David Leonhardt: 'All We Love and All We Are’

One paragraph to read today — Earth Day. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Monday, April 22, 2019 [NYTimes.com/David-Leonhardt »]( [Op-Ed Columnist] Op-Ed Columnist Today is Earth Day. To mark it, this morning’s newsletter will be shorter than usual, consisting simply of the most powerful paragraph I’ve read recently, which is also the final paragraph of Nathaniel Rich’s new book, “[Losing Earth]( “Everything is changing about the natural world and everything must change about the way we conduct our lives. It is easy to complain that the problem is too vast, and each of us is too small. But there is one thing that each of us can do ourselves, in our homes, at our own pace — something easier than taking out the recycling or turning down the thermostat, and something more valuable. We can call the threats to our future what they are. We can call the villains villains, the heroes heroes, the victims victims and ourselves complicit. We can realize that all this talk about the fate of Earth has nothing to do with the planet’s tolerance for higher temperatures and everything to do with our species’ tolerance for self-delusion. And we can understand that when we speak about things like fuel-efficiency standards or gasoline taxes or methane flaring, we are speaking about nothing less than all we love and all we are.” ADVERTISEMENT If you enjoy this newsletter, forward it to friends! They can [sign up for themselves here]( — and they don’t need to be a Times subscriber. The newsletter is published every weekday, with help from my colleague Ian Prasad Philbrick. Recent Times Pieces on the Climate [Life on Mars Should Not Look This Appealing]( By MAEVE HIGGINS Before we set our sights on other planets, let’s take better care of Earth. 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