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From Biophilia to Anthropocene and Solastalgia, the last global concepts to give us a key about why we should search a Re-connection with the Planet Earth: our Home
In this text I will investigate new concepts created for the last three decades and coined as Biophilia, Anthropocene and Solastalgia. These conceptions have been appearing from a variety of disciplines: Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Technology and Arts, and imply studies in psychology, social justice, conservation biology and ecology, geology, global climate change, urban planning and sustainability, among others. For this paper, I will describe the three concepts in a chronological order and then I will articulate them, but also I will attempt to answer the questions I have: Is it possible to remember our human origin as one more species on the Earth and assemble again a connection with the natural ecosystems under the use of visual arts as a tool?
In 1984 the American Biologist and Entomologist, Edward Wilson, coined the term "Biophilia" a hypothesis about how humankind, as a part of our species evolutionary heritage, has an innate need to be around living things and how we are naturally drawn to those places that in our pre-historic past, have best facilitated survival (Cleary et al., 2017). Although, “Biophilia” was first used in 1973 by the philosopher and social psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, who described it as “the passionate love of life and of all that is alive”, Wilson described and popularized the hypothesis as "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.” Since then many other researchers of different disciplines have been using the concept to design urban planning as well as to find psychological health benefits and well being for our society (Cleary et al., 2017).
Some years later, in 2000, a Dutch Atmospheric Chemist and Nobel Prize-winning, Paul Jozef Crutzen, popularized the concept of “Anthropocene” which means the current geological era. He described it as a period where human actions have taken drastic effect on the Earth (Crutzen & Stoermer 2000). Since then, a discussion between International Geological Agencies started to decide if the new period already started or not. For my surprise, Waters et. al. (2016) published in science that the Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene (which was officially recognized as the last geological era). They described the Anthoropocene as:
The human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth. Vigorous debate continues about whether this warrants recognition as a new geologic time unit known as the Anthropocene. We review anthropogenic markers of functional changes in the Earth system through the stratigraphic record. The appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. Rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed Late Holocene changes. Biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. These combined signals render the Anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene and earlier epochs.
"Solastalgia" instead is even a more recent concept developed by the Australian Environmental Philosopher, Glenn Albrecht, and it was first introduced at the Ecohealth Conference in Montreal in May 2003 to give greater meaning and clarity to environmentally induced distress. As opposed to nostalgia, the melancholy or homesickness experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home, Solastalgia is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting people while they are directly connected to their home environment”. Albrecht (2006, 2007) coined this concept of 'Solastalgia' as a feeling of desolation or melancholia about the emplaced and lived experience of the chronic deterioration of a loved 'home' environment. In his words “Solastalgia” is a combination of the Latin word solascium: comfort and the Greek word algia: pain. Solastalgia is a somaterratic illness (soma: body, terratic: earth-related) that threatens physical wellbeing and is caused mainly by living in ecosystems that have been destroyed, transformed, and contaminated by pollutants and toxins. These landscapes and ecosystems have been altered by human machinery, exploited and changed on big scales through mining, oil extraction, hydroelectric construction, mono-agriculture, modern cities etc. As a new concept Albretch says:
I found that many traditional cultures and their indigenous languages have words for home-heart-environment relationships, however, it is interesting to note that modern English has very few. I created the concept of ‘solastalgia’ to fill this void and to give expression in the English language to a fundamentally important relationship between people, communities and their home environment. I also feel that we need many more new concepts that recapture the closeness that human animals have with their support environment or habitat. The realm of the ‘psychoterratic’ or positive and negative relationships between human mental health (psyche) and the earth (terra) has to be re-created in the twenty first century (Albretch 2016).
The three concepts are highly related in the way that our human species have the complete responsibility for all the global and extreme changes produced just over the last 66 years after industrialization and the highest technological development with a conspicuous establishment around the 1950’s. Our planet right now has an enormous transformation already shaped into the soils as traces of history deposited or as a new layer visible in the soil horizon and the atmosphere: the Anthropocene. As well, the consequences of the fast alteration evidenced by our fingerprints are imminent, thus our psyches and bodies are experimenting the breakdown of a natural subconsciously seek and connection with the rest of life: Biophilia, as well a lost of the support of a natural environment, habitat or ancestral home: Solastalgia.
That also means the concepts are plenty associated and interconnected with the actual global and environmental crisis and are crucial factors to make a better future for the generations coming. In Albretch words: All aspects of life - social, cultural, psychological, political, scientific and economic – we as humans need to redirect our energy and intelligence to an ethically inspired, urgent, practical response to overcoming the causes of Solastalgia (Albrecht 2007, 36). Likewise, Biophilia invites to incorporate and cultivate nature connection among urban communities to enhance psychological wellbeing through the cultivation of nature connection among urban populations (Cleary et al., 2017).
If our World right now needs to start making changes, it is urgent to help people understand and re-connect with nature in order to recover the lost memory about the need of being in touch with nature to have better quality of live. That is why I wonder if it is possible to remember our human origin as one more species on the Earth and assemble again a connection with the natural ecosystems under the use of visual arts as a tool?
First of all, I think it is a contradiction to say that visual images from technological tools as cameras, computers, projectors, robots will re-connect human species to the origin and home, I mean origin as the Nature and Home as the Earth. I think is a contradiction, because I hardly believe that never will be the same experience to embrace physically a tree that watch an image printed or digital projected on a screen about myself embracing the tree. There is something else that makes the physical experience magical and deep. However, I wonder how through the use of visual arts is possible to set ideas into the people unconscious mind at any age and background, with the final objective to awake and remember the importance of being in connection with nature, especially today that we are living the times of a global climate change and environmental crisis.
Thereby, Biophilia and Solastalgia imply a strong human need of nature and also a negative psychological consequence for disconnection caused by technological nature, extreme land transformation and Ecocide. According to studies made by Kahn et. al. (2009), about the Human Nature Relation with Techological Nature they found: two world trends are powerfully reshaping human existence: the degradation, if not destruction, of large parts of the natural world, and unprecedented technological development. At the nexus of these two trends lies technological Nature -technologies that in various ways mediates, augment, or simulate the natural world. Current examples of technological nature include videos and live webcams of nature, robot animals and immersive virtual environments. After different technological nature studies comparing human relationships with robots and virtual landscapes with natural landscapes and real animals in children of different ages and countries they found that interacting with technological nature provides some but not all the enjoyments an benefits of interacting with actual nature. Also they found that each new generation tends to take degraded environmental condition as no degraded condition, what involve an environmental generational amnesia. The same found Bjørn et al. (2009), they evidenced with studies on outdoor activities, therapeutic use of Nature and having a view of Nature (either actual Nature or in pictures), and adding plants to indoor environments will help to have better quality of life and wellbeing.
As a conclusion, there are some evidences that demonstrate the images have some impact and are able to generate benefits for better quality of live, however the benefits are less that the actual nature. I have not found yet studies that demonstrate the visual images will help to remember the origin and the need of connection, but it is still a lot research work to do in order to find answers that help to clarify the question.
Bibliography
Albrecht, G. 2006. Environmental Distress as Solastalgia. Alternatives, 32 (4/5) pp. 34-35. 2006.
Albrecht G., & G. M. Sartore. 2007 Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change. Australasian Psychiatry. Vol 15 Supplement S97. 2007.
Albrecht G. 2016. Solastalgia, Soliphilia, Eutierria and Art. [online] Available at: glennaalbrecht.wordpress.com/2016/06/27/solastalgia-soliphilia-eutierria-and-art/ [Accessed 21 Nov. 2016].
Bjørn G. & G.G Patil. 2009. Biophilia: Does Visual Contact with Nature Impact on Health and Well-Being. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2009 Sep; 6(9):2332-43.
Cleary, A., Fielding K., Bell S., Murray Z., Roiko A. 2017. Exploring potential mechanisms involved in the relationship between eudaimonic wellbeing and nature connection. Landscape and Urban Planning 158 (2017) 119-128
Crutzen, P. J. & E. F. Stoermer. 2000. "The 'Anthropocene'". Global Change Newsletter. 41: 17–18.
Peter H. Kahn, Jr., Rachel L. Severson and Jolina H. Ruckert, The Human Relation With Nature and Technological Nature. Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 18, No. 1 (February 2009), pp. 37- 42 Andrew Balmford, Lizzie Clegg, Tim Coulson and Jennie Taylor. Why Conservationists Should Heed Pokémon
Waters, Colin N.; Zalasiewicz, Jan; Summerhayes, Colin; Barnosky, Anthony D.; Poirier, Clément; Gałuszka, Agnieszka; Cearreta, Alejandro; Edgeworth, Matt; Ellis, Erle C. 2016. "The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene". Science 08 Jan 2016: Vol. 351, Issue 6269, DOI: 10.1126/science.aad2622
Wilson, Edward O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-07442-4.