As we prepare to vote, please consider those who have an appreciation of our life-sustaining natural world. Its greatest challenge is climate change, a worldwide condition supported by insurmountable evidence agreed upon by over 2,000 of the world’s leading climatologists. We must respond by conserving energy, embracing renewable energy (e.g. wind and solar), recycling more and better, biking and walking, and more. And we must vote for those representatives who are willing to address climate change.

Given that the world’s population took several thousand years to reach 3 billion by 1960 and took only 60 years to achieve our current population of 8 billion, we must acknowledge that the human population is growing exponentially, much like that of insects and bacteria, and unlike that of fellow vertebrates like ospreys and whales. Our current population uses energy and other resources that fuel the climate crisis as if they are infinite; the rampant local development, and the consequent roads and traffic, are telling and unwise given Delaware’s vulnerability to sea-level rise.

Answers abound, and we’d do well to read or watch Annie Leonard’s “The Story of Stuff”; she gives us a better appreciation of circular economies, ones based on renewable energy and equity and sustainability, ones that value ecosystem services (those that create and purify water, soil and air) valued at trillions of dollars annually. Rehoboth Beach leads recycling efforts by placing a recycling bin beside one for trash, especially along the Boardwalk; in Lewes, we could follow their good example, especially at our beaches.

We can recapture our well-being, our happiness, that which peaked in the ’50s, by consuming less and appreciating more, much like our relatives who lived through the Great Depression and valued resourcefulness and stewardship. Traveling the dirt roads of Costa Rica or Bhutan, you’ll encounter happy, colorfully dressed people living very simply with few material goods, taking time for each other and their beautiful and biodiversity-rich natural world.

We can learn from their example. As we enjoy time outdoors, taking daily walks and bikes for groceries and exploring our precious Cape Henlopen State Park and others, let’s remind ourselves to slow, to observe and admire the native loblolly pine that absorbs CO2 and produces O2 for itself and all life, as it has been doing for millions of years … or the osprey, a long-lived worldwide citizen at the top of the food chain, which relies on clean water and its plentiful fish for a family of two … or the humpback whale, our close relative, which gives live birth and lactates to nourish her young for months and whose intelligence rivals, or even perhaps surpasses, ours.

And, we must support our democracy and vote for those who thoughtfully represent us and the trees and birds and mammals, all life. Our besieged yet life-sustaining natural world, one full of wonder and beauty, deserves nothing less.