Growing up, I was always encouraged to spend time outside and found comfort in nature. In middle school, I started to learn about the climate crisis our planet is facing. I started to worry for my future and the world my future kids and grandkids would be entering. I also began to develop more of an appreciation for nature, but I was not really connected with it.
I spent a week backpacking in Pisgah National Forest with my 8th grade class. This week was the closest I had ever lived with nature. Everything I did was so dependent on the land and the life occupying it. This trip marked a change from an appreciation of nature to a real connection with nature for me. That connection made me more passionate about changing my daily habits in efforts to be a little more kind to the earth. But, these small changes can easily start to feel like they aren’t enough to make a real impact. It made me upset and frustrated that other people would never feel a similar sense of obligation to put a stop to climate change. I didn’t really have a name for any of these feelings at the time.
Ecological grief, the grief associated with ecological losses, is a negative effect of climate change but also could inspire positive change, “emotions are often what leads people to act, it is possible that feelings of ecological anxiety and grief, although uncomfortable, are in fact the crucible through which humanity must pass to harness the energy and conviction that are needed for the lifesaving changes now required.”2 If eco-grief is felt on a large scale, more people may be inspired to act, potentially reducing the worries I have that others will never feel an obligation to protect the earth along with improved planetary health. Glen Albrecht defines the term
soliphilia as “the love of the totality of our place relationships and a willingness to accept, in solidarity and affiliation with others, the political responsibility for the health of the earth, our home.”1 This term encompasses the obligation I felt to protect the earth after developing a strong connection with nature. 1 Environment Change, Distress & Human Emotion Solastalgia, TEDxSydney, 2010, https://tedxsydney.com/talk/environment-change-distress-human-emotion-solastalgia/. 2 Ashlee Cunsolo et al., “Ecological Grief and Anxiety: the Start of a Healthy Response to Climate Change?,” The Lancet Planetary Health 4, no. 7 (July 1, 2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(20)30144-3.
“In our language there is no word for nature because we are nature.”3
3 Indigenous Activists on Tackling the Climate Crisis: 'We Have Done More than Any Government'. YouTube. YouTube, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm8Ctb2w81Y.
This quote encompasses what I view in my environmental future. I hope to begin to view myself as one with nature instead of just surrounded by it. I will continue to make small choices in my daily life to be more kind to the earth and fight for the big changes needed to reduce the impacts of climate change on a global level. I hope to inspire others to adopt a similar feeling of soliphilia.