"What ... does it mean to love a place? We do fall in love with places, there is no doubt. The crest of a mountain, the childhood shelter behind the hedge, the rockwrack shore of the sea, the lilac in bloom by the bus stop--each of us has a place that makes us feel whole and happy and alive. Sometimes we fall in love with the entirety of these, the global home so beautiful from space, with its glowing blue skin and soft clouds. Loving a place is a way of feeling, connected and at peace. But loving a place is also a way of acting. Can we claim to love a place if we skim it for our own gain, or slash it and leave it to die? Just as in loving a person, loving a place means being kind to it, protecting it, caring about its well-being as much as your own."
From Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril edited by Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson (Trinity University Press, 2010).
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