Everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt. Apologies are offered for the seemingly caustic tone of the 21-Jun-01 7:31am post.

Some readers may get the mistaken impression from the thread title and the initial post...of a perpetuation of the what's-mine-is-mine-what's-yours-is-yours mentality: that it doesn't really make a damn as long as it's not happening to me.

Which is part of the problem. It's hard to get pissed off about global deforestation and the plunder of pristine land/seascapes for a few barrels of oil when it's 'green grass and high tides' where you live.

Corporations are admonished to think globally, communities to think locally. Individuals have the formidable task of thinking both ways simultaneously.