When you can't see the forest for the billboards: a look behind the billboards at the impact that a consumer-based society has on the planet... and what we can do to restore balance.

I am an urban person. I recently realized that I spend more time walking on concrete than anything else. I lived in a big city, Toronto, for eight years but came to my senses and am happy to once again breathe the clean air and take in the living skies of Saskatchewan. I aspire to live among nature, outside of an urban centre, but for the time being I am getting my feet wet by gardening, saving seeds, collecting rain water, and learning about sustainable living.

I recently enjoyed a trip to the countryside. I liked the way the hills were changing colour-it made them seem very alive to me. The contrast between walking on the relatively untouched native prairie grass and the cultivated fields was a sensory lesson.

As I was looking at nature-the hills, the lake, the flora-my eyes kept focussing on the "unnatural" things; like the basketball hoop, the boat, the road, the cars. These things seemed like a blight on the landscape and I considered how human forays into the country are a real imposition on nature and on non-human species. But does this line of thinking mean that we should all live in cities? Living in cities only increases our detachment from nature, hence our detachment from the devastating effects of environmental degradation that we impose-yet cannot see and therefore …