I have a plant, that sets on my bookshelf, in my apartment. I believe, whether it is true or not, that it makes me healthier: to have some nature, inside my industrial apartment. Only that, some mornings, when I leave for work, I forget to open the blinds for my plant to get light. And some nights when I get home, I’m so tired, that I forget to water it. So that, the plant may be healthy for me, inside my apartment; but my apartment, is not healthy for the plant.

One day, I opened the glass door to my balcony, and set the plant outside, to get sun all day and water from the rain. I planned to bring it back inside the next morning, but have now left it outside on the balcony for several weeks. I can still see it through the glass door. And so receive any health benefits from “seeing” plant life, but cannot smell it, nor receive its oxygen from my carbon dioxide.

That glass door—between the inside of my industrial apartment and the outside of sun and rain—is a line in the sand, and the human species is drawing near to a point where we must decide which side we’re on.