Environmental awareness has been fundamental in supporting human evolution since our earliest migrations over 60,000 years ago. It once described survival tactics utilized by the population for example learning the patterns of predator and prey, testing flora and fauna edibility, and even developing ways of communicating that knowledge. Awareness of the natural environment required the use of both learned behaviors and the body’s senses for survival. The early humans were quick in their emergence of hunting tools, fire, and agricultural technologies to continuously increase their endurance to the environment during their migrations until eventually feeling the status of control over nature.[1] We can wonder: has Earth similarly been adapting for its own survival? This question can guide us in imagining the nature of our planet prior to the Anthropocene and in discovering connections to nature before the human record.
BIOPHILIA The love for life that is instinctual to humans has not historically been fostered to the practice necessary to encourage fully valuing all other organisms. Without understanding lives beyond those that are human, worth becomes assigned based solely on usefulness even in moments of self-reflection.[2] The diversity of species present is one of Earth’s most beneficial resources. Regrettably, the maximum potential of utilizing that diversity is far from met especially in traditional agriculture where only a minuscule percentage of all available edible plants are used as common crops. Due to this human hyperfocus on specific uses of organisms, life forms are overused to the point of causing endangered species and full extinctions, whether it be directly from the hunt of the organism itself or indirectly through the destruction of ecological systems and habitats. 23 species were removed from the Endangered Species Act by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2021 “because they’ve probably gone extinct, and you can’t keep protecting what’s already gone.”[3] Beyond the results of species extinctions and habitat destruction, the environmental changes on the planet have been increasingly evident. Climate change can be as obvious as the critical wildfire zones and quickly receding glaciers, or even invisible factors such as the spread of diseases and air quality. These have been accelerated over the Anthropocene Epoch. While frequently dismissed by discussion of previous mass extinctions in Earth’s history, human impact has proven more harmful in an intensely short interval of time. [4]
In attempting to reverse the negative destruction that human society has caused to other ecosystems in their desire to conquer nature, the focus remains overly centralized on one organism. Conservation efforts are meant to increase personal interest for an individual rather than the more classically pushed narrative where decisions are made based on the impacts that they will have on future generations. By leaning into the need for inwardness to foster biophilia, human beings will better understand the value of other organisms and self beyond a specific usefulness. The outcome hopes to be environmental awareness on a broader scale, expanding from surviving the environment to protection and appreciation of the environment as well. Survival of the individual will be impractical if the Earth does not survive first.
ECOFEMINISM
In further exploring ways in which organisms are decent for only a particular use and even controlled, the patriarchal system becomes another example. Human women experience a greater vulnerability to climate change and ecological disasters due to systematic barriers. This also extends to reproductive rights in females of all species resulting in control over the population practices and food production.[5] Beyond female fertility’s vitality in increasing the production of animal meat and flowering plants as a food source is the traditional indigenous human female expertise in understanding agricultural biodiversity for medicinal herbs and sustainable edible crops. This expertise was an opportunity for females to connect intimately with the biosphere by encouraging a deep understanding of it.[6] Then, in urban development it is still most often the male trees that are favored in promoting human interaction with the environment leading to higher levels of pollen production and a lack of species diversity.[7]
In using an ecofeminist lens to understand environmental consciousness, it realigns the survival of self as a practice more similar to those previously discussed in early human migration, only the environment is often not full of new wildlife experiences but rather a more frequently present predator built from the patriarchal system. Historically, this has been known as a Meadow Report, where a debriefing of what happens throughout the day needed to be shared to ensure the safety of all. Now, checking your surroundings for danger has become a skill and a part of being environmentally aware for those not in immediate systemic power. “Nature is a shelter these women seek in their refuge from violence which is mostly perpetuated against them by decision-making patriarchy.”[8] Despite the appeal of the natural environment as this haven, the time and money barriers maintained unequally by many modern political systems often restrict connection to nature to enhance personal well-being.[9]
Practiced dualisms are a root source for this discord: femininity to masculinity, nature to culture, and the more commonly understood body to mind. Bridging these dualities will not only interfere with the systemically supported but result in deeper self-understanding. By recognizing both the oppressions of the human species and of other organisms fueled by Westernized culture, the return to biophilia and sensorial connections with nature would be intensified and help to regress society further from the persisting individualism.[10]
PSYCHO-ECOACOUSTICS
The evolution of soundscapes in natural environments throughout human civilization is important in examining the impacts that noise can have on human behaviors and emotions. Environmental psychology more broadly describes the human perception of the natural physical world surrounding them with an emphasis on sensorium. It explores the differences between natural and built environments by studying their effects on human behavior, and especially how those behaviors affect the environment in return. The human connection to nature has become something measurable on a scale which relates “environmental values, behaviors, awareness, and time in nature.”[11]
“The perception of sound and noise is inherently psychological.”[12] Research is examining how natural soundscapes can have positive impacts on attention restoration and cognitive control by finding descriptive evidence that the playing of bird songs and wind audio clips from national parks is more beneficial than no sound at all.[13] In a more direct environmental awareness sense, bird song has been used as an indicator for unlivable chemical amounts in the air during early mining practices.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring identified the risks of bioaccumulation to egg-laying animals, especially raptors (1962); habitat destruction led to the near extinction of the snail darter (1977) and the Northern Spotted Owl (1980s); the fungal threat to the existence of the Cavendish banana (1992) brought attention to the Gros Michel banana crisis of the 1950s, both related to monocultural farming practices; a marked increase in malformed amphibians highlighted the issue of water pollution (1995); the decline of Monarch butterfly populations was linked to the rise of genetically modified crops (1999); and the global warming-induced extinction of polar bears, projected to occur within the next hundred years (2003), are all examples of canary-in-a-coal-mine scenarios.[14]
Noting how animal behavior gives additional evidence for climate crisis provides opportunities for it to be more closely observed. The natural evolution of the behavior of animals shapes the environmental soundscape. The surprisingly high-frequency whistle calls of the Rocky Mountain Elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) are a response to the other sound frequencies occurring in the environment, most directly, the rustling of the foliage on evergreen trees from the wind.
Recentering to a more acoustic experience, in a more present sense than ambient background noise to tune out, is contradictory to the current attitudes towards visual stimulation.[15] Sound is a sensorial perception obvious enough to most hearing-abled humans that the differences between natural and built environments can be exemplified if presented properly.
[1] David C. Krakauer et al., History, Big History, & Metahistory (Santa Fe, NM: SFI Press, 2017). [2] Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). [3] John R Platt, “The Lord God Bird and Dozens of Other Species Declared Extinct in 2021,” The Revelator (Center for Biological Diversity, January 6, 2022), https://therevelator.org/species-extinct-2021/. [4] Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). [5] Greta Gaard, “Ecofeminism and Climate Change,” Women's Studies International Forum 49 (2015): pp. 20-33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2015.02.004. [6] Douglas A. Vakoch, Nicole Anae, and Panchali Bhattacharya, “Indigenous Ecofeminism and Contemporary Northeast Indian Literature: Lessons in Eco-Swaraj,” in Indian Feminist Ecocriticism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022), pp. 79-92. [7] Paloma Cariñanos and Manuel Casares-Porcel, “Urban Green Zones and Related Pollen Allergy: A Review. Some Guidelines for Designing Spaces with Low Allergy Impact,” Landscape and Urban Planning 101, no. 3 (June 2011): pp. 205-214, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2011.03.006. [8] Douglas A. Vakoch, Nicole Anae, and Nibedita Mukherjee, “Ecofeminism in Assamese Literature,” in Indian Feminist Ecocriticism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022), pp. 51-64. [9] Kay Fretwell and Alison Greig, “Towards a Better Understanding of the Relationship between Individual’s Self-Reported Connection to Nature, Personal Well-Being and Environmental Awareness,” Sustainability 11, no. 5 (June 2019): p. 1386, https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051386. [10] Rhonda Roland Shearer, “Ecofeminism by Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva; Ecofeminism and the Sacred by Carol J. Adams; Ecofeminism, Women, Animals, Nature by Greta Gaard; Women, the Environment and Sustainable Development: Towards a Theoretical Synthesis by Rosi Braidotti, Ewa Charkiewicz, Sabine Häusler, Saskia Wieringa,” Signs, (1997): 496–501, pp. 496-501, https://www-jstor-org.du.idm.oclc.org/stable/3175296?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. [11] Julia Meis-Harris, Kim Borg, and Bradley S. Jorgensen, “The Construct Validity of the Multidimensional AIMES Connection to Nature Scale: Measuring Human Relationships with Nature,” Journal of Environmental Management 280 (2021): p. 111695, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111695. [12] Britton L Mace, pp. 189-194. [13] Lauren C. Abbott et al., “The Influence of Natural Sounds on Attention Restoration,” Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 34, no. 3 (2016): pp. 5-15, https://doi.org/10.18666/jpra-2016-v34-i3-6893. [14] Katherine Coburn, “The Last Canary in the Coal Mine: Small, Yellow, and Ominously Silent,” SCQ (The Science Creative Quarterly, May 30, 2007), https://www.scq.ubc.ca/the-last-canary-in-the-coal-mine-small-yellow-and-ominously-silent/. [15] Bruce Davis, “FM Radio as Observational Access to Wilderness Environments,” Alternatives: Perspectives on Society, Technology and Environment 4, no. 3 (1975): pp. 21-27, https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/45030032.
