Category: Planet

In the Anthropocene, is human adaptation obsolete? Will humans continue the process of evolution? Or have we swapped genetic adaptation for technology? This is a question I’ve been thinking about a lot. I also have to wonder whether a species needs to adapt if it can profoundly change its environment through, say, geoengineering?

Many would argue that this line of thinking is naive. If humans are good at one thing, it’s self-deception! We are great so at telling ourselves stories. But in so doing, we may be deceiving ourselves about our ability to alter our environment in the long term. Climate change and depleted resources (hey, peak oil) also throw a wrench in humanity’s plan to defy Darwinism.

WWDS (What Would Darwin Say)? Originally, Charles described adaptation and speciation as applicable to all organisms. But for thousands of years—as the late Stanford historian Lynn White reminds us in his famous article “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”—humans have not just been adapting to their environment. We’ve also been physically altering it on a massive scale, from engineering rivers to deforesting large tracts of land. To at least some degree, we’ve removed ourselves from Darwin’s environmental “web of complex relations.”

White argues that the human M.O. of treating nature as a treasury of resources made just for us originates with, you guessed it, religion. The Judeo-Christian creation myth put forth a human-nature binary that led to the despiritualization of the natural world. With the decline of pantheism and animism, no longer did the majority of the world view rocks, trees, and animals as beings and spiritual vessels. And consequently, as White perfectly puts it, “… no creature other than man has ever managed to foul its nest in such short order” (1204).

From a survival-of-the-fittest standpoint, this ethos has benefitted the human race, at least until now. Our population has skyrocketed from around 300 million people when Jesus walked the earth to 7.6 billion and counting. Joining population in its upward march are life expectancy, for example, and quality of life. There’s no debate about the fact that we are the dominant species on the planet, even if we are technically outnumbered by bacteria.

If the Biblical tenet of human dominion over nature has helped homo sapiens succeed, could this belief be considered intellectual adaptation? Despite the fact that it clashes with the principles of other religions, humanity’s “I-It” Buberian relationship with nature is now widespread globally regardless of religious alignment.

How might intellectual adaptation work? A set of beliefs—be they Christianity or democracy—develops during a generation and is passed down to future generations. Parents raise their children to believe the ideology as reality. Writers codify the ideology, rendering it part of the record, even fact.

Over time, the origins of the ideology blur, allowing it to become even more fundamental to a society. In the case of religion, it becomes more than natural fact; it assumes the position of divine and universal truth. In its new position as sacred truth, the ideology becomes the bedrock upon which systems are built. It bloats and spreads and entrenches deeply in society. This is what the ideology of humanity’s reign over nature has done.

Yet unless we soon somehow geoengineer our way out of climate change or develop a way to reestablish harmony with our planet, I argue that this ideological adaptation will ultimately be to our detriment. In that case, what purpose, if any, did it serve?

Though we humans may have collectively stepped into the role of Manager of Nature, our current predicament serves as clairvoyant reminder that we cannot fully excuse ourselves from or control the larger natural systems at play, from a virus to the wildfires that now rage in the West.

It’s time for another intellectual adaptation. Whether driven by religion or ecological awareness, an evolution in thought is in order. Our very survival as a species may depend upon it. The first intellectual adaptation moved us into the position of planetary engineers, growing stronger, older, wiser. The next must leverage the wisdom and skill we’ve gained, while moving us into a place of careful balance with the planet.

What if every time you filled up at the pump, the image of a child displaced by climate change-caused drought confronted you? Would you make an effort to drive less, or at least be more aware of the tragic connectivity and causation inherent to the Anthropocene? Inspired by graphic tobacco warning labels, I explore how visualizing the impacts of our consumptive lives might impact behavior.

History of graphic warning labels

First introduced in 1985, graphic warnings on cigarette labels began to spread in the early 2000s in spite of industry opposition. The Bulletin of the World Health Organization records Canada as the first country to require graphic warning labels in 2001, with many more countries following suit, including:

• Brazil (2002)
• Thailand (2005)
• Australia, which requires a rotation of two sets of labels every 12 months (2006)
• UK (2008)
• Taiwan (2009)

Some of the countries with the largest graphic health warnings are Mauritius, Paraguay, Australia, New Zealand, Cook Islands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Finland.

Substantial evidence demonstrates that graphic warning labels are more likely to be noticed than text-only labels. Graphic labels are also more effective at motivating smokers to quit.

The United States has still not enacted legislation to require cigarette packaging to include graphic warning labels. In 2009, a federal law required the FDA to issue a final ruling on graphic labels by June 22, 2011. With no final ruling yet issued, the American Cancer Society and other medical and advocacy organizations filed suit against the FDA on October 4, 2016.

Graphic labels recontextualized

If graphic warning labels haven proven effective at targeting the disconnect between cigarettes and the health risks they pose, could a similar strategy bridge the gaping divide between other actions and consequences?

Could visualizing the human health, human rights, and environmental impacts engendered by our everyday actions affect behavior? Rob Nixon calls for the visualization of these issues–in particular, the spectacularization of these issues–in his book Slow Violence. “How can we convert into image and narrative the disasters that are slow moving and long in the making, disasters that are anonymous and star nobody, disasters that are attritional and indifferent to the sensation-driven technologies of our image-world?” he asks.

Read the rest of the story on Truthout

Climate guilt is real, and it may affect up to 64% of Americans (aka the percentage of people in the U.S. in 2016 who are greatly or fairly worried about global climate change and probably have a carbon footprint significantly higher than zero).

In 2015, the New York Times named “climatarian” one of the words of the year (right after cat café), defined as:

a diet whose primary goal is to reverse climate change. This includes eating locally produced food (to reduce energy in transportation), choosing pork and poultry instead of beef and lamb (to limit gas emissions), and using every part of ingredients (apple cores, cheese rinds, etc.) to limit food waste.

However, “climatarian” (n) is not yet recognized by any of the major dictionaries, such as Merriam Webster or Oxford.

Therefore, I’m proposing a second, broader definition of this newfound term:

climatarian (noun) | ‘klīmit(e)rēən : a person who makes both day-to-day and major life decisions based around the prospect of climate change and its impacts; experiences often debilitating guilt regarding their contributions to climate change; and spends inordinate amounts of time worrying about catastrophic climate change

AS IN …

When Ricardo declined to travel to Paris because of the carbon footprint of the trip, Suzy accused him of being a climatarian. 

The Smiths opted to raise felines instead of children because they identify as climatarians.

Reilly is having difficulty completing her classwork because she is distracted by the prospect of runaway climate change destroying everything she knows and loves. 

You might be a climatarian if:

1. The taste of shame overpowers even the strongest delicious flavors when you consume beef, pork, out-of-season produce, and unsustainably farmed fish.
2. You agonize over simple decisions at the grocery store, baffled by whether you should prioritize local, non-GMO, organic, free-range, and/or cost.
3. You try to hide the plastic bottle/disposable coffee cup that you bought in a moment of weakness from others.
4. You love the show Tiny House, but don’t live in a small home yourself, and therefore experience a measured degree of self-hate while watching.
5. You experience a minor panic attack when you’re forced to throw away the now moldy leftovers you forgot about in the back of your fridge because you haven’t gotten around to establishing a compost pile yet.
6. Water World is one of your favorite movies!
7. Netflix keeps recommending environmental documentaries like GMO OMG and Cowspiracy.
8. You tell people you have a Costco membership because of the great deals, but really you’re starting to horde non-perishables in case of a potential climapocalypse.
9. When you forget your reusable bags, you attempt to cram groceries into your purse or carry them in a carefully balanced pile in your arms to the amusement/pity of the cashier.

But if climatarians are going to try to affect large-scale change, they must dwell in this reality. Climatarians must strike a balance.

We can’t ask everyone to totally abandon their cars, go off-grid, and become subsistence farmers. But we can make a concerted effort to reduce our impacts as we fight for systematic change.

And so The Climatarian documents the daily struggle to live (and eat) in a way that contributes as little as possible to environmental injustices, the oppression of others, and, of course, climate change.