Weekly Digest for April 25. 2025

This Earth, This Chance

This week, I’ve been thinking less about saving the planet and more about saving our relationship with it. The Earth doesn’t need our heroism—it’s endured cataclysms, ice ages, and extinctions before. What’s really at stake is us. Our health, our stability, our children’s future. Whether we’re wise enough to live in balance with what sustains us—or arrogant enough to believe we can thrive while poisoning the ground beneath our feet.

On Monday, I published The Rot Before the Collapse, a hard look at how environmental devastation isn’t always a failure—it’s often the intended outcome of corrupt, short-sighted systems. The same industries that profit from destruction are protected by the very governments meant to hold them accountable. And while the headlines talk about “unintended consequences,” it’s often looting by another name.

But I didn’t want to end the week bitter. What we fight against matters—but what we fight for matters more. So Thursday’s piece, We Are the Ancestors of What Comes Next, took a different tone. Less indictment, more invitation. A reminder that we’re not just reacting to the world—we’re shaping it. With every decision. Every action. Every silence.

We are the ancestors of a future we won’t live to see—but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. In fact, it’s the opposite. This is our moment of maximum influence. And what we do now will ripple forward in ways we may never fully understand.

You don’t have to fix everything. But you can do something. Refuse a single-use item. Plant a tree. Cook one more meal at home. Talk to your neighbor about composting. Write to your city council. Raise your voice. Let your life testify to the kind of world you believe in.

Because the question isn’t what kind of Earth we inherited.

It’s what kind of Earth we leave behind.

This Week’s Articles
• To Save the World Together
• We Are the Ancestors of Follows

Coming Next Week
Next week, we turn our gaze from the soil beneath our feet to the structures that loom above us. If Earth Week asked what kind of ancestors we want to be, the coming days will ask what kind of society we've allowed to grow in our name. Power shapes policy—but so does silence. It's time to ask deeper questions.