Imagine how different our world would be if the vast majority of people lived by this simple rule. In fact, I'll even water it down to:
Leave the place at least as good as you found it!
The implications of a philosophy like that are mind-boggling to me. People wouldn't consider it acceptable to use natural resources up without replacing them or at least having a system in place that guaranteed sufficient resources for generations a hundred - or thousand - years from now. No one would produce waste that can't possibly be recycled or safely disposed of. Parents would raise their children with the intent that they become responsible citizens of the world, in order to ensure their descendents would take as good care of everything around them as they had. Politicians wouldn't be able to win elections by selling out the future in order to pander to the present. Employees would think about the state of what they'll leave behind when their current employment ends, and employers would consider maintaining or even improving their workplace to be a high priority.
It's the opposite of the Scorched Earth approach that seems so popular these days. It's certainly not consistent with It's All About Me, or I Want It All And I Want It Now, so I suppose we'll never see it. But a man can dream!
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My mother told me a story a long time ago that showed me how wasteful I was. When she was married she went with my dad to visit his parents. My mom and dad stayed in their house for the duration. On the first day, my mom opened up something that was in a package and went to throw the wrapper in the garbage. She couldn't find one in the bedroom. Nor the bathroom. Eventually she went to the kitchen and still nothing, so she asked her new mother-in-law. They didn't have a garbage can because they never threw things out. This was how they had always lived. And this was during the 1960s, long before any "environmentalism". They just didn't waste anything.
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