Footprints

We were foragers once,
then gardeners, then citizens.
We have been consumers.
What will our children be?

Iron followed bronze, followed stone
the age of kings, empires, industry.
What follows the age of the consumer?
One defined by its devouring?

Our ancestors walked as humans.
We have walked like giants.
Must our children walk like ghosts on the earth,
and leave no footprints?

Jeremy Williams

Bio

Jeremy grew up in Madagascar and Kenya, which gave him a passion for the environment and for justice. He works as a writer and campaigner on social and environmental issues, and his blog, The Earthbound Report, has twice been recognised as the leading green blog in the UK. He is the co-author of The Economics of Arrival, and editor of Time to Act: A Resource book from the Christians in Extinction Rebellion. He lives in Luton with his journalist wife Louise, and two children.