Both Things Are True at Once

Most children’s books about the planet tell kids a true thing, but not the whole truth. They tell them humans have hurt the Earth. We have. But they often leave out the harder, more hopeful truth: humans are also the only species that can understand the damage, repair it, and choose to protect the rest of life on purpose.

I wrote a children’s book about that second half.

Earth has survived five mass extinctions. The dinosaurs never saw theirs coming—they had no telescopes, no spacecraft, no warning system, no way to move the rock.

For almost all of Earth’s history, life could adapt, migrate, hide, or die.

But it could not understand the danger in time to change the ending.

Then we showed up.

We Are Why It Might is a 25-page children’s book making a case I’ve spent eight years trying to earn the right to make:

We are not nature’s enemy.

We are the part of nature that finally grew old enough to look after the rest of it.

Both things are true at once.

We made some of the trouble.

We are also the only ones who can answer it.

Holding both is what growing up means.

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Originally posted on LinkedIn with the full children’s book attached as a feed document.

@misc{anderson_2026_both_things_are_true_at_once,
  author = {Jed Anderson},
  title  = {Both Things Are True at Once},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://jedanderson.org/posts/both-things-are-true-at-once},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-05-13}
}

Anderson, J. (2026). Both Things Are True at Once. Retrieved from https://jedanderson.org/posts/both-things-are-true-at-once

Anderson, Jed. "Both Things Are True at Once." Jed Anderson, May 12, 2026, https://jedanderson.org/posts/both-things-are-true-at-once.