Today is Thanksgiving in the United States and people across the nation are celebrating by coming together to give thanks. This is the holiday long weekend when people get together to celebrate the bounty of the fall harvest. Thanksgiving traces its origin to a 1621 feast the Wampanoag people shared with Pilgrim settlers. The Pilgrims survived their first winter in the new world thanks to the goodwill of the Wampanoag. After almost 400 years we still have not learned to live in harmony with nature, and like the Pilgrims our very survival is at stake.
As Thanksgiving Day occurs every year during Native American Heritage Month, this is a time for us to recognize and be grateful for Indigenous people. There is so much that we can learn from their traditional ways of life that includes living in harmony with nature.
Thanksgiving is also the perfect time to deepen gratitude for the natural world. It is a time to redouble our commitments to greener living, more sustainable business practices and responsible government. The threats from climate change and ecological degradation are real, however, so are the opportunities to address it. This Thanksgiving, let us be grateful for the natural world and let us stand together to defend it. Let us apply this gratitude by doing our part and being thankful to others who are acting to be better stewards of our only home.
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