wilderness: a paradigm shift

Today, Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC Action Fund, wrote about saving the last 375 beluga whales of Alaska's Cook Inlet.
In the report was the usual suspect: "whose population has plummeted due to the industrialization of Alaska's most populated and fastest-growing waterway."
There it is again, growth and development. We destroy wilderness and habitat, then we are supposed to spend massive amounts of reources to preserve nature.
I am beginning to see a paradigm shift in how we perceive ourselves and nature. For example, people initally saw hybrid vehicles as an alternative to the interanal combustion engine due to higher mileage in city driving. Now we are now seeing that a hybrid vehicle is an alternative to a power outage; a hybrid vehicle has energy to power a typical home for several days in the event of a power outage due to the batteries.
We are also beginning to realize wilderness begins at home. Rather than go away from home to nature and wilderness, we are beginning to turn our yards into wilderness by removing lawns and putting in native plants.
I ask you - are your children going to live in a world with less wilderness? What legacy are we leaving?

Daniel Barker