Despite society’s seeming obsession with competition and one-upmanship, the raw and sometimes hard-to-live-up-to truth is that our planet is a closed system – there is no actual “away” to throw things, no true “other” to be afraid of and no possible difference between the suffering of one and the suffering of all, even if that isn’t apparent at first glance.

As many spiritual and religious teachers instruct, we are all one with our brothers and sisters, and we are all brothers and sisters. Just as you can’t sanely or healthily cut off one finger to “leave more stuff” for the rest of the hand, neither can you pollute, exploit, undermine or hurt one part of earth, one population of people or one species of life without it eventually coming back to hurt us all.