As I shaded my eyes to look toward the opposite bank of the Snoqualmie River, a blind little mole poked his nose out of the bushes, just in time to pose for my friend’s camera. The beauty of hiking the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River was overwhelming.

Living in the city has made me more grateful for the natural world. The many Seattleites I saw traveling with their mountain bikes and kayaks toward the mountains may have felt the same.

It came as no surprise to me, then, that city-dwellers at the University of Washington approved the new College of the Environment.

The University has a compost program and a fair-trade, shade-grown coffee blend. It is nestled between Lake Washington and Puget Sound, the Cascades and the Olympics.

A college dedicated to the environment, and founded in a place with such immense natural beauty, was not a shock to me.

Although it is being established in an environmentally conscious city, it cannot coast along on those merits and that support alone.

This is a unique time. We are on the cusp of an unprecedented shift in our natural world and in our consciousness. While we should appreciate what we have in our own backyard, we also need to look beyond it.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted extreme weather changes spurred by global warming.

Heat waves will become more common, hurricanes and droughts will be more extreme, and rain will be less frequent but more intense.

If carbon emissions continue to rise, Greenland may be ice-free in the next few centuries.

The polar bear is now on the official list of threatened species.

I could go on and on.

The new College of the Environment may be the largest in the country and is being helped along by a $1 million donation.

The college should put the money to good use and bring real solutions to the world. It should seek input from the international relations department, the political science department and others specializing in human rights and economics.

The UW should compose a college that balances the needs of a globalized, technological society with the health of the planet and the necessity of a healthy environment for all people, not only those who can afford it.

The college owes that much to the environment and to those who inhabit it. It is being established here in Seattle, and will be flanked as much by city blocks as by mossy forests and silver waters.

May those who enter the college, as well as those who run it, never take these extraordinary surroundings for granted, and just as importantly, always remember to look at the big picture.