Excerpts from Matthieu Ricard’s preface to Didier Ruef’s “Recycle”

Recently, I had the opportunity to swim in the middle of around thirty whale-sharks off the Mexican coast. But amidst the sun’s rays that lit up the shimmering ocean and the sharks around us, floating like great bubbles of mineral water were plastic bags and waste of all shapes and sizes as well as, strangely, an airport baggage check.

The development and usage of tools is such that, for the first time in the history of mankind the proliferation of manufactured objects is likely to cause irreversible damage to our ecosystem.
Indeed, the benefits we have sought have had undesirable side effects on our lives and our natural environment. Manufactured objects and waste proliferate, chain reactions are generated by the substances released, changes in the surface and the atmosphere of the earth are [read more...]