Editor,

Reciprocity is the key to survival. Reciprocity is the essence of life. It is life.

We are told, more or less incessantly, that survival is based on being the meanest, most selfish, best able to exploit.

But those who say that are wrong. They have forgotten — or do not care to remember — that nature loves a community. It’s simply true that nature loves a community more than nature loves you or me. Nature loves a community more than nature loves a community-destroying culture.

It is not true that all of evolution has taken place so that industrial civilization can deform humans to fit the needs of industrial civilization. It is not true that all of evolution has taken place so that humans can destroy life on this planet in the service of industrial civilization.

I’m sorry to have to be the one to deliver that news. This culture is extraordinary, but not so much for the reasons so many people like to pretend: its high technology, its relentless expansion, its vast military capabilities, its art, literature, science. Instead, it is extraordinary in that it does not give back to the land, the water, the air, the nonhumans, the vast majority of humans.

This culture is even more extraordinary in that many of its members seem to think they can continue to not give back, and survive.

Or maybe they can survive, all the while keeping their jet skis and RVs, their aircraft carriers and super domes. They can keep this culture until they die.

Personally. Only if they are already very old.

This planet is collapsing. Now. This culture is causing this collapse.

This culture is killing the planet. Don’t listen to me, listen to the planet.

Matt Linder

Langley