Fieldnotes: Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability
How do the metaphors we use shape how we think about and act on sustainability?
A close encounter I had with a Hawaiian green sea turtle in Hawai‘i: Happy International Sea Turtle Week!
What I’m reading
‘Sustainability’ is a word that gets thrown around a lot. And it’s no secret that what the term means exactly has been deeply contested in environmental studies since the Brundtland Commission issued its brief definition of ‘sustainable development’ way back in the 1980’s. Sustainable development is the…
“…ability to make development sustainable—to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
There’s obviously a lot of wiggle room in this definition, but as an environmental keyword that will surely stick with us for the foreseeable future, for better or worse, it is important to understand how we define it and use it to create healthier human relationships with the natural world.
In that endeavor, I recommend checking out Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability: Redefining Our Relationship with Nature, by Brendon Larson (2011). Yale University Press.
This is a book I’ve been reading in bits and pieces since January, but I’ll definitely be coming back to it often as an important resource for understanding the role of metaphors in communicating better about environmental issues.
Larsen’s book critically examines four ‘feedback metaphors’ in environmental science: progress, competition, barcoding, and meltdown. For Larsen, Feedback metaphors are “scientific metaphors that harbor social values and circulate back into society to bolster those very values. They interweave science and society in a significant way. They are significant within science because they underlie particular fields of research.”
His main argument is that “many of our environmental metaphors are not the most effective for sustainability, even if they are catchy. Indeed, it may be that they are too strongly rooted in the cultural context of our habits.”
Instead, his book is a call for asking new questions about the scientific metaphors we use to understand sustainability:
“What metaphoric seeds should we plant for the future? How can metaphors be true to science, but also true to societal values?…We might instead think of scientists in part as poets, for they are not merely embellishing with their metaphors, but extending meaning into new domains.”
An important point Larsen makes is to resist the common idea that language is what separates humans from the nonhuman world. Rather, we should view language, and metaphor in particular, as a crucial tool in the environmental commmunicator’s arsenal that can either promote or deteriorate sustainable human-environment relationships:
“I have paradoxically suggested that we need to connect with the world through language, an intermediary that many would claim fundamentally separates us. By simply attending to our metaphoric choices and reflecting on them, however, we recall that there is life beyond language and we thus acquire greater humility and responsibility for the words we put to our experience of the world.”
What I’m watching
District 15, a new film produced by Patagonia Action Works. The film is a powerful 23 minute look into how low-income communities of color are often treated as urban sacrifice zones of environmental pollution.
“Communities for a Better Environment does critical work on environmental justice and empowers Californian communities to stand up to polluting industries and build a green energy future. This short film highlights the hope and tenacity of the young activists of Wilmington, California as they push the Los Angeles City Council to prohibit new and existing oil and gas drilling operations within 2,500 feet of homes, schools and hospitals.”
You can sign the petition to demand a safety buffer between communities and drilling by signing the petition here.
What I’m listening to
The audiobook: That Wild Country: An Epic Journey Through the Past, Present, and Future of America's Public Lands, written and narrated by author Mark Kenyon. I’m only into the first chapter but so far Kenyon offers an excellent discussion of the current fight to protect public land in the United States from being privatized by mining, oil and gas companies.
I’ve been thinking about the public lands issue quite a bit recently and posted a review of the new Patagonia documentary Public Trust about the fight for public lands. As the Trump administration continues to do all it can to dismantle environmental regulations in America, this is definitely an issue I’ll continue to follow in the future.
Here’s Mark Kenyon talking about his new book at a recent talk on C-SPAN Book TV.
Eco-tool I’m using
The Future of Conservation Survey. I found this to be a fascinating tool to gain a better sense of the diverse and sometimes radically opposed perspectives on the future of environmental conservation:
“The purpose of this project is to explore the views of conservationists on a range of issues, as a way of informing debates on the future of conservation. Recent debates about the future of conservation have been dominated by a few high-profile individuals, whose views seem to fit fairly neatly into polarised positions. In this survey, we are exploring the range of views that exist within the conservation movement globally, and how this varies by key demographic characteristics such as age, gender, geography and educational background.”
Quote I’m pondering
“And the animals, instinctively, have already noticed that we aren’t really at home in our talked-about world.”
—Rainer Marie Rilke, “The First Elegy,” Duino Elegies