My earliest memory from childhood is of fishing with my father. And I remember vividly we were in a store, and we were buying a pup tent to go on our first camping trip.

Salmon farming-the placement of large metal or mesh net cages in the ocean to grow fish-was pioneered in Norway in the 1960s. Since then, the industry has expanded to Scotland, Ireland, Canada, the US, and Chile, but is dominated by the same multinational corporations. Wherever it is practiced, net-cage salmon farming is controversial and raises serious environmental concerns.

Over and over, we hear politicians say they can't spend our tax dollars on environmental protection when the economy is so fragile.

Our beliefs, our values shape the way we look out at the world and the way we treat it. If we believe that we were here, placed here by God, that this - all of this creation is for us, it's for us to go and occupy, dominate and exploit, then we will proceed to do that.

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, droughts and floods is in line with what climate scientists have been predicting for decades - and evidence is mounting that what's happening is more severe than predicted, and will get far worse still if we fail to act.

Protecting the biosphere should be our highest priority or else we sicken and die.

Environmentali sm is really about seeing our place in world in a way that humans have always known up until very recently - that we are part of nature-utterly dependent on the natural world for our well being and survival.