Forest bathing...apparently it's a thing and I do it

The first time I heard the term “forest bathing” there was an exaggerated eye roll and a muttering about new-age yuppie nonsense. But it turns out that I go forest bathing all the time. It’s called a nice long walk in the woods by myself. Today I did just that. And what a walk! It was a perfect spring day in my Boston suburb. The sun was out with a slight breeze, low 70s. Almost as soon as I entered the Town Forest, a hundred acre oasis just down the street from me, nature started putting on a show. Red-winged black birds were calling from the fringing freshwater wetland. A pair of cardinals flirted along the trail. A common flicker stared me down at eye level from a forked tree trailside. Then I heard a rustling in the leaves. I thought I’d spy a little garter snake, but instead it was a very busy mole. Then a Baltimore oriole flew across the trail in front of me, a brilliant splash of fiery orange against the new green of the leaves. It was quiet for a while after that first flurry of activity. I just enjoyed the solitude and the smell of the newly unrolled ferns. I meandered from this trail to that for an hour or so, occasionally getting scolded by a chipmunk and listening to the calls of chickadees and a couple of spring peepers. Towards the end of my walk I passed a man and his dog. Not long after a coyote ran across the trail and up into the forest. I assume it was spying on the dog and then was startled by me. It ran through the underbrush so quickly and with such agility. Blending well with the environment. If it hadn’t made so much noise on all the dead leaf litter, I never would have seen it. 
     These moments with nature are what are at stake. Will I someday walk through the forest and not hear the phoebe whistle of a chickadee or the high-pitched peep, peep, peep of a spring peeper because they have shifted farther north? In this time of COVID, I’ve been thinking lately that our species is the longest running pandemic on the planet. We infect nearly every ecosystem. Some other organisms can adapt to our presence, others succumb to our impacts, but all are affected. Viruses and other parasites typically evolve to become less deadly to their hosts, thus ensuring the genetic survival over time. At what point will we mutate en masse and become less deadly to the rest of the world? At what point will we realize that we must change to ensure our own survival? I believe we have a moral obligation to make/keep the world a livable place for all living things. 
     We’re in a critical time. The scientists of the IPCC are calling for urgent action by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5C or we risk catastrophic damage (there will still be lots of damage at 1.5C, the train has already left the station). I’m lucky to live in a state where I know I can count on my legislators to fight for climate mitigation legislation, but I still call and write to them to remind them to keep this issue at the forefront of their work. If you live in a state in which you cannot say the same about your legislators, try to do something about that. Call them regularly to support “green” legislation. Grow a network of activists that will do the same. There is power in numbers. The more constituents they hear from, the more likely they are to take action. And if they won’t change their minds on climate change, then work to replace them in the next election. As Al Gore says, “in America, political will is a renewable resource.” and “Fight like your world depends on it, because it does.” Do help with your part, check out the websites of your local chapters of 350.org and the Sierra Club. Both organizations keep up-to-date lists of climate and other environmental legislation in state legislatures. The national chapters also send alerts about national legislation to lobby for.