Lost connections with nature and lack of progress towards biodiversity and climate goals
A roundup of posts I've made recently on some important topics.
Hi folks,
This week’s post is another slightly more experimental format. I realised I’d been posting about quite a few topics I think are really important, but these are only being seen by folks engaging directly with Substack’s Notes feature. So I thought I’d do a little round up of a few posts on the theme of connection with nature and progress towards climate and biodiversity goals. These are effectively bite-sized posts tied together with a bit of red thread.
Hope you enjoy it!
Cheers,
Jono
Remember to like the post and share it with your friends if you enjoyed it — thanks!
The importance of connecting with nature
Connecting with nature provides immense positive human health benefits, both physical and mental. For instance, did you know that just looking at a forest has a psychological calming effect. Research has indicated that this could be due to the fractal dimensions of trees and that the level of calming may depend on the exact fractal dimension, reflecting different types of forest. Super interesting!
You can even receive a psychological calming effect within 90 seconds from just looking at green space on screen! And patients recover faster in hospital when they have a view of green space.
It’s not just sight though. There are positive benefits from all of our senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and sound.
Research has shown enhanced gut microbiome and immune function in kids who play in forest soil. And just smelling plants can alter our blood markers. Even listening to birds can reduce physiological symptoms of stress. The list goes on. This is an active area of research.
Yet, we’ve known this deep down for centuries. As Hippocrates said, “Nature is the physician of disease”.
Beyond human health benefits, connecting with nature can benefit nature itself, biodiversity and the climate by changing our behaviour. For instance, people who connect with nature are more likely to advocate for nature-positive policies and are more likely to engage in activities that protect forests.
So get out there! We prioritise this in our family.
Unfortunately, we’re losing these connections and experiences…
Extinction of experience
A new extinction is emerging with climate change: the extinction of experience or the progressive loss of interactions people have with nature. This is particularly evident in children.
Climate change is reducing people’s direct experiences with nature. It has the potential to lead to this extinction of experience. We need to understand these impacts as the extinction of experience can have negative impacts on both humans and the environment.
These reduced experiences can come from restricted distributions of species, but also changes in the timing of species’ activities, such as wildflowers flowering or migration of animals. And people may be less motivated to interact with nature when local weather patterns are becoming more extreme.
These changes can lead to feedback loops, whereby people lose motivation to interact with nature as they progressively lose contact with nature.
What can we do other than stop climate change?
Increase access to green spaces.
Protect local biodiversity.
Increase people’s capability and motivation to engage with nature through education.
Minimise the risk of encounters of harmful species in green spaces.
These thoughts are taken from an interesting paper from Soga and Gaston:
Soga, M., Gaston, K.J. Extinction of experience due to climate change. Nat. Clim. Chang.14, 108–110 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01920-0
On that note…
We continue to do far too little year after year to tackle the climate crisis
When will governments realise that continuing to bury our heads in the sand will only lead to a ghastly future?
William Ripple and colleagues recently published The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth. It’s not a nice read.
“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.”
Don’t read it if you’re feeling sensitive—it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of our current position. But I’d encourage you to do so as it highlights the pressing need for the world to take action immediately to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
On that note…
Do you want to play a role in helping to fight climate change?
Talk to your friends. Talk to your family. Talk to your neighbours. Open the dialogue. Any time you have a chance. Talk about 1.5 degrees. Talk about 3.0 degrees and how bad that could be. But also talk about the fact we have a chance to limit the damage.
And.
Don’t just virtue signal. Call your local politician, get active, protest, vote responsibly.
We need to do this for our kids. But how do we talk to them effectively?
How to talk to kids about climate change
Our kids are inheriting a different future to what we experienced. We need to talk to them about it, but it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom.
Talking to children about climate change is not just about educating them on the science; it’s about empowering them to be part of the solution.
Some steps:
Listen: Hear them out. Let them express their feelings, but also express concrete solutions they can apply.
Learn: Help them understand the science, but also help them understand how to be part of the solution.
Find community: Be part of a community and help them experience first hand things that work.
Project Drawdown provides a great guide about this here: How to talk to kids about climate change.
This brings me to my next question:
Are you being a good ancestor?
This might just be the most important question we can ask ourselves in the current world.
Are your grandchildren going to thank you for your actions? Or have you been too focused on the present? Do you think in seconds, days, weeks, or do you think in decades, centuries, generations? What actions are you taking to leave a positive mark on the world? How will your grandchildren judge your actions?
Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, used this question to guide his life.
It’s hard to debate the contribution he made.
The current polycrisis needs everyone to think in this way.
This story is nicely told in The Good Ancestor by Roman Krznaric.
Thanks for tuning in once again. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to connect! And please share with your friends and family. Click the like button if you enjoyed reading the post as it helps with discoverability.
PS:
COP16 is happening right now
Finally, for the kiwis in the room, here’s some recent comments I provided to the media about COP16, which is currently happening in Cali, Colombia.
COP16 represents a major meeting of parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity, which promotes sustainable development through a vision that involves ecosystems and people.
In 2022, countries promised to save 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030 to halt the destruction of the world’s ecosystems as part of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. That agreement required countries to submit updated National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans by this year's COP16 in Colombia.
Unfortunately, more than 80% of countries have failed to submit plans. New Zealand is one of those countries. This is disappointing.
New Zealand has a biodiversity strategy (Te Mana o te Taiao), which was released in 2020. This sets the strategic direction for biodiversity in Aotearoa New Zealand for the next 30 years. It's an ambitious strategy that is needed for a country that is suffering from sustained environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. Yet, we have not submitted an updated strategy and action plan to meet the new targets.
This comes at a time when New Zealand is going backwards in environmental protection. We've seen the introduction of the Fast-Track Approvals Bill, a number of changes that jeopardise the protection and restoration of our freshwaters, which are under immense pressure, and even the introduction of commercial fishing in marine reserves. This is an extremely concerning time for the environment and biodiversity both in New Zealand and globally.
The world continues to kick the can down the road when it comes to the joint climate change-biodiversity loss challenge. New Zealand needs to do more to protect its biodiversity. It also needs to play its part in the global plan to protect biodiversity.
Very important issue. I dare say that one reason we are loosing our connection to Nature is because we have been indoctrinated with the false dichotomy that humans and Nature are separate. We are Nature. We don’t need to connect with “it” we need to reconnect our understanding of “self” to include all the things that sustain us—like trees, soil, phytoplankton, the water cycle—because without “them” there is no “us.” So much of our suffering comes from trying to uphold the inaccurate ideology that we aren’t part of Nature. But when we recognize that we are Nature, then we can start seeing how to live in harmony with our habitat (as many non-Western cultures have done and continue to do).
I always enjoy your newsletter, thank you. I agree with Tara, we are nature but the human species seems to forget that. Instead, the knowledge people seek is how to gain power over others, the next rung maybe, that feels more in your face these days. We "conquered" nature, she has no benefit, except she has everything we need to live. I am so sad.