Humans and the Natural World Article 6
 

In order to ensure a sustainable human future means transforming the way we farm and fish, the way we generate energy, and the way we can sustain healthy environments. Now is the time to turn promises about protecting the Living Earth into reality.

The fossil economy has been inseparable from the exploitation of both humans and nature. It created the illusion of self-sustaining growth that remains fundamental to this day, this machine that can never be allowed to stop, even as it destroys much of the Living Earth. Exceptional as the calamities of 2020-3 were, they could be just a taste of future trends unless we change direction as quickly as possible.

In our technological lives we must rediscover the affiliation for actual nature that lies deep within the architecture of the human mind, body, and spirit. Sadly, the natural world seems curiously absent from moral consideration. In light of our increased knowledge of the natural world and our interconnections with it surely it is time to acknowledge such consideration. Indeed, describing the natural world simply in terms of human natural resources and public goods tacitly supports the false assumption that human beings are somehow apart from, and in control of, the natural world.

The idea that the Earth is subject to human ownership and that somehow justice does not apply to the rest of the Living Earth is odd in that the Living Earth sustains humanity itself. Engagement with a paradigm shift gaining strength and support across the world: the emerging recognition that justice and wellbeing are urgent not only for people but for the non-human world as well.

In relation to human sustainability we must move beyond the beliefs that humans rightfully control all geographical space and that only humans deserve moral consideration. While these beliefs are far from universally held, they have become globally prevalent since the dawn of the Agricultural Revolution some 10-12,000 years ago. When the need to supersede these beliefs is acknowledged another course of action emerges: one based on broadening existential and ethical concerns to include both the human and non-human worlds.

Are humans on the verge of ‘peace talks’ with the non-human world? Our species could do with a bit of humility about its place in the natural order. For too many centuries, humans have imagined themselves to be the Earth’s “apex predators” – smarter, faster and more deadly than any other creature with which we share the planet. An article in a 2018 special issue of Scientific American praised our species for “the richness of our subjective experience” and “better cognitive skills and bigger brains” – although elephants have bigger brains and no one has worked out how to measure the “subjective experience” of non-human life. Across the 200,000 or so years of modern human history our species has not always been so conceited about our place in the world.

Over the course of millennia, a pyramid of antagonistic creatures had arisen on our planet, ranging in size from viruses to bacteria to the cells that comprise whole living bodies. Humans have learned to make use of some of these tiny beings, for example in food production and medicine, but now we find ourselves in a less powerful position. We must, belatedly, come to an accommodation. This will involve rethinking the idea of our supremacy over the natural world.

There is hope for a more equitable arrangement between the Earth’s species. In 2012, an international conference in Cambridge, “Consciousness in Human and Non-Human Animals”, issued a formal acknowledgment that many non-human animals, including mammals, birds and cephalopods etc., also possess ‘the neurological substrates that generate consciousness’”.

This was, in its own way, a major shift in human thinking, which had so far given no quarter to the idea that non-human animals are capable of imagination, curiosity and other human-like traits. It raised a multitude of questions about humanity’s position in the world.

Can we share the Earth with our fellow earthlings? What happens to the non-human animals incarcerated in feedlots and abattoirs? How will humans subsist if large areas of the planet are returned to their natural state? We may be on the verge of making peace with nature we may finally see the moral as well as practical reasons for doing so. The question is: Can we? Hopefully, we can.

A living species, or ecosystem, is to be respected as remarkable achievements of nature, just as a work of art is a remarkable accomplishment of humanity. Somehow we must navigate our journey in this age of alienation from the natural world around us and put an end to its exploitation. Indeed, we ought to improve our knowledge of the Living Earth so as to help us live more sustainably.

It could be said that our purpose in life is to explore the beauty, complexity and vastness of the Universe, along with that of the sub-atomic and quantum worlds, as well as the wonder of the natural world of which we all belong. Our ongoing destruction of the natural world lets us see how paradoxical we humans are. Indeed, having made progress in understanding in workings of the human brain and indeed the Universe, etc. Yet our destruction of the natural world continues.

The burden of initiating peace talks between humans and the Living Earth no doubt lies with us. It is we who emptied the once crowded rivers and plains, we who silenced the chatter of the forests and ploughed the grassy land. We have a lot to re-learn about the Living Earth and our place in it, and the first thing today’s humans will have to learn is humility.