I was just thinking this morning about the extent to which my world view has been shaped by National Geographic. I’ve been a National Geographic subscriber for years, and I literally read every page of the magazine every month. I usually study the maps that are included with the magazine every other month or so pretty closely as well. The structure of nearly every article is basically the same: there is something stupendously beautiful, interesting, or bizarre in the world; mankind is screwing it up; some progress has been made in undoing those mistakes. I’m pretty sure that years of exposure to these articles has made me rather misanthropic. On the other hand, the photos are always incredible.