The Nature Issue

Volume 11 Issue 3, October 2011

The theme of “Nature” was presented as a deliberately nebulous topic to the readers and contributors of Blueprint Magazine. Though an issue broadly related to environmental concerns was the predicted editorial direction, correlating concerns were also welcome for consideration – notions of “human nature”, for example. Though a distinction between the two was expected, the submissions for this issue reflect the inseparability of humanity from our environment.

As the world faces an irregular climate, food shortages, pollution and an increasingly insecure global justice framework, issues concerning environmental protection become paramount. But in the public consciousness, it seems that the environment has waned from the large sphere of attention it once occupied. As young people face mounting debts, rising unemployment and a generally tenuous future, it is regrettably easy for such long-term concerns to become diminished.

Whether a pressing or passing concern, each individual has a role in the preservation of our world – blemished by a role, either passive or aggressive, in destroying it. Though there is easily no issue of greater concern, complacency and non-action cloud our obligation to the natural world.

Morgan Alan
Editor-in-Chief