Water is our most precious resource, but we waste it, just as we waste other resources, including oil and gas.

Japanese people cut their energy use by 25 percent immediately after Fukushima. They showed there was huge opportunity there. And instead, the government simply wants to get those plants up and running again.

Our identity includes our natural world, how we move through it, how we interact with it and how it sustains us.

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.

The damage that climate change is causing and that will get worse if we fail to act goes beyond the hundreds of thousands of lives, homes and businesses lost, ecosystems destroyed, species driven to extinction, infrastructure smashed and people inconvenienced.

We can't blame children for occupying themselves with Facebook rather than playing in the mud. Our society doesn't put a priority on connecting with nature. In fact, too often we tell them it's dirty and dangerous.

Unless we are willing to encourage our children to reconnect with and appreciate the natural world, we can't expect them to help protect and care for it.