By Stephen Le Quesne
IT is incredibly difficult to write about nature at this moment in time. Climate breakdown, a biodiversity crisis and a general attitude of governments turning away from protecting the natural world means that the focus of writing has largely been about the wider issues of politics and conservation as well as why we are heading quite quickly to climate catastrophe, and nobody is noticing.
The business of denying man-made climate change so that profits can be kept and power structures stay the same for the wealthy is quite unbelievable. There appears to be an apathy towards environmental issues.
Planet Earth is showing the strain from the pressures we are putting on it to feed our modern lifestyles. Only this past week, scientists issued a red alert for the health of the planet. The first-of-its-kind Planetary Health Check Report analysed the health of nine key natural systems, such as ocean acidification, land-system change, change in biodiversity integrity and ozone depletion. They found that six of the nine had crossed the threshold where they were not able to function properly, creating a more unstable and dangerous planet.
Speaking of unstable, the town of Asheville in North Carolina joined places such as Jizan Province and Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Lahore in Pakistan, Jaipur in India, Monteria in Colombia, Turin in Italy, Florida in the US, Naucalpan in Mexico, Beijing in China and Gondelsheim in Germany and many others, by experiencing an extreme weather event. Asheville was touted as a climate “haven” and a safe place from extreme weather but has now been left in ruins by Hurricane Helene. All the other cities and towns mentioned have been impacted by flash floods and historic levels of rainfall.
And yet in the UK we are met with stories of climate activists being jailed for protesting. My thoughts on the methods of protest are mixed, but their feelings and rationale need to be listened to and heeded rather than being sentenced for two years for throwing soup on a painting. Just as a comparison, the recent race riots across the UK resulted in shorter sentences. It is a farcical and laughable example of disproportion and provides a window into how our political, legal and governmental systems view climate breakdown and the environment.
Extreme weather events, especially flooding and more frequent and intense rainfall are no longer a surprise as a warmer atmosphere can hold more water and helps storms spin faster.
Even with all the evidence, the science, the data and the increase in droughts, extreme weather events and heatwaves there is still pushback and millions of pounds used as “dark money” to support climate denialism and delaying action. The term “dark money” is used for income streams and funds that cannot be traced and are used to support fossil fuel companies, to sow seeds of doubt on climate science and to influence political outcomes. Political outcomes that do the opposite of helping us and protecting the planet.
In 2013, there was a scientific paper published within the journal Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences (the science community does not really help itself with journal names) titled Apathy Towards Environmental Issues, Narcissm, and Competitive View of the World.
The study was conducted on 225 college students, and it used a hypothetical model to attempt to predict personality traits and psychological variables to predict apathy towards environmental issues. It found that: “The results of path analysis showed that narcissism was able to predict apathy towards the environment indirectly through a competitive view of the world.” The view that the world is a ruthless, competitive jungle all about the survival of the fittest – the paradigm proposed by Charles Darwin – is linked to indifference to the environment, the study found.
We need to also consider lack of environmental awareness and environmental anxiety, the latter is where we look away because it all becomes too much to handle, it is very much too big and too scary. This is completely understandable, especially as our brains are wired to short-term problems and not long-term risks and drawn to seeking out information that supports our already established viewpoints. Our brains are wired to be stubborn.
I am not saying that we are all narcissists who are stubborn and are purely focused on outcompeting others, although I am sure we all know of at least one individual who may match these traits.
There are genuine biological reasons why we ignore and turn away from environmental crises, but there are also dark ones that are pushing us that way, so the status quo can stay the same. Turning your head away from capitalism, choosing kindness, staying away from social media, connecting with the outdoors, going for a walk, these are all important choices and qualities that will help us moving forward.
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Stephen Le Quesne is a naturalist, conservationist, forest school leader and nature connection advocate.
