We begin by recognising that trees and plants have agency. They perceive, relate and communicate; they exercise various behaviours. They cooperate, make decisions, learn and remember - qualities we normally ascribe to sentience, wisdom and intelligence. By noting how trees, animals, and even fungi - any and all non-human species - have agency, we can acknowledge that they deserve as much regard as we accord ourselves. We can continue pushing our Earth out of balance, with greenhouse gases accelerating each year, or we can regain balance by acknowledging that if we harm one species, one forest, one lake, this ripples through the entire complex we. Mistreatment of one species is mistreatment of all.
The rest of the planet has been wanting patiently for us to figure that out.
Making this transformation requires that humans reconnect with nature instead of treating everything and everyone as objects for exploitation.
Suzanne Simard, 'Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the wisdom and intelligence of the forest' 2021
A pig ate his fill of acorns under an oak tree and then started to root around the tree. A crow remarked, ‘You should not do this. If you lay bare the roots, the tree will wither and die.’ ‘Let it die,’ said the pig. ‘Who cares so long as there are acorns?’
(adapted from a fable by Andreyevich Krylov)
Naomi Klein and others have argued that it’s not that people don’t care: it’s just that the problem is so enormous and encompassing that people feel helpless and disempowered. Either way, psychology is central to understanding how we perceive and respond to climate change.
Humans evolved living in social groups, so we are naturally sensitive to the thoughts and behaviours of other people, especially our close friends, family and important others in our valued social groups. Group memberships help shape our social identities, and more often than not we do what others around us are doing and pay attention to what others want us to do
Extracts from Yawning at the apocalypse, printed in The Psychologist 2018
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-31/september-2018/yawning-apocalypse
Poem: www.chronogram.com/hudsonvalley/a-poem-the-sow-under-the-oak-tree/Content?oid=2186152
The question of moral responsibility
Underlying all of these problems of introducing contamination into our world is the question of moral responsibility -- responsibility not only to our own generation but to those of the future."
Rachel Carson, writer, ecologist (1907-1964)
https://rachelcarson.org/Default.aspx
Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.
Stewart Udall (1920-2010) American politician and conservationist.
The moment of crisis has come
This is an urgent problem that needs to be solved... we know how to do it....we are refusing to takes steps that we know have to be taken."
Sir David Attenborough. 2020
“Tackling climate change is now as much a political and communications challenge as it is a scientific or technological one. We have the skills to address it in time, all we need is the global will to do so.
Sir David Attenborough. 2021
We have to decide
With all the fancy new climate pledges countries are making, annual emissions will be exactly the same in 2030 as they are today, when they need to be cut in half. It is unacceptable.
The "economy" is ultimately our material relationship with each other and with the rest of the living world. We have to decide whether we want that relationship to be based on extraction and exploitation, or on reciprocity and care.
Jason Hickel, Economic anthropologist
"We are intimately interconnected with nature, whether we like it or not.
If we don’t take care of nature, we can’t take care of ourselves."
Inger Anderson, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme www.unenvironment.org
"If current trends continue, humanity will dramatically alter virtually all of Earth's remaining natural ecosystems within a few decades."
Gretchen Daily, Bing Professor of Environmental Science at Stanford University, where she also serves as Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute; Director of the Center for Conservation Biology; and co-founder and faculty director of the Natural Capital Project. Exeter University
"Underlying all of these problems of introducing contamination into our world is the question of moral responsibility - responsibility not only to our own generation but to those of the future."
Rachel Carson, writer, ecologist (1907-1964) https://rachelcarson.org/Default.aspx
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