Hope Beneath Our Feet_ Restoring Our Place in the Natural World - Martin Keogh [112]
The single most important way to advance the causes of conservation and peace, Wilson and other scientists say, is to improve the education of females in the developing world. Many studies have demonstrated that as female education increases, birth rates fall. A stabilized population decreases demands on governmental and medical services and depletion of natural resources and hence the likelihood of social unrest. A lower birth rate also reduces what some demographers call “bare branches,” unmarried, unemployed young men, who are associated with higher rates of violent conflict both within and between nations.
I am still constantly trying to persuade people to view war as eradicable. I urge you to do the same. All living things will benefit in countless ways once we humans stop diverting so much of our energy and resources into fighting and preparing for wars. And the first step toward ending war and our assault on biodiversity is to believe that we can end it.
John Horgan is a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. A former senior writer at Scientific American (1986–1997), he has also written for the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Discover, the London Times, the Times Literary Supplement, New Scientist, and other publications around the world. Horgan is currently doing research on the widespread belief that human warfare is inevitable. His Web site is www.johnhorgan.org.
Little by Little
MARGARET TROST
Every day as I skim the paper, my heart breaks with the endless news of escalating wars, disease, hunger, and a planet on the verge of environmental catastrophe. It’s all very overwhelming and depressing. The headlines can easily create a feeling of hopelessness, but each morning, as I set them aside and move to my office to begin working, I turn to my favorite Haitian saying:
“Piti piti n a rive.”
This is a Creole phrase that means, “little by little we will arrive.” Remembering these words of hope refuels my spirit and reminds me that every small step we take towards change makes a difference.
I heard this saying for the first time on a muggy July afternoon in Port-au-Prince. I’d come to visit a food program for children that I’d helped start a few months earlier. We only had enough money for one meal per week, so food was served on Sunday afternoons. Five hundred children gathered to eat on the Sunday I was there. Some walked for miles. For most of them, it was their only hot meal of the week.
The meal was served by members of St. Clare’s Church, who spent two days preparing huge pots of rice, beans, chicken, and a stew made with vegetables from the farmers’ market. For hours, plate after plate was passed down a line of volunteers and placed in front of children who waited patiently at the tables. As they spooned in the meal and scraped the bottom of their bowls for every grain of rice, I watched their focused faces—chewing and swallowing with urgency and excitement. Clearly famished. Their eyes were serious, but many of them still had a sparkle. I watched the littlest ones keep up with their older siblings, completing gigantic portions in record time. Later, as they filed out of the St. Clare’s rectory, they looked happy and full, but I wondered what the rest of the week held for them and how long it would be before they all felt hungry again. I wondered if this tiny food program was really making any difference at all.
The next day, the priest of St. Clare’s Church, Father Gerry, took me back to the food program site. He said he had something to show me. We walked across the