When we were much younger we were ardent environmentalists.
We were taught and we believed that human civilization in general and western civilization in particular was pretty damned bad for the natural world.
We were taught and we believed that there really wasn’t any hope to save the planet let alone the thousands of other species living in it and perhaps not even our own.
We saw a couple of Bald Eagles on the side of the road Sunday.
We changed our minds.
We really don’t like to change our minds.
At our age it is much more comfortable to hold on to old beliefs than to embrace new truths.
But when a new truth smacks us in the face we can’t ignore it.
True we tried.
The first time we saw a cougar run across the road, we wrote it off to just one of those things, as we did when a herd of big horn sheep came to town and pronghorns stepped out onto the golf course.
We even went so far to concede that it was possible that some animals species might be on the increase probably temporarily for some unknown reason.
But these were Bald Eagles.
These birds, America’s symbol, we were taught and we believed were only hanging on by a thread.
They were doomed with a capital “D” and the irony of America wiping out its very symbol was pretty ironic.
It just served us right.
Wrong.
The return of the Bald Eagle along with all the other animals that should have gone the way of the buffalo have in fact come the way of the buffalo, because the buffalo is back too.
So with a whole new set of facts we are forced to change our opinion.
Civilization, particularly western civilization is not now bad for nature.
In fact it is pretty good.
With proper stewardship the wild can thrive along with people and all those things that come with people: houses, cars, golf courses, and easy access to drinking water.
We are not looking at the end of the world but rather a rebirth.
Yes western civilization was pretty crappy to flora and fauna in the last couple of hundred years. The passenger pigeon, the great auk and the quagga all bore mute witness to the depredations of the white man.
But that was a long time ago in the days when even the most sophisticated men had a carbon footprint of a baby today.
Do we have a ways to go?
Of course but we shouldn’t fear progress.
The Bald Eagles are back not in spite of us, but because of us.
Progress does not always mean extinction.
Progress can mean life.