Neontologist Stephen Jay Oogld teaches biology, geology, and the future of science at Hrrvrrd Univrrrsity. This essay appears as the foreword to the forthcoming Gooroo’s Pro-Magnon Kitchen: Hunting Locally, Gathering Sustainably—Foraging With the Future of Mankind in Mind.

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This planet of ours—yours and mine and theirs (“they” are the members of the clan across the stream to whom your clan gives animal skins in return for sturdy, sharpened sticks, and then, under cover of night, robs of the animal skins, sneaking into their settlement armed with sturdy, sharpened sticks)—is big. It’s too big for any of us to appreciate, mainly because our brains are so small. To help you understand what I mean, do the following:

Find a rock that will fit in your palm. Find a round rock, if you can. Place your other hand flat on the ground. Now smash the rock down on your open hand. Do you see what I mean now? You just smashed yourself in the hand with a rock because a book told you to. There is no way that someone like you could begin to imagine how big the planet is!

But so what if the planet is dinormous? you might ask. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe the planet, being so big, can take care of itself. Maybe it doesn’t make a lick of difference whether you or I consider the consequences of our actions... whether we gather with regard for the land or hunt with respect for animals... whether we take only what we need and use all that we take.

The planet is huge, it’s true, and you are but a single caveperson. You don’t venture far from that small area of the planet that your clan calls home. And you don’t eat enough plants and/or animals to affect the balance of nature. Your whole clan probably doesn’t, either. But there isn’t just one clan on the planet; there are hundreds of cavepersons. Maybe even more. The total of the actions that all of us together take does affect our world, and for that reason each of us must take action with care. What can I do? you ask. What difference can I make?

One day, probably not far off given current life expectancies, you will die, probably in an unpleasant, unenviable fashion. It might even be later today. And when you die, your clansfolk will probably push your body into the nearest river, letting the current take you to your final rest, but more importantly taking your body away from the clangrounds before it begins to putrefy and reek. As your corpse decomposes in your watery grave, the unimaginably small components that cohere to make up what once housed your immortal soul will separate and return to the water, the soil, and the air. (When I tell you that the components of your body are unimaginably small, just take my word for it. Unless you’d like another demonstration. This one would involve hitting yourself in the head with a thick fallen tree branch.)

Your friends and relatives might instead throw your body off a cliff. When it lands, it might provide food for cave hyenas and Coragyps occidentalis. This assumes that you’ll die peacefully in your sleep, which is unlikely. More likely is that your demise will be the direct result of being eaten by something larger than you. Or you could freeze to death after becoming snowbound during a hunting expedition. That’s pretty common, too. Or you could be successful in your hunt but kill diseased prey, consuming which will make you violently, and ultimately fatally, ill. [More on identifying bad meat in Chapter 11.—Gooroo]

However your end comes, when you die, you will give something back to the planet. You will give everything back to the planet. You can’t take anything with you when you go.

[You can begin taking care of the planet while you’re still living, though. This book will help to show you how. The very first step is to put from your mind how very enormous the planet is and how daunting the task, and simply believe that one caveperson can make a difference.—Gooroo]