Op-Ed

At the very core of the environmental problem is our heart

By Corina Murcia

These difficult pandemic times might have some silver linings. One of them is that they
have been a wake-up call about our impact on the planet. Even though green
technology has been available for some time now, we keep on jeopardizing nature. So,
what’s at the root of the environmental crisis? How could we overcome it?

At the beginning of these lockdown days around the world, I got an email from a
colleague. This message had a video attached. It showed that, as we humans tried to
shelter from COVID-19 virus at home, several other beings started to be lured out of
their refuge to explore the world we humans seem to have invaded and assumed is
only ours.

Several agents in our society have led humankind to wrongly believe we’re the masters
of this planet and that all the other forms of life are simply at our service. This
conscious or unconscious assumption has evidently strained the delicate equilibrium in
our planet and wrecked it. As many scientific papers suggest, humans’ attitude towards
nature might have even contributed to this pandemic outbreak…

Of course, political decisions to promote less-polluting, less resource-intensive

technology can minimize our ecological footprint. Yet, they are not enough. Individuals’
awareness of the importance of human population planning or population growth
reduction would definitely be a way to save nature. The more people we are, the more
food and energy needs we are urged to satisfy. And these expanding demands put
pressure on the environment; we exploit finite resources, consume them thoughtlessly
and dump all sorts of toxic waste. We should then, especially in developing countries,
slow down the population growth and thus the material expansion. There are no signs
showing this is a prospect in the short run, though.

Under these circumstances, more profound changes are consequently urgently

needed. Our individual and collective decisions to protect or destroy the natural world
derive, to a great extent, from our conscious or unconscious ideas about nature. A
question then: how do we change these ideas? What we think about nature definitely
has an impact on our actions and these thoughts are rooted in our emotions and
feelings.

I’ve recently taken a short trip to Los Chacayes, Mendoza, and felt almost suddenly
immersed in nature: flycatchers, lapwings, wrens, foxes, dragonflies, toads, fireflies,…
it was an awe inspiring sight. These animals are the inhabitants of this magnificent and
quiet spot: their homes and food are there, their fellow creatures live there and other
species they have relationships with are also there. I was a visitor who could enjoy
their distinct sounds, deft movements, perfect color palettes,… A sense of elevation
overpowered me as I sensed the beauty, greatness and good of this haven. I felt
grateful for being there with them for awhile and wished nothing would harm their
precious home. There was an emotional bond. This connection has been the one that
has made few communities around the world both live in harmony with nature and
take care of it.

If we were always sensitive enough to feel and appreciate the beauty and greatness in
nature, we would doubtlessly hold it dear and, consequently, protect it. It’s clear that
most of us take care of what we love. If we were more exposed to nature or, why not,
to different forms of art, we would most probably develop beauty awareness. The
feelings of awe and gratitude that beauty can awaken in our hearts certainly lead us
not only to intuitively protect the environment but also to theorize about it in a less
man centered or anthropocentric way.

In fact, whether we are aware or not, humans’ destruction of nature reveals our
anthropocentric views. In other words, history has shown that we have believed
ourselves to be above other living and non-living entities. But we have been downright
wrong. Our interdependence with them hasn’t really dawned on us as a species in spite
of the overwhelming amount of information and evidence that makes it plain our
dependance on our ecosystems. What seems to have been our unconscious definition
of nature throughout the times? Is it something worthless and completely
disconnected from us we can just endlessly and mercilessly exploit?

In short, our views determine how much we value nature and thus how we relate to it.
And more importantly, the emotional connection, which is primal to humans, lay the
foundation of these ideas.

Good education, both at home and at school, is key to make a change that could
ensure the survival of our planet. Education may not modify everybody’s views but it
does influence those of many. Definitions of nature would be reconsidered if not only
knowledge, which is unquestionably necessary, but our positive emotions and feelings
shaped our notion of it. And our behaviour would most probably be more respectful of
our only home and its other beings, which would be seen as worthy of respect in their
own right regardless of our prevalent man-centered utilitarian views. It could be said
that sensibility needs to be developed for our edification. The environment would have
a chance if young generations were given more opportunities to feel the intrinsic
beauty in nature. They would surely be less man centered and act in more pro
environmental ways. They would naturally safeguard all other living beings’ right to be
around and thus create a new culture: a culture of respect and, ultimately, of harmony
with nature.