Love sorrow and the emotions that power climate action Knut Ivar Bjrlykhaug
Transcriber:
Picture one of your favorite spots
in nature, a place you love.
Maybe you’re heading for this spot
after a stressful day at work,
maybe you’re worrying about your economy,
maybe you had an argument or fight
with your friend or worse –
you lost somebody you loved.
You are heading to this specific space,
maybe close to home,
to find some comfort.
Whatever and wherever it is,
most of us tend to search nature
to play or to get some relief,
purpose and perspective.
These spaces for potential peace are now
proving to be more important than ever
during the pandemic.
Often we are surprised by some kind
of natural phenomenon and magic
when we’re in nature.
Maybe an eagle suddenly flies
over your head,
a fish nips at your toes,
or a sparrow approaches your bench
with a tilted head
and a look that says, “Please share
some of your bread with us.”
This is me, my dad and grandmother, Signe.
And this is where I come from,
the west coast of Norway.
Most of the time in my childhood,
I spent in this yellow boat, with my dad.
He was a wildling in many ways, my dad,
and he gave me the possibility
to learn from nature
and connect with it,
especially the ocean and the seabirds.
So when I’m close to these elements,
I really feel like home-home;
I feel connected.
Now, picture that the place you love,
that sacred place where
you can feel more at ease
and sometimes maybe find peace
is in some way broken
or even worse – gone.
What if this place – for example,
your favorite bay to swim in –
which has always been there for you
now is polluted,
full of oil,
dead birds everywhere.
Or the steady mountain, now hijacked by
big machines and greedy industry.
Well, it is not about imagination anymore.
The destruction of nature
and wildlife is real.
It’s been real for a good while.
And our homes that we share
with other life forms
are getting destroyed
in the name of progress.
A couple of years ago, I met a Norwegian
philosopher, Arne Johan Vetlesen,
after reading one of his books,
called “The Denial of Nature.”
We quickly found that we share this
common love and fascination for nature,
a love that we can call “ecological love.”
We talked about
our connection to our homes
and the love for
our surrounding environments:
for him, the forests
in the southeastern parts of Norway,
with the beautiful and mysterious owls;
and for me, the bird island
and mountain Runde
on the west coast of Norway.
I said to him that in some strange way,
I sometimes feel like
and identify with the puffin bird,
maybe because I kind of always have been
dreaming about having the ability to fly.
So it must be love,
most likely not mutual.
In the forest close to Arne Johan’s house,
the owls are now gone
because of deforestation.
The bird island that I love,
the island of Runde,
now has bird nests full of plastic,
and climate change
is confusing the wildlife.
This has a devastating impact
on the nearly 500,000 bird inhabitants –
500,000.
Their numbers are now decreasing.
Most of the birds there
are listed as endangered.
So we explored our own sorrow
and pain, Arne Johan and me,
and discovered that many people
in various cultural contexts
and in different ways
feel a complicated form
of loss and mourning,
ecological sorrow, love sorrow.
We mourn and suffer with nature.
Life forms that we in many ways have taken
for granted and, as we know, exploited,
are now facing extinction
at a rate that is insane.
Since the early 1970s until today, 2020,
the world’s wildlife
has been reduced by 68 percent.
And the latest UN nature
panel report warns
that we human beings are continuing
to kill all nonhuman living beings
systematically.
We really need to start listening to
what nature is trying to tell us
and what we are doing
to ourselves as well.
We need to make a shift
from natural-born killers
to natural-born lovers,
and we need to critically challenge
what future Green Deals should consist of.
Because unfortunately,
some of the prospective solutions
to the climate crisis
also can destroy nature.
Protecting and respecting nature
is one of the most radical and important
climate actions we do.
Most of us have felt that
love is both amazing
and sometimes a bit complicated.
We also know that sorrow is deeply
connected to our ability to love
and to care for other beings.
So I argue, alongside others,
that we should feel more actively
in our relationship with other life forms.
When nature is being destroyed –
the steady mountain,
your favorite swimming spot,
the forest and all its inhabitants –
it seems quite natural
that we feel emotional pain.
Doesn’t it?
How does the destruction
affect our mental health?
Ecological sorrow is indeed
a complicated form of mourning.
Maybe it gets more complicated
because we need to acknowledge
that we, as we live today,
are the problem – human beings,
our constant craving for more,
stimulated by a political system
that does not act
to protect our fundamental home,
a system that disconnects us
from nature, the soil, the forest,
the ocean, the air.
We fail to protect all other
forms of wildlife
that we share this magnificent
and sometimes awful planet with.
So our lack of respect
for the other-than-human
is also a lack of respect for humankind.
Look at this.
It’s just …
heartbreaking.
It really breaks my heart that
we cannot stop our destruction.
So what’s the point, talking about this?
Why should we try even harder
to explore and understand
this complicated love story
and relationship with nature?
Why is this at least equally important
as big tech solutions?
Well, it does not help anybody
to get stuck in the sorrow and sadness.
But I believe we need to make
room for this sorrow, this pain
to make room for our vulnerability
to make room for all
the complicated feelings
related to the ongoing
nature and climate crisis,
because this room potentially
also creates an opportunity to act.
Because we can’t ignore it.
We need to talk about it
and share our stories.
Accepting and understanding my feelings
helps me to overcome some of the pain
and to not get stuck in depression.
And it helps me to connect with others
that feel sad and angry
because what they love
is being destroyed.
Understanding our emotional
and physical reactions better
can create the opportunity to reclaim
the fact that we are a part of nature,
not apart from nature, to quote
the famous Sir David Attenborough.
And just look at what
Greta Thunberg is doing.
She took her sorrow and depression
and transformed it to powerful action,
actions that engage and resonate
in people in an exceptional way.
However, it is likely
that we will experience more loss.
I sometimes get this question:
What can we do with our
ecological love and sorrow?
And why should we do anything?
Why should we care to continue at all
if our land is lost and gone?
This is a hard reality.
Some people commit suicide
because of climate change
and destruction of their homes.
Some get killed protecting
their home and forests.
Once again, the most vulnerable
are being affected the most,
for example, First Nation people
and climate refugees.
I believe there is still some hope
that we can come together,
that we preserve nature so that future
generations can coexist with and enjoy
what this planet has to offer.
We can use our feelings
towards the natural world
in a more constructive way,
alongside the knowledge and technology
that helps us rewild nature.
We can have a positive function
in the ecosystem.
I can only speak for myself,
even though I know I share this
perspective and these feelings with many.
But the deepest meaning for me
in this weird life
is to feel connected with all
human and nonhuman life
and to try to be supportive
on behalf of life.
Although it’s difficult
to see and feel any hope,
I believe that it will be in our actions
that we will find hope and meaning.
We have possibilities to plant seeds
and start a garden
to create a small impact where we are
in our local communities;
possibilities to reclaim the soil
that our bodies someday,
like it or not, are heading for;
possibilities to protest;
possibilities to take our love, rage
and sorrow on behalf of our homes
and the planet
to local.
And although we feel the sadness
and the sorrow in our bones,
we should remember that this feeling
is in many ways collective,
that this sorrow takes deep roots
in our collective unconscious.
To prevent a public health disaster,
a continuing wave of collective
loss and sorrow,
we need to acknowledge our feelings
to understand where they come from
and start protecting our ecological home.
I argue that it’s OK to be sad,
angry, depressed.
Believe me, you’re not alone.
Ecological love, sorrow and rage
can work as resistance.
Our stories can work as resistance.
And together, we can transform
our love and sorrow to powerful actions
in the name of protecting
nature and each other,
in the name of changing
a destructive system.
My fellow political animals:
engage and organize
and plant those seeds.
I mean, it’s amazing
to follow the will of life.
So let’s go out there and try to create
communities of hope despite all odds,
like tender dandelions
breaking through asphalt.
Let’s be vulnerable and strong
and rebel for life.
That’s all I have.