Grant Earth’s Personhood
“Save the Earth” is akin to “sustainability”, in that the phrase has lost meaning having been repeated without follow-through or clarity around the objectives.
When we say “save the earth”, we really mean regain a sense of ecological balance along the planet’s crust and atmosphere. The core and mantle are largely outside of our physical control. However, the continents, water bodies, and atmosphere fall squarely in humanity’s influence. More than that, we are made of Earth, literally.
The context I’d like to provide here is quite obvious, and that is we are all born and die from material given from our parents and assimilated by the food we eat. Across religions, worldviews, abilities, identities we know babies are born of womb and have flesh derived from mother and father. We all change as we age, and after dying we decay downwards and outwards as life claims our flesh again. In American yoga classes, we often will close by transitioning from fetal pose– the first yoga pose – to savasana–the final yoga pose– as a metaphor that serves as this reminder, and encourages students to seek and embody renewal and transformation.
We existed before we were “born” through traces in mothers and fathers. Physiological features have ancestral lineage, so too our cultures. Familial dynamics are at the core of the socioenvironmental landscape.
Moms and dads we label as parents. Family members like cousins, siblings, grandparents, have relational designations as well. Our bodies are made of the Earth, just as they are of our parents and relatives. And so the logic applies that the Earth and all the life who inhabit it are extensions of our family. Not just in a spiritual sense, but in a logical one.
Traditional knowledge affirms that the Earth is kin, and a range of conservationists throughout history came to similar conclusions. Aligned with the previous contextual theme of Embracing Alternative Knowledge,
“Skolt Sámi leader Pauliina Feodoroff has expressed how environmental change and climate change are processes affecting more than just the landscapes—each change or loss is physically felt, especially by Indigenous women in and through their bodies, highlighting the cascading nature of impacts far beyond what is measurable by “standard science methods.” Rewilding and restoration are not only a technical exercise but also a deep, multi-sensory (re-)engagement with landscapes. (Ogar et. al, 2020).
Here, Feodoroff’s quote points to not only alternative scientific methods of inquiry through physical sensations by Indigenous women living close with Nature, but also the reality that in many Indigenous cultures the Earth is a family relative just like our parents, siblings, and elderly.
In Think Like A Mountain, American conservationist Aldo Leopold tells the story of hunters, deer, and wolves on a mountain. The hunters decide to kill all the wolves to have more deer to hunt. But this leads to deer becoming overpopulated, overrunning and destroying the ecology. All the while, the mountain witnessed it all. With so many poetic lines in A Sand County Almanac it is hard to pick a favorite, but this one sticks with me, “too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run.”
Convenience is like a cultural hangover– we’re cashing an advance on tomorrow’s happiness for momentary pleasure now, sacrificing the future to forever exist in a state of misery. As a society, the long line of powerful wealthy individuals extends far beyond any of our lifetimes. They desired comforts brought by wealth, and they took what they wanted. Scarcity forced trickery, like capitalist natural selection. And so the ones in power packaged promises in plastic and deemed us laborers as consumers, who worked for their paychecks only to pay them back to the companies that employ and feed us.
Now we’re paying the price for this luxury and prowess, because once again we are facing scarcity. There’s not enough minerals, not enough time, not enough labor. Many of us are either asleep at the wheel or too exhausted to fight. We continue to sell our time to keep the machine running a little longer, in hopes we all get a slice of the pie and seat at the table.
The example that best describes our situation while also presenting the best path forward is bottled water. Bottled water is a matter of convenience, safety, human rights, and ecological balance. In many parts of the world, companies like Nestle and Coca Cola steal water from aquifers to use in their bottled water and sodas. An instance in Colorado taught me about the concept of corporate personhood. This designation gave Nestle the right to bottle the water over the rights of the affected cities. The law treated Nestle as a person with rights to the water, over the rights of actual people.
The case to grant Earth’s personhood is supported by countless Indigenous leaders, conservationists, and environmental lawyers who all agree that Earth is a person with intrinsic value outside of resources. I am inclined to align with spiritual teachings that see the planet as an organism related to us.
