Of The Earth: Reimagining Nature as Community | Grand Canyon ABCS
When humankind first began to traverse the planet, people and the natural environment were inseparable, symbiotic. This “spiritual interdependence”, as articulated in the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit’s Principles of Environmental Justice, was simply the natural state of things.
The Commodification of the Earth
But as humans evolved, we began to forge deep divides between us and the earth. With the emergence of capitalism in the late 18th century, we began to commodify. Whittling every product, every service, down to its potential profit. In the same way, we began to profit off of and dominate the natural environment—putting a price on lumber, oil and natural gas, even water. We distorted what was once a cyclical, reciprocal system of existence, into what is now an imbalanced, linear cycle of take→make→use→dispose.
Indeed, this commodification of nature had disastrous consequences for Earth, and eventually for its inhabitants. Years of oil spills, hazardous gas leaks, and toxic industrial waste sites have made the call for environmental justice ever more compelling. Recognizing this indivisible relationship between Human and Earth, Rebecca Adamson, founder of First Nations Development Institute, says:
All things are bound together. All things connect. What happens to the Earth happens to the children of Earth. Humankind has not woven the web of life; we are but one thread. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
Earth Day (or Month) Isn’t Enough
So, what now? Last summer, at the Grand Canyon 2017 ABCS: Minimizing Human Impact in a Changing Climate, participants made an individualized eco-friendly commitment—eating vegan or vegetarian for the week, recycling and composting, or even simply monitoring their trash output for the days to come.
In this way, students began to explore and expand their understanding of the root of community collaboration—community—to include more than just human beings, but all other aspects of the Earth: soils, water, plants, animals. The land we live on.
We acknowledged that if the path toward environmental justice is community collaboration, it must be forged with an understanding that, “when we [also] see land as a community to which we belong [as opposed to a commodity belonging to us], we may begin to use it with love and respect” (Leopold 1949).
Image via KCRW
Improving the trajectory of our natural environment goes beyond conscious consumerism, which supports the current approach of take→make→use→dispose. Instead, we must also address systems and structures that contribute to environmental degradation. We must reinvest in a circular economy—one which mimics the natural cycle, thereby realigning humans with the land and all other living beings. We have to hit ‘em where it hurts and take our votes, and our dollars away from the profit-motivated economy that industrializes land.
We must begin reimagining our relationship to community as one that incorporates and, even originates, from the natural environment. Only then might we be able to save ourselves and our community from, well…ourselves.
