The Positive News Thread

[Stranger]

John Francis, environmentalist, took on a 17 year vow of silence to learn to better listen to his opponents. He recently broke it because he discovered that, beyond preserving nature, how we treat each other is fundamental.

Over the previous 6,205 days, Francis says he learned that humans were as important a part of the environment as the nature that surrounds them. For him, the environment changed from being about loss of species, and habitat and pollution, to also include people and how we treat each other. But, Francis says no one really talked about that when we talked about 'the environment.' So, he decided he needed to speak out about how issues like human rights, civil rights, gender equality, economic equity factor into the environment as well.

"How we treat each other was like our first opportunity to treat the environment in a sustainable way or even figure out what we mean when we talk about sustainability," says Francis