"Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?"
~ Henry David Thoreau ~
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Visit the following sites to test your knowledge and challenge your assumptions about some of our fellow creatures.
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The distinction we make between "man" and "nature" is artificial. Humans, rather, are a part of nature. We've become so dependent on our technology—electricity, hot tap water, eye glasses, to name a few—that we've forgotten our place in nature.
In Next of Kin, author Roger Fouts explains that 98.4 percent of human DNA is exactly the same as chimpanzee DNA. This means that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than they are to orangutans or gorillas. In fact, apes and humans are more closely related to each other than African elephants are to Indian elephants.
By changing the way we think about ourselves in relation to other species of animals, we can change how we care for the planet and its other inhabitants. By educating ourselves to make better decisions as consumers, we can learn to live sustainably.
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