This is part 3 of a three part report on a major Earth Day conference held in Madison WI on April 20-21, 2010.  I am using that conference as  an eavesdropping opportunity:  What is the larger environmental movement discussing today?  Rather than go talk-by-talk, I’ve pulled out four major themes from my pages of notes.  Here are the last two:

3.  It’s all about us and how we treat each other.

It was, frankly, surprising to note the number of times during this conference we were told that we should be – and most of the early leaders of this movement were – concerned about people as much as about nature.  Nelson himself was as much concerned with conservation of urban resources as with environmental resources.  Leopold’s “land ethic” was based on a concern not only for the health of the land but for the health of the people who live on it. Read more »