Ultimately we need to recognize that while humans continue to build urban landscapes, we share these spaces with others species.

It is not too late to take another path.

Each of us now has 2.27 kg (5 lbs) of plastic embedded in our bodies.

There is a gyre of discarded floating plastic the size of the continental USA in the ocean. In it, plastic trash outweighs plankton 40 to 1.

So we draw lines around our property, our counties, our cities, our states, our countries. And, boy, do we act as if those lines are important. I mean, we go to war. We will kill and die to protect those boundaries. Nature couldn't give two hoots about our national boundaries.

Fukushima is the most terrifying situation I can imagine.

Conserving energy and thus saving money, reducing consumption of unnecessary products and packaging and shifting to a clean-energy economy would likely hurt the bottom line of polluting industries, but would undoubtedly have positive effects for most of us.