"The world today can be a scary place,
Hard to keep your faith in the human race.
We're running out of trees and we're running out of space,
But we'll never run out of good people."
- Great Big Sea, Good People
If you care about animals... or the environment... or humanity in general, the world can indeed be a scary place as of late. Reading the news, it's easy to get the vibe that we are one bad day away from starring in our own post-apocalyptic movie, with the world always on the edge of disaster.
There's enough bad news out there that's real - it doesn't help that despair (and a desire for social media traffic) often leads to exaggerated stories of doom and gloom. For example, this week a story went viral declaring the koalas are essentially extinct. This is not only not true, it's downright counterproductive, as it could lead well-meaning people to conclude that it's simply too late to save koalas, and write them off as a lost cause.
The thing is, if you read between the angry, tragic headlines, you'll see plenty of silver linings of hope. There are an amazing number of people out there who are working - sometimes alone, sometimes as part of an organization or partnership - to try and turn this ship around. Some of them are working on environmental issues, be it trying to combat global climate change, leading reforestation efforts, or breeding endangered amphibians for release back into the wild. Some are working on human rights, or health care, or promoting democracy and freedom. None of them are perfect. All of them are important.
So, this year for Thanksgiving, I'm going to choose to be thankful for those people. The ones who are trying to make a better world, and who are probably constantly beating themselves up because they feel like they aren't doing enough. These are the people who, in a myriad of different ways, are helping to save the planet. Perhaps most importantly, they are doing us the service of leading by example, and showing how much difference an individual can make.
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