What can you do to support these efforts? Find organizations that understand the solutions for poverty and environmental degradation are interconnected and support them with your money, your time, your effort. Future generations matter. Long-term sustainability matters. But we will not win the long game if we do not recognize that protecting the lives of children today matters more. It makes us better people. It makes us better environmentalists.

Similarly, water is increasingly hard to find and when it is found it is often contaminated. Rivers carry pesticides, silt and sand and human waste downstream and when the river meets the sea, dead zones erupt wherein no plants or animals survive. But contaminated water is also killing children and is, in fact, the second most common cause of death in children under the age of five.

As the environment becomes degraded due to things like deforestation, destructive fishing practices and pollution, impacts on people’s lives and livelihoods mount. For example, forests protect soils. When trees are cut down the top layer of earth, that is vital for growing food, is washed away by rain or blown away by the wind.

The future, for billions of people, is a luxury. Today matters, tomorrow matters and the path from today to tomorrow is uncertain for so many people, especially for the 60 percent of the world’s poor that rely on natural resources for survival, most of whom are women and children. As their environment collapses, their day to day existence becomes less certain.

current generations.

Why Protecting the Environment ‘For Future Generations’ Is a Bad Idea