2020 wasn't just the year of the pandemic, it was also the hottest year on record. The last ice age lasted about 2,6 million years, and we managed to overcome it thanks to a very gradual warming, driven by natural influences on the Earth's climate.
This made it possible to enter the Holocene, which lasted for twelve thousand years, until the twentieth century, with relatively stable temperatures that fluctuated only one degree Celsius above or below average.
Environmental integrity
Throughout this period, temperatures, precipitation patterns, and terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems stabilized in a way that was favorable to the well-being of the human species, so much so that the ten thousand individuals living in small tribes were able to begin a sedentary lifestyle, evolve into farmers and settlers, and eventually develop cities with the help of industry and technology.
Humans have prospered to the point where the population currently stands at 7,7 billion. Over the past fifty years, however, we have severely compromised the environmental integrity of our planet through post-Industrial Revolution lifestyles, the unbridled use of fossil fuels, and massive deforestation.
Environmental instability
Weather instability, deforestation of 12 million hectares a year, the drastic decline of animal species, the melting of glaciers with a consequent rise in sea levels of over twenty centimeters, suggest that we are already experiencing the sixth mass extinction.
In just fifty years we have reached the Anthropocene , a new geological era in which biogeochemical conditions are dominated not by natural processes, but by the tangible impact of human activity, which, for the first time ever, is the main driver of climate change across the planet.
Many people remain unaware of the scale and intensity of the ongoing destruction, and some even choose to ignore it, but its effects are now being revealed through species extinctions, storms, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and, of course, the pandemic.
Human suffering and the resulting economic losses are increasingly frequent and add to centuries of inequality and human rights violations, responsible for political and social unrest. Our future , therefore, will be shaped by who we choose to be in this moment and what we choose to do to improve the situation.
The first challenge is to change your mentality
Paradoxically, systemic change requires a deeply personal effort, as social and economic structures are a projection of our way of thinking.
For a long time, Western societies have prioritized self-interest over the well-being of the whole, but the time has come to broaden our self-understanding, to better understand our relationships with others and our relationship with the natural systems that allow us to live on Earth.
In most cases, you can't completely control the context of a challenge, but you can change your behavior within it to become a catalyst for overall change.
Before moving on to "doing," we must begin with "being," our state of mind and what we can bring to the mission. This is because trying to change while maintaining the same mindset that has guided us up to a certain point won't yield great results.
Returning to innate wisdom
To return to the innate wisdom of nature itself, which knows how to regenerate and integrate anything by itself, the economy must also become "regenerative", that is, capable of operating in harmony with the environment, minimising waste, reconverting used resources and reintegrating exhausted ones [1].
We have reached the limits of our individualistic and competitive lifestyle, yet the dystopian scenario that unfolds before us makes it truly difficult to practice non-attachment to a nostalgic past, especially because of the fear of the unknown.
The evolution of society has also led to a change in the feeling of fear, according to Z. Bauman "there are no safe havens where one can hide. In the liquid-modern world, dangers and fears are also liquid (...), they flow, drip, ooze, ooze... No walls have been invented that can stop them, although many try to build them" [2].
The problem with the planetary crisis is that it clashes with a series of innate cognitive biases , related to apathy, because it gives the sensation of being abstract, distant, isolated rather than presenting itself as the crucial junctures of an increasingly pressing narrative.
Faced with such an adverse event, most people's innate reaction is helplessness, which is becoming an irresponsible response because, even if sometimes unconsciously, it is concretely dangerous.
The lives we create will shape a future that cannot be undone.
The environmental crisis, although a universal experience , does not give us the feeling of being an event of which we are part, it does not give us the feeling of being an event in itself, despite the cataclysms, but future generations who will look back will ask themselves where we were as individuals, why we have come to this point [3].
The reality of an increasingly fragile environment, so much so that it can no longer sustain life within it, is hard to accept.
It's even more so when your daily habits are at stake and it takes a lot of effort not only to change them, but also to understand how much of a difference they make.
The term “decision” comes from the Latin “deciderê” and means “to cut away”, when we decide something we are also deciding to cut away the possible ways in which we will not do it.
Every decision requires a negligible loss, other times it is unbearable.
“We live in a society that has achieved unprecedented material goals, we are led to define ourselves by what we have, from possessions to money, from opinions to likes, but what reveals who we are is what we give up.”
We cannot maintain the lifestyle we are attached to and at the same time preserve the planet we are used to, we have to decide what to give up [4].
The society we live in has accustomed us to automatically think in a competitive way; to achieve goals and satisfy desires, we must get there first. However, if we thought more in a collaborative and sharing way, it would be possible to experience the positivity of greater abundance for everyone, in terms of resources, possibilities, and results.
We could create fertile ground for collective wisdom , in which each individual's small contribution is important to the achievement of a common enterprise and in which we could restore space for an optimism that, considering all the bad news raining down on us, is increasingly difficult to nurture.
C. Figueres and T. Rivett-Carnac, climate change experts and co-founders of the organization Global Optimism, bring to the fore a “stubborn” optimism as we have reached a moment in which it is necessary to react and actively demonstrate, through every decision and action, that we are capable of designing a better future and moving forward with determination.
The obsession with “finding something better” has accompanied societies for centuries, but now it is time to move away from the duality of extraction and depletion of resources and focus on the capacity for “total” regeneration.
What is regeneration?
In the natural world, regeneration refers to the process of self-healing of an injured part of an organism using the remaining healthy tissue, an example being the healing of scratches and wounds.
On a larger scale, it is the ability of a system or biosystem to recover on its own once humans have stopped exerting the pressure they had put on it, an example being degraded lands that start “living” again once we stop exploiting them.
The critical convergence of climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, desertification, and ocean acidification has brought us to a point where we can no longer rely naively on the Earth's natural resilience. We have almost destroyed nature's capacity for self-renewal, and in many cases, ecosystem restoration requires intentional human intervention, such as rewilding to address destructive grazing pressure or animal repopulation.
Nature needs our help. We won't be able to recover everything—many species are already extinct and many ecosystems are irreparably damaged. But we can create a new state of health with greater resilience, and this is only possible through a commitment to creating a new way of living and thinking.
Approaching the regenerative mindset
We begin to move toward a regenerative mindset when we recognize and internalize the simple fact that our life, our very physical survival, depends directly on nature.
Humans cannot survive more than a few minutes without oxygen, more than a week without water, and three weeks without food. Every breath we take, every drop we drink, and every bite of food we eat comes from nature and connects us deeply to it [5].
It's a simple, basic truth that we often tend to ignore or take for granted, and as a result, we continue to maintain harmful habits. Not only our mere survival, but also our physical and emotional health depends largely on the world around us, contact with which is threatened by the ever-increasing rates of urbanization and the time we spend with our electronic devices.
Nature Deficit Disorder
Sedentary living in indoor environments, often characterized by limited natural light, poor air quality, walls and many hours spent in front of a screen, leads not only to obesity and loss of physical strength, but also to feelings of isolation and depression. These symptoms have been grouped and diagnosed as “nature deficit disorder” [6].
This expression, coined in 2008 by R. Louv, an American educator and researcher, indicates a living condition characterized by psycho-physical discomfort, linked to the loss of that innate connection with nature, the legacy of millennia of activities intertwined with a sacred and profound respect for the environment, on the part of our ancestors.
According to Louv, this disconnect can also undermine people's ability to feel alive. For most, the word "sustainability" is problematic because it signifies stasis, survival, and energy efficiency in a context of cultural depression, as demonstrated by the dystopian fiction that fuels a post-apocalyptic imagination.
“If these are the dominant images, and we don't have a balancing set of images of a great future, then we'd better be careful what we imagine.” [7]
Postmodernism and depression
The correlation between postmodernism and depression, and the profound transformation that the latter has undergone in the Western world, is due to A. Ehremberg, a contemporary French sociologist.
At the root of this condition would be a “sense of inadequacy” with respect to the incalculable opportunities of our current context, with a consequent inability to choose and act.
The incessant rush to self-exaltation and to prove oneself worthy of others' expectations goes beyond the symptomatic results of sadness and moral suffering typical of depression, but are deeper and more subtle sensations that lead the individual to feel inadequate and to experience anguish, inadequacy and incapacity [8].
This condition can be amplified by the “chronic fear of environmental ruin,” defined by some experts as eco-anxiety, or climate anxiety.
It is a healthy and constructive response to a real threat. In fact, one measure of mental health is the ability to respond appropriately to reality from an emotional point of view, but it can lead to psychological distress, even leading to panic attacks.
Climate trauma in the collective psyche
According to C. Hickman, professor of psychology at the University of Bath, the climate trauma on the collective psyche renders most people incapable of acting to influence change on the scale necessary to limit the ongoing crisis.
This is due to a whole series of micro-denials, even in those who accept the dire future predictions, which essentially lead to keeping the crisis in mind while continuing, however, to engage in behaviors that intensify it.
We must therefore develop a "ruthless compassion" for ourselves and for others, understood as an internal activism which, while taking responsibility for the present, recognises the extreme discomfort in facing the crisis and works on it to build a "radical hope", the belief that a significant action, even if small, can make a difference. [9]
A crisis unfolds in various ways, and our decisions reveal who we are. To activate our will, engagement is necessary; the earth should be considered a home not only on an intellectual level but also on a visceral level.
Towards a regenerative Anthropocene
Acting regeneratively means taking care of ourselves and others, reconnecting with nature, working together to restore, recycle, share what we use, and ensure that there is plenty left for the future.
A cultural shift is needed, starting with ourselves. To recharge, we must regularly and consciously replenish our energy, be able to notice when we're exhausted, regenerate, and then be able to affirm and strengthen our regenerative capacity towards others and, increasingly, towards the surrounding environment.
A regenerative mindset is most effective when pursued consistently, which is why it's important to cultivate strong mental discipline combined with a kind spirit.
Regenerating the imagination
To sustain a regenerative culture, we must also regenerate our imagination, understanding that, in addition to getting what we want and need from our fellow humans, we have a responsibility to renew ourselves and help others reach greater levels of energy and understanding.
Beyond gathering what we need from nature, it is our responsibility and in our interest to protect and improve life on this planet. To do so, we must shift our focus from ego to nature.
When considering an action, we must ask ourselves whether it actively contributes to the flourishing of human beings and nature as a single integrated system on this planet. The change in mentality must manifest itself in actions.
Personal and environmental goals are interconnected, mutually reinforcing, and both need our attention [10] . We like to identify ourselves as people sensitive to civil liberties, economic justice, discrimination, animal welfare, but these are more protective identities if we then, really and concretely, do nothing to contribute.
Collective action is needed to improve the global quality of life, but each individual must make a constructive contribution to get it going.
Creating a Regenerative Anthropocene
A regenerative Anthropocene will not come by itself, but we can try to create it intentionally, so that humanity can finally exert a vital influence on the planet's ecosystems.
We can choose regeneration as a constructive principle for our lives in general and for our activities, we can restore the resilience of the Earth and human communities and at the same time heal our souls.
None of us can have complete control over the path the world will choose for the future, but each of us can individually commit to making a difference. We can no longer afford to feel helpless and assume that addressing climate change is the sole responsibility of national and local governments or corporations.
This is a mission that concerns everyone and everyone must take responsibility for it both individually and collectively. It is time to honor the past, let it go and face the uncertainty of the future with all the courage possible [11].
Federica Ucci
Bibliographic and web references
- Z. Bauman, Liquid Fear, Rome, Laterza Publishers, Rome, 2009.
- A. Ehrenberg, The Struggle of Being Oneself: Depression and Society, Einaudi Editore, Milan, 2010.
- C. Figueres, T. Rivett-Carnac, Choosing the Future: Facing the Climate Crisis with Stubborn Optimism, Tlon Publishing, 2021.
- J.S. Foer, We Can Save the World, Before Dinner: Why We Are the Climate, Guanda Editore, 2019.
- R. Louv, The Last Child of the Woods: How to Reconnect Our Children with Nature, Rizzoli, Milan, 2006.
- R. Louv, The Nature Principle. Human restoration and the end of Nature deficit disorder, Highbridge Co, 2011.
- www.nationalgeographic.com
- www.theguardian.com
[1] C. Figueres, T. Rivett-Carnac, Choosing the Future: Facing the Climate Crisis with Stubborn Optimism, Tlon Publishing, 2021.
[2] Z. Bauman, Liquid Fear, Rome, Laterza Publishers, Rome, 2009.
[3] J.S. Foer, We Can Save the World, Before Dinner: Why We Are the Climate, Guanda Editore, 2019.
[4] Ibidem
[5] C. Figueres, T. Rivett-Carnac, 2021, Op. Cit.
[6] See R. Louv, The Last Child of the Woods: How to Reconnect Our Children with Nature (Rizzoli, Milan, 2006) and The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature Deficit Disorder (Highbridge, Co., 2011).
[7] R. Louv in Connecting With Nature Boosts Creativity and Health (nationalgeographic.com)
[8] A. Ehrenberg, The Struggle of Being Oneself: Depression and Society, Einaudi Editore, Milan, 2010.
[9] 'Hijacked by anxiety': how climate dread is hindering climate action | Environmental activism | The Guardian
[10] C. Figueres, T. Rivett-Carnac, 2021, Op. Cit.
[11] C. Figueres, T. Rivett-Carnac, 2021, Op. Cit.
