Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
-- sir francis bacon, 1603

NATURE

More often than not, science is intrinsically philanthropic; certainly Prometheus’ gift of fire explicitly included all of science, and throughout most of its history,Western science has been understood to be “for public good.” Environmental charities today are dedicated to a more scientific re-ordering of society’s interactions with nature in ways that will be more harmonious with, rather than antagonistic to, nature and nature’s laws, as Bacon declared.

The environmental movement in Massachusetts has graduated to a next level; from its origins as an exclusive purview of a scientific or cultural elite, it is rapidly becoming a matter of societal values. Each of the six charities presented in this section is addressing a concrete issue of practical importance to a constituency. In each case the constituency is larger, and in some cases much larger, than the body of philanthropic activists that is promoting the agenda; but what we observe in all these cases is the process by which grassroots communities get involved in environmental protection for their own interests. Soon we shall all be environmentalists.