Jake Kheel - Waking the Sleeping Giant: Unlocking the Hidden Power of Business to Save the Planet

I was six years old when my mom had an alligator shot on our front lawn. It was 1983 and the American alligator had nearly been wiped out in the United States from poaching. Under strict protection by the Endangered Species Act, you could get arrested or pay a big fine for simply bothering an alligator, much less blasting one with a shotgun.

The Endangered Species Act, however, wasnt working for my family. My mom called the local authorities and she was told the animal had to bite someone to be removed. She had no choice but to take matters into her own hands. She had two kids and four dogs running around the house all day. A ten - foot dinosaur with a mouth full of sharp teeth on her lawn was not an option. If pest control wouldnt remove the critter, our neighbor Johnny Shultz would happily take care of it.

Riddled with buckshot, the dead gator sank, but soon its body bloated with air and gas. Like a reptile zombie, it floated back to the surface. Under instructions from our mom to hide the endangered contraband from the authorities, my brother and I lassoed the corpse and stashed it in a nearby ditch, proudly showing it off to our friends as our pet gator. I was still pretty young, but even then it struck me that any law that forced people to do the opposite of what it intended was flawed. Instead of protecting the alligator, we were forced to kill it. There had to be a better way.

My brother and I grew up on a six - acre plant nursery surrounded by still - wild southern Florida swamp, horse farms, and backwoods characters blasting country music from their pickup trucks. We roamed the nearby woods, mucked around in canals, fished in man - made ponds, and chased our dogs around the neighborhood.

Animals were a big part of our childhood. My mother was an animal - lover she raised tropical birds and fish, dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and even a couple of miniature horses. But she also would not hesitate to take out any dangerous wildlife that made its way onto the farm, like the poor alligator. Once, my mom pulled over on our way home from school and stoned a poisonous water moccasin snake to death in the middle of the road. My brother and I watched in stunned silence from the backseat.

We later moved to Massachusetts and while there were no snakes or alligators, we spent most of our time splashing around in the marshes and ponds of our rural town. I had no idea at the time that my childhood adventures in Nature would lead to the field of sustainability. All I knew was I liked to play outside. (Note: Throughout this book I spell Nature with a capital N as is typically done in the life sciences and also to emphasize the profound uniqueness and importance of the natural world.)

The idea of environmental protection came into clearer focus for me when my elementary school designed an environmental crash course for our seventh - grade class. For several weeks, all of our classes were taught through the prism of the environment. We measured tree heights in math class. We read Rachel Carsons Silent Spring in English class. We studied the environmental movement in history class. We learned about acid rain, pollution, global warming, and, of course, the Endangered Species Act.

Before then, it had never occurred to me that Nature, the thing I treasured the most, was so seriously threatened. The rainforest, a place I had never seen, was being mowed over and transformed into cow pastures by the second. Animals I had only seen on TV were being extinguished off the face of the Earth. Aerosol spray and leaky refrigerators created a growing hole in the ozone layer. Our entire planet was warming. Yet no one was talking about it. How could I be so oblivious to such a serious situation? This really got my attention.