The Ethical Garden as Social Justice

For a while now I've said the environment is a moral and ethical issue, not a political one. Our government has made the conversation one about opinion and belief over fact. Even worse, those who give us the facts more and more admit it is not enough, those facts -- what we need is a total cultural revival of compassion and empathy for others of our own species, and for those of other species. I especially believe we need compassion for other species as well as their home places, and that once we practice this compassion over and over in thought and deed, we will slowly retrain our muscle memory and our relationships with one another will improve. One of the easiest places to foster compassion is in our own immediate landscapes -- suburban backyards and front yards; how we tend these landscapes will say a lot about how we tend school grounds, church grounds, parks, rivers, marshes, forests, prairies, and oceans. And it will say a lot about how we tend to one another.