Keeping Lifecycles Healthy

Elise Miller, MEd
Director

“Recycling” is a pretty commonplace word these days when it comes to cans and newspapers. But recycling is also considered one of the most brilliant inventions ever in evolutionary terms. In fact, as Dianne Dumanoski writes in her book, The End of the Long Summer, “Establishing these grand cycles [such as respiration and photosynthesis] was one of the great problems early life had to solve in order to have a future.” She adds, “Enduring life is inescapably a joint enterprise.”
 
Reading this book provoked me to reflect on CHE’s role in these “grand cycles” of life. Since CHE’s work is fundamentally a “joint enterprise,” what are we doing and what more can we do to reinforce, rather than inhibit, the energy that keeps these natural cycles running smoothly?