Disney does nature.

I've been watching a lot of Disney movies lately, and the message about respecting nature has always been very prominent.  Most recently I've watched Pocahontas, The Lion King, and Fern Gully.  They all address a deep connection with nature, the web of life, and the power of all living things.  These are children's movies full of these concepts, reiterating the idea that they are simple.  Sometimes I wonder if they are so simple that it makes people oblivious to them.  For me, it's hard to remind myself of things that are happening in the environment because I feel so separated from them.  I didn't grow up with environmental issues because there wasn't a lot of environment around me.  We have a couple of nature preserves, two or three small wooded areas and a prairie are all I am aware of in my hometown.
Before the credits of Fern Gully, the screen reads, "For our children and our children's children."  This class has really opened my eyes to the importance of preserving nature.  If we don't preserve what nature is left, our children will never see it.  I also took a class called Geology of National Parks through WMU.  I had never realized how many national parks there actually were, and definitely never realized how beautiful they were.  I would love to take a week or two next summer to tour some of them and just walk, camp, and be a part of nature.  The most camping I've ever done has been in my backyard or friends' backyards in our neighborhood, so now that I'm older, I want to take advantage of the things I never knew were there.