The quote that changed my life-view came to me in the bottom of the Grand Canyon standing in front of the thin, cascading stream that is Emory Falls with 18 high school students.
They were my students, and they stood silent as the soft patter of the falls filled our eardrums and the smell of spring flowers in bloom surrounded our nostrils. It would have been easy for the students to go crazy - to run and jump into the falls, to scream and play. But over the last three days we had done that. We had played in waterfalls, jumped off cliffs, and yelled in the canyon, listening for echos. We had also had our fair share of silent, personal reflection time. We wrote, we did yoga, we created block paintings, and we had discussed that there is a natural, universal force out there far greater than humans have the capacity to understand or measure... a force that links everything in the universe to everything else and brings us back to our place in the universe... we are just specks in a Grand Canyon which is a speck on a planet that is a speck in the galaxy, which is a speck in the universe.
We are so small.
We just don't understand it all.
We can't even comprehend it.
We are so small.
We just don't understand it all.
We can't even comprehend it.
We had discussed human-focused projects that sought to shape nature to our desires - the Glen Canyon dam, the removal (extirpation, really) of wolves, the clearing of juniper plains for livestock. We also discussed the deleterious and unexpected effects of all of these issues - clear examples where we thought we could manipulate nature to our own comforts... and it came back to bite us. The same thing happens with our own bodies - we make foods that we think are 'better' than nature's, shoes that are 'more supportive', and cities that are 'cleaner'. Because we simply don't understand how it all works, the result is that we develop diseases of civilization, hurt feet, and microfloral imbalances. We just don't understand it all, and it is important to keep that in mind. It doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying to derive vast human welfare from what we do know and understand, it just means that we should attempt to design our systems in a way that gives us the most welfare while preserving the most ecosystem services.
But, at that waterfall as 18 high school freshmen stood completely silent and self-reflective, I felt my strong ecosystem/universal ethos begin to calm down. I watched as the silent students, standing in a circle around the falls, linked up hands and felt the energies of the people around them. The silence was broken as each of them, one by one, said one word that described the entirety of the experience.
My word? "Gravitation"
The quote that came to me was from Albert Einstein. "Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."
Yes, the universal natural forces exist. Yes, we don't understand them, and we should. Yes, we are destroying our environment at a rapid pace, and yes, I still want to fight for that cause.
But there is also a force, a power within people that we will never totally be able to understand and that even the universal force has no control over, and it is important in our fight for environmental sustainability to remember that fact. Call it altruism, but if you have ever felt the energy from a place and a group of people who are passionate, you know there is more. Altruism simply isn't strong enough to produce that energy. Though I am not quite sure what to call this power, I am not sure if it matters. I think Albert would agree: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
In the environmental movement, it is easy to highlight how greedy we are, how much we consume, or how idiotic we are with fragile resources. But attacking these character flaws will never solve our environmental concerns. Highlighting the unbelievable power of people will.
Is it possible that developing love, gratitude, and respect for other people to the highest reaches of human potential can solve our environmental problems? It seems ridiculous, but perhaps that love and gratitude can drive people to be well, feel better (that is actually proven), and consume less in order to understand more about themselves and others. Perhaps it will empower them to put all of their energies into developing environmental technologies that will save us. Perhaps it is time the environmental movement tried a love-based, people-powered approach. Perhaps it is time that chemistry teachers across the world devote less of their curriculum to thermochemistry and more of their time to allowing students to learn to accept gratitude and energy from the world and people around them, and to express their art in new and innovative ways that reflect that energy.
Again, I think Albert would agree: "Love is a better teacher than duty."
Do you agree or disagree - when we realize our human potential and highest selves, we are impassioned to improve the environment as well?
But, at that waterfall as 18 high school freshmen stood completely silent and self-reflective, I felt my strong ecosystem/universal ethos begin to calm down. I watched as the silent students, standing in a circle around the falls, linked up hands and felt the energies of the people around them. The silence was broken as each of them, one by one, said one word that described the entirety of the experience.
My word? "Gravitation"
The quote that came to me was from Albert Einstein. "Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."
Yes, the universal natural forces exist. Yes, we don't understand them, and we should. Yes, we are destroying our environment at a rapid pace, and yes, I still want to fight for that cause.
But there is also a force, a power within people that we will never totally be able to understand and that even the universal force has no control over, and it is important in our fight for environmental sustainability to remember that fact. Call it altruism, but if you have ever felt the energy from a place and a group of people who are passionate, you know there is more. Altruism simply isn't strong enough to produce that energy. Though I am not quite sure what to call this power, I am not sure if it matters. I think Albert would agree: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
In the environmental movement, it is easy to highlight how greedy we are, how much we consume, or how idiotic we are with fragile resources. But attacking these character flaws will never solve our environmental concerns. Highlighting the unbelievable power of people will.
Is it possible that developing love, gratitude, and respect for other people to the highest reaches of human potential can solve our environmental problems? It seems ridiculous, but perhaps that love and gratitude can drive people to be well, feel better (that is actually proven), and consume less in order to understand more about themselves and others. Perhaps it will empower them to put all of their energies into developing environmental technologies that will save us. Perhaps it is time the environmental movement tried a love-based, people-powered approach. Perhaps it is time that chemistry teachers across the world devote less of their curriculum to thermochemistry and more of their time to allowing students to learn to accept gratitude and energy from the world and people around them, and to express their art in new and innovative ways that reflect that energy.
Again, I think Albert would agree: "Love is a better teacher than duty."
Do you agree or disagree - when we realize our human potential and highest selves, we are impassioned to improve the environment as well?