A message of hope? A forgotten treasure?
I am reading E.O. Wilson’s Half-Earth, his third in a series about our planet’s human and natural history. It is a sobering account of what humans have done, and a strident plea for a last-ditch effort to save all life on earth. His treatise says we must put aside one half of the earth’s landscape in order to support enough biodiversity for life to go on. He is a voice of reason, fact and hope, but I find it difficult to believe that the majority of human beings will care enough to actually do that.
Overcome by the printed matter and the state of global politics, I had a good cry.
Then I turned the page. There was something greenish near the top of the text, maybe an illustration? I touched it and it moved. No, it was not printed. It was left by a previous borrower of this library edition. Pressed flat and preserved for me to find.
A four-leaf clover?
It stopped me in my tracks. Was this left for the next reader, to nudge me out of my gloom and doom? “All hope if not lost,” it seemed to say. Wilson himself writes that there is still time for us to achieve his vision, if we act quickly.
Should I keep the clover, or leave it for the next reader? I will leave it.
There are forces at work here that I can’t explain.
Natural Views 