Among my chief concerns in our world is the continuing unfoldment of the institution known as ‘development’. The story goes in western societies that development is a good thing, you see, because it paves the way for economic growth, and that’s good for everyone, apparently.
The problem with development is that it destroys everything else in its path - meaning, the very foundation of life on the planet. Trees, foliage, and all animals and insects that depend upon this environment for their survival are summarily dismissed as being impediments to this wonderful institution. It may be difficult to stretch one’s imagination if living in a western country, but North America, for example, used to be covered in sprawling wilderness and forestland. And it wasn’t that long ago, either - the capitalist, land developing Europeans only began to first set foot on North American shores en masse in the 16th century. Who knows for how long before that - many thousands of years, quite possibly - were the North American shores painted in every shade of green and blue, and humming with a myriad of beautiful living creatures.
If one has never experienced what it feels like to be in an old growth forest, for example, it could be easy to lack understanding of what exactly we’re missing out on. This video from YouTube gives a good example of the breathtaking beauty and vitality of a natural, undeveloped setting:
Contrast this with your typical suburban or urban environment, where industrial death lingers in the air, along with the suffering of humans so removed from their natural environment as to believe that the suffocating ‘development’ that has made their environment the way it is, is viewed simply as an irrevocable fact of life.
I believe that we need to undo the horrifically damaging impacts of development on our world. We need to allow for the reforestation of suburbia and urban cities, and humans need to learn how to live in communion with the natural blueprint for Mother Earth, which appears in every environment where it is not outright suppressed by the likes of grass-cutting and other ‘developmental’ mainstays.