Good news about our habitat

BY REBECCA ODEGAARD

"God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars." These words, attributed to Martin Luther, capture so simply the love felt the world over for the earth's beauty. Gracefully, Luther associates such loveliness with the Creator.

All over the globe, from Sydney to San Diego, in Copenhagen, Kyoto, Belfast, and Banff, conferences have been or are being held almost daily from July through September—137 in all—on how to best address the disturbances to the earth's environment.

People care about our global home, contrary to what appear to be unfortunate, even careless, events and their consequences on this planet. The Gulf oil spill, the disruption of air travel in Europe in response to the unpredictable Icelandic volcano's eruption, struggles over water in the Middle East and elsewhere, and swaths of exhausted and over-mined areas in New Zealand and Australia, make it appear that every corner of the globe has environmental troubles beyond our ability to contain and manage, let alone correct. We've nearly all been exposed, if not directly, to the problems, headlines, books, and news reports that might convince us we are wreaking uncontrollable havoc on our own habitat.