p><\/div>\n

Have you ever breathed air from another planet?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Or eating vegetables grown in another solar system ?<\/p>\n

Of course not. We all (6 billion of us humans) breathe air from the same atmosphere<\/strong> and eat food grown from the same rain<\/strong>. It may take quite a while for them to get distributed around our entire planet, but eventually it all gets mixed together.<\/p>\n

So why does nearly everyone, with a tiny few wonderful exceptions, use a horribly misleading term — “the<\/span> <\/em>environment<\/strong>” ?<\/p>\n

How insulating, how incorrect, how awful !<\/p>\n

Unless we’re discussing Astrophysics, we’re never talking about some distant environment on another planet or in another solar system.<\/p>\n

It darn well is OUR environment<\/strong>, the only one we’ve got.<\/p>\n

If we ruin it, there is no second chance<\/strong>, no backup, no do-overs – no Planet B<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Apart from<\/em> — or A-Part-Of<\/em> ?<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The<\/em> Environment<\/strong>” indicates something we are separate from<\/em><\/strong> or apart from<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Whereas “Our Environment<\/strong>” properly indicates something we are a part of<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When it is explained, most people get it and embrace it, sometimes they just forget to use the correct term.<\/p>\n

So when public officials or the media use the misleading term, you have my encouragement to explain the correct usage. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Indeed, feel free to send them the link to this short article.<\/strong><\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pope Francis’ (translated) encyclical–<\/p>\n

“So the dominion of the Earth should not be taken as a license to fully exploit our environment<\/strong>, but, on the contrary, to be responsible stewards of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/news.usc.edu\/86088\/usc-scholars-assess-pope-francis-encyclical-on-the-environment\/<\/p>\n

(Note how the USC writer got it wrong, but the Pope got it right.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(c) Copyright 2015 David Dilworth Have you ever breathed air from another planet? Or eating vegetables grown in another solar system ? Of course not. We all (6 billion of us humans) breathe air from the same atmosphere and eat … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[92,90,91,93],"class_list":["post-616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-picture","category-education","tag-big-sur","tag-david-dilworth","tag-pope-francis","tag-usc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":746,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions\/746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}