Low-impact living: The magazine you are holding was once a tree. The words you are reading are made from ink that was once plant life and mineral deposits.
The two small staples that keep these pages together were once bits of ore, lodged deep in the ground. That coffee you are drinking, that chair you are sitting in - or maybe it's a bus, or train or plane - all have their origins in the earth. Every single thing we use or consume - even the most sophisticated of man-made objects, such as the computer I wrote this column on - was fabricated from the stuff of this planet. Wonderful, isn't it?
Yet we tend to forget this simple giant truth in the day-to-day business of living. Which is not surprising. Imagine how exhausting it would be if you had to ponder the provenance of everything you saw, touched, smelled, ate or heard. The noise in your brain would be intolerable. We're lucky that we are so advanced technologically that we don't have to worry about all that. Our world operates in such a way that we can just get on with living, without too much thought about how we are doing it.
Or can we? Doesn't each of us hear an uncomfortable voice, however tiny, in our heads, asking whether we can continue like this? And what was once a little whisper is now becoming an insistent murmur, saying that what we do on our small island affects things in the larger world. It is becoming clear that matters such as climate change, global justice, biodiversity and the planet's habitats and resources are the responsibility of all of us.
It's quite a challenge, being a good custodian of Mother Earth, but it's the least we can do, seeing as she's been so bountiful to us. In the coming weeks and months, this column will try to work out how to lessen the load on the planet. Much of this is new to me, too, so I welcome hearing your thoughts and suggestions - and dilemmas.
Some things are simple, though, such as disposing of this magazine (which was once a tree). Put it in your recycling bin, compost it or make it into twisty firelighters. And turn off the light. That one over there.