I recently decided it would be good practice to replicate some studies around ecosystem services - just to get experience with how people have done these kinds of simulations and predictions myself. So I pulled up some studies relevant to my area and began enumerating the services so I could choose a particular project of most interest to me. Air quality, water quality, climate control, food, the list became quite extensive. But, as I was sitting there, I began to realize something - nothing on this list was why I was writing this list. I didn't stumble into this cause on account of water quality or desertification, I am here because I absolutely adore my local biosphere. And as I thought about it more, it occurred to me that everyone I know who has really cared about this stuff and fought for it was in the same boat. Sure, ecosystem services and the associated modeling informs and fuels our fire, but at the end of the day it is not the fire itself. No, the fire is always a deep set love that would exist separate of all of these "services". For some people it's fishing that they love. For others it's going out hunting for mushrooms. For me it was originally just catching frogs. That love for the critters and plants that make up the biosphere is where this passion really comes from.
We know today, just given how people vote, that the biosphere is not a priority for most people. It just isn't. And so folks have tried a different tact - they try to identify what is a priority and then link that back to the issues our biosphere is and could end up experiencing. Worried about taxes - well your government is going to need more money from you as it becomes harder to live on this planet. Love sushi? Our management strategies may mean you don't eat tuna 10 years from now. We trying to convince people they should care by linking what we care about to what they care about.
Yet, as we've seen, there are so many ways in which this can not go as planned. People may not fully appreciate the full impact and scope of the argument. They may not trust the source or feel like it's overblown. Given all of the different arguments being made they may simply become overwhelmed or shutout the information entirely. And then there's the fact that when they go to vote or buy something that information has to be on the forefront of their mind to really make a difference. And then beyond all of this, there's the fact that even for those people who are convinced - the basis of their fire is not any of these arguments, but rather the fact that the biosphere was just a priority for them to begin with. Which all points to the following conclusion - if people are to make the biosphere a priority, convincing them that it's secondarily valuable is not going to cut it - they have to love the biosphere for itself.
Within this frame of view it becomes glaringly apparent why our world is having so much trouble doing the right thing. What opportunities, what forces really exist to drive this kind of adoration? In high school, biology is about mitochondria and anatomy, and only briefly and dryly covers ecosystems or biodiversity or any of the other myriad components of our biosphere. In college, unless you study biology, the subject is just ignored. And then from there, there's just nothing. Field guides take dedication and prior want to parse and understand. The wonders of our natural world are almost always painted as being in some far distant corner of the world. And the news only speaks of doom and gloom. Where is the opportunity to build biophiles?
If we want a world filled with people who actually prioritize the biosphere in more than words (and only such a world sees a shift in consumption and voting patterns) we have to take concerted efforts to build deep, personal love for the biosphere. Without that kind of emotional connection all of the tools we build, all of the science we do, will forever be thrown into a world full of people who, fundamentally, don't really care and will consistently end up prioritizing the things that do matter to them. But building up this kind of love is not about rational arguments or running through the science. It is about kindling that same kind of adoration and wonder I had as a child sneaking along the edge of a pond catching frogs. Reconnecting people to their local, natural world and helping them fall in love with it - that's the way out of our current dilemma. Because at the end of the day our societies are a reflection of our cultures, and until our cultures are steeped in connection and adoration for the biosphere our policies, businesses, technologies, and actions won't be.
We need to reconnect.
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