Biophilia + Farm Work🌿
Vol. V-XXIII. The urge to touch every velvet moss, sniff every new-bloom and witness the dance of hummingbirds.
Witness
Quite recently, I received the best adjective my being could warrant: ‘naturalist’. This compliment was delivered when I excitedly shared with a friend a new app discovery (Merlin) that helps identify birds from audio recordings of one’s surroundings. In the 30 seconds of my recording in Southern Caifornia, the app showed the presence of eight bird species twittering around us. The same day, we witnessed a high-powered dance routine of two Rufous hummingbirds on a hike near Hollywood Hills, along with fresh paw prints, plausibly of a bobcat.
Reaffirmingly, my current read (The Nature Fix) has helped me label the kinship I feel with all beings living as biophilia. Edward O. Wilson, an evolutionary biologist, introduced the term in his eponymous book, Biophilia.
This tendency is growing ever stronger as I’m growing into life. The realization that I belong to the earth, as do all beings living, is developing into a worldview for me, further strengthened by the wider world of fellow biophilics, and reading, researching and working in the field. This is tying into my thoughts on valuation of nature and her components in our economic systems, attempts to enliven environmental economics with animate language, and to nurture nature-centric writing. (thank you to everyone who is hearing about this every time we’re meeting nowadays, each interaction is crucial!)
On this journey, I will share thoughts, literature, organizations and work being done in the sphere going forward, and have some fun interactions lined up for your reading/listening in the near future.
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Farm
Two weeks ago, a dear friend and I went to work on a farm outside LA for a week. Being outdoors and working in the sun was highly restorative. Not all days were sunny though, as Southern California is receiving more rain than it’s seen in ages. I was told to expect the Golden State, though my first memories of Southern California would be of lush, misty green hills. The atmospheric rivers were an outcome of the changing climate, to a degree bringing a respite from the drought, but also proving destructive because of their novelty.
Atypical weather aside, the pin-drop silence and removal of thousand-stimuli-per-second in the hills allowed me to better witness the spiral fall of a leaf, listen intently to the hushed hoot of an owl, urge the unfurling of new seeds in the new spring, wash each hand-collected egg with great care, notice a new variegation on an indoor plant, be grateful for each harvest of vegetables and fruits from the garden. We cooked each meal afresh and shared it with new friends. In essence, the farm allowed slowness, care and gentle passing of time. After wrapping up a corporate job in New York, this break was much needed.
Working on the farm also brought to light contradictions and cyclicalities: we weeded plants from the lavender fields to then notice the same plant’s beautiful blooms on a hike in the nearby hills; the animals on the farm were fed every day and then we cleaned out their refuse, to then use in the vegetable garden, to then weed some, eat some. We brushed sweet Caroline, the horse at the farm, and again. We got earth all over us and our home, to then bathe and sweep it all away back into the outdoors.
(A jaunt of reality: rural life in this case still led to loads of resource consumption - of fuel for the massive trucks, single-use car trips to stores located in the nearby town, plastics - along with inefficiencies and a dearth of ecological concerns at the farm. There were a few shocking instances for me as I compared this to the farms I’ve been to in India. More on this at a later date.)
[This arrangement was facilitated by WWOOF. It’s an arrangement wherein volunteers can go work at an organic farm anywhere in the world (each region has their own WWOOF site), and in exchange for labor, are given room and board for the duration of their stay. I found it quite restorative to have an unconventional Monday tasklist, in addition to being a great way to be outdoors, make and spend time with friends (willing to get their hands literally dirty), contribute to the farming community and learn about growing one’s own food. Do check it out!]
Book Mention
The abovementioned book, ‘The Nature Fix,’ is a brilliant compilation of research on why nature heals, mends and is crucial to our being. Authored by seasoned journalist, Florence Williams, the book walks us through the different ways in which various governments and organizations are developing policies and engagements to bring people back to nature: from the healing practices of forest-bathing in Japan and school bullies meditating in Korean cypress forests, to strolls on Finnish islands and breathing in Californian eucalyptus groves.
Climate News: Bad with Hope and Bad
The last IPCC report of the current round is now published. The punchline remains the same, and best put by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, "Our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once." Phasing out fossil fuels, increase renewable energy deployment and carbon removal (natural and technical) are the highest impact solutions.
Meanwhile, in stark opposition to the IPCC report’s suggestions, the Biden Administration approved the opening of ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow Project, the largest proposed oil drilling project on U.S. public lands. In addition to harming Alaskan Native health and lifeways, wildlife like polar bears, migratory birds, and caribou will also face the brunt. This again pinpoints how unjust climate change is: this project in the US will release an estimated 263 million tons of GHG emissions over 30 years. To put this in context, the emissions are equal to ‘building 20 new gas plants and running them for the same time period; burning 8.8 billion pounds of coal every year for 30 years; or adding 1.7 million cars to the road.’ The next time you think of the Global South, do also think of the suffering brought along by anti-climate actions of WEIRD nations.