Five Reasons Why We Are Not Separate From Nature and Why It Matters
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If you think you are not part of the natural world, allow me to try to convince you that this is not the case. What we believe about our place in nature, largely determines how we perceive, value, shape and interact with it.
Nature is all around us and we are very connected to it regardless of if we realize that or not.
The commonly held beliefs that we are ‘separate’ and ‘superior’ to nature, have been around for several thousand years. These core beliefs are at the root of our current ecological crisis. But they are not universally held. Many native/indigenous cultures have traditional beliefs in which humanity is viewed as part of nature, that maintain we come from nature, and that the natural world is sacred. Enlightenment thinkers like Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, argued that humans are superior to nature, and that nature is like a machine whose mysteries we can unravel to serve human interests. Other thinkers like John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Henry David Thoreau have sought a new approach to living in the natural world, one that recognizes our dependance on it and our need to protect it. Building upon their thinking, Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher who founded the Deep Ecology movement, called for a shift in modern thinking. He argues that we need to go back to recognizing that we are part of nature and must therefore protect it, and that we need to recognize all living things have an inherent value, independent of their utility to humans – a biocentric as opposed to an anthropocentric world view. (0)
The belief that we are separate from nature is said to be one of the root causes of the ecological crisis we now face. This belief does not withstand scrutiny. Photo: Manapol Michalle.
But are we really part of nature? Our physical separation from nature, the result of now living in buildings in cities and driving cars, suggests that we are not. Our constant exposure to technology, particularly technologies that keep us indoors, like television and video games, reinforces the notion that we are separate from nature. Currently, we now spend more time viewing screens every day than observing or experiencing the natural world. Children for example, now spend an average of 44 hours a week on screens and less than 10 minutes a day outside. (1) That is why carrots appear to come from supermarkets, rather than farms.
One result of this belief and disconnect, is that nature has lost its sacredness, and the protection afforded by the respect that sacredness engenders. We can do whatever we want to nature, with no concern for its impact upon ourselves, because we are separate from it. Chop down the remaining old growth forest for short term economic gain, drive chemicals into the aquifer to release fossil fuels. We are empowered by science and technology. In the future, many believe, we can all just live and play happily in the Metaverse!
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But wait a minute - are we really ‘separate’ from nature, from other living things? Does this belief stand up to scientific scrutiny? Here are five surprising reasons we are way more interconnected to the world around us than you might think.
Two Hours a Week Helps to Keep the Doctor Away
Journalist Richard Louv’s 2005 seminal book on the alienation of children from nature, “Last Child in The Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder” sounded the alarm on the need for regular contact with nature. Louv’s work lead to an explosion of studies that examine the multiple positive impacts of human interaction with nature. (1) According to Louv, “Now it’s approaching and about to pass 1,000 studies, and they point in one direction: Nature is not only nice to have, but it’s a have-to-have for physical health and cognitive functioning.” (2)
Having evolved in and with nature for tens of thousands of years, humans have an innate desire and need to be in nature. This is called the biophilia hypothesis. Basically, the aspects of nature that have contributed to our survival, such as diverse vegetation and the presence of running water, are hard wired into our brains as desirable. A 2019 study of 20,000 people led by led by Mathew White of the European Centre for Environment & Human Health at the University of Exeter found that spending as little as two hours of time safely in green spaces per week has a tremendous positive impact on us. A mere two hours per week can help to:
• Lower stress hormone levels,
• Reduce nervous arousal,
• Lower blood pressure,
• Boost immune system function,
• Increase self-esteem,
• Reduce anxiety,
• Improve moods,
• Reduce Attention Deficit Disorder,
• Reduce aggression and,
• Speed up healing. (2)
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This image illustrates the many positive benefits of spending time in nature. Source: Children & Nature Network
Biophilic design involves the integration of biophilic elements such as plants, water features, and gardening into the design of buildings and communities. Buildings with biophilic attributes have been shown to have a wide range of positive impacts, including increasing our attention span by up to 20 per cent; and increasing overall employee well-being by 15 per cent by lowering depression and improving presenteeism. In commercial buildings, where the true value of the company is often its employees, healthy, biophilic environments can save companies millions of dollars each year.
What We Do to the Land, Air, and Water, We Ultimately Do to Ourselves.
Between 1945 and 1980, over 520 atomic weapons tests were conducted in the atmosphere by several countries. (3) These tests released substantial quantities of radioactive debris, including the isotope, Carbon 14. Carbon 14 spread out around the world entering our food through the process of carbon fixation by plants. By eating these plants, or animals that have eaten these plants, Carbon 14 entered our bodies and is now incorporated into the DNA of every new cell produced.
Atomic Testing has released radioactive isotopes that have entered the food chain and our bodies cells, as various cells are regularly replaced.
Many of the 37 trillion cells in our body are replaced on a regular basis. Carbon 14 exposure allowed scientists to determine the rate at which different types of cells in our bodies are replaced, by identifying the presence or absence of Carbon 14 in different tissue samples. No Carbon 14 in the cell tissue, means no cell replacement. For example, red blood cells which comprise the largest number of cells in the human body, are replaced about every four months. The cells that line our small intestine, the epithelium, are replaced every two to four days. Our skeletal system cells are replaced at a rate of about 10 per cent per year and so on. Some types of cells in our bodies are not replaced at all, like the ones that make up our central nervous system or in unfertilized eggs in women. When we introduce radioactive substances and other persistent toxins into the environment, they ultimately end up in our bodies through the ongoing replacement of our cells. We are truly, in many ways, what we eat!
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Plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, and as it enters the food change it also enters our bodies. Scientists estimate we consume one credit card worth of plastic each week in what has become an uncontrolled global experiment on our health. Photo: J. McLean
Is That Cash or Credit? The Inescapable Global Experiment.
There is an increasing concern about the health impacts of plastics accumulating in our bodies. Plastic production soared since the 1950’s. An estimated 390.7 million metric tons were produced globally in 2021, and production is expected to double by 2040 (4). Plastics are used virtually everywhere - in food packaging, health care, clothing, automotive assembly and more. They serve many important uses, and many frivolous ones as well.
As plastics degrade, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces called micro-plastics (smaller than 5 mm) and then even smaller pieces called nano-plastics (less than or equal to 100 nm). Micro-plastics are now found everywhere on the planet, literally everywhere, including in our bodies. Scientists conservatively estimate that we all consume about 5 grams of plastic every week, about as much as the size of a credit card. (4). Some micro-plastics are discharged from our bodies, but studies show they build up in our lungs, liver, and can even cross the placenta from mothers to babies. The health impacts of human plastic consumption are not well known but are currently the subject of considerable research. Whether we like it or not, we are all part of a worldwide experiment on our bodies and it appears our dosage of plastics is set to rise.
Our survival depends on trillions of micro-organisms that live in our intestines and on our skin surfaces. Without them, we would not be able to process nutrients, or fight off damaging organisms with our immune system. Our bodies are not our own and our skin has many habitats that host different micro-organisms. Image courtesy Skindrone.com
Inside and Out! Our Bodies Are Home to Many Creatures.
In the 1880’s Austrian pediatrician Theodor Escherich was the first to discover a type of bacteria (later named Escheria coli or E.coli) in the intestinal flora of children. Mind blowing at the time, but the full extent of what lives in our bodies was not really discovered until the 21st century, as an indirect result of the Human Genome Project. Researchers found that we have ten times as many microbial cells, as human cells in our bodies. Ten times seems like a lot, but micro-organisms are very tiny compared to most human cells. The human ‘microbiome’ is defined as the collective genomes of microbes comprised of bacteria, bacteriophage, fungi, protozoa, and viruses that live inside our bodies, largely in our intestinal system. (5)
Most of these microbes are much smaller than human cells and do not harm us. Instead, friendly microbes perform important functions that our own bodies alone cannot. For example they help us digest food to generate nutrients for their host cells. They synthesize vitamins, metabolize drugs, detoxify carcinogens, stimulate the renewal of cells in the gut lining, and even activate and support our immune system. We are only able to exist, because of our symbiotic relationship with billions of micro-organisms – the ecosystem within us. We provide them with the benefit of a safe home within our bodies, and we can live on due to the many services they provide. The awareness of our microbiome has let to an explosion of supplements like probiotics, and foods rich in micro-organisms like kombucha and kefir.
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Our largest organ, skin is also home to an ecosystem of microorganisms. This ecosystem is comprised of diverse ‘habitats’ that support a wide range of micro-organisms such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and even microscopic mites. One of the many functions performed by these microbes is to protect us from more harmful organisms by stimulating our immune system. The composition of micro-organisms on and in the upper layers of our skin depends on their location. Moist sites, such as inside our noses or under our arms, provide different habitats from dry areas like the middle of our backs or on our forearms. Our bodies are home to a wide variety of living, interacting creatures which provide a wide range of useful services that keep us alive.
Where You Live Determines the Strength of Your Immune System.
Studies have demonstrated that children who grow up in rural areas and are in regular contact with nature have a lower probability of catching illnesses related to our immune system. It is further hypothesized that the low biodiversity present in cities may lead to an ‘uneducated’ immune system, and consequently an increase in the prevalence of immune-mediated diseases.
We can design buildings and communities in a manner that recognizes our interconnectedness with nature and incorporates the many positive mental and physical aspects of this relationship.
A 2020 study by the Natural Resources Institute of Finland was conducted on children in ten daycares with different levels of nature exposure. Researchers found that repeated contact with nature-like elements diversified the microbes found on their skin and in their guts, resulting in changes to their immune systems over the course of one month. (6) Some children planted plants in planter boxes over a 28-day period in a nature-oriented daycare setting and visited a nearby forest each day. Other children in the study were in a standard daycare setting with little or no green space, and then another group were in modified playgrounds, covered in a combination of forest floor and sod. The researchers analyzed skin and gut microbiota in all three sets of children and found greater diversification of micro-organisms and a resulting improvement in the immune systems in children in nature-oriented settings. (7) So urban farming exposure can help strengthen our immune systems.
This study and others like it, reinforce the fact that we can design more healthy urban areas by including greater exposure to biodiverse elements, such as planter boxes for gardening, diverse planting and forests. Studies have demonstrated that even the type of ground cover and garden vegetation around permanent residences of adults have an influence on their gut microflora. The diversity of vegetation it appears, is a proxy for the diversity of microbiota exposure. (8)
Researchers still have much work to do to understand these largely invisible worlds within and upon us. We can now begin to improve the design of our green spaces , be they gardens or playgrounds, to support the healthy functioning of our symbiotic passengers, and ourselves.
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Embracing Our Interconnectedness and Interdependence - A Foundation for Positive Change.
Being woke to the many ways we are part of, rather than separate from nature is the return to a reality long known to Indigenous Peoples and a handful of philosophical thinkers. This awareness may help us establish stronger bonds with the natural world, even in our cities where these bonds are often tenuous. Stronger bonds can be facilitated by designers, developers and building owners when they implement biophilic playgrounds and schools, and through new urban agriculture projects on top of buildings and on community lands.
Design and maintaining green space in the urban environment is critical to our health and the health of our children. It also provides opportunities for children to form bonds to nature, which are the basis for future conservation and sustainability efforts.
Understanding our interconnectedness and interdependence with the natural world can also help us summon the political will to reduce the health risks associated with the explosive growth of plastics worldwide by advocating for manufacturing reductions. We may never reach net zero plastics, but we can move more rapidly in that direction. How many credit cards will we allow our future selves to eat each week?
Ultimately a greater understanding of our place within nature will be necessary for us to protect and preserve 30 per cent of the world’s aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, critical goals called for in December 2022 by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. There is so much good that can flourish, when we recognize that we are deeply embedded in, and reliant on nature, and act upon this knowledge. Growing more food in our cities, is a great place to start!
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Steven W. Peck, GRP, Honorary ASLA is the founder and president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. He has been working to develop the green roof and wall industry in North America and around the world for more than 20 years. He is the Editor of the Living Architecture Monitor magazine, and the co-founder of the World Green Infrastructure Network.
References
0. https://www.treehugger.com/what-is-deep-ecology-philosophy-principles-and-criticism-5191550. This article offers a good review of deep ecology and its detractors.
(https://e360.yale.edu/features/ecopsychology-how-immersion-in-nature-benefits-your-health). White’s study of 20,000 people was published in 2019. See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44097-3. See also www.livingarchitectureacademy.com for online lectures on biophilic design.
(pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12003011/)
(plastichealthcoaltion.org). There are ways to reduce your plastic intake, by not putting food in plastic containers, not using plastic utensil and avoid seafood, which bioaccumulates plastic.
https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project see also https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/finland-forest-playgrounds-children-immune-systems/ and https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03524-6
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/science-of-the-total-environment see science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv/aba2578
Sci.Total.Environment. 713. 1-122. (2017).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32019041/ Parajuli, A. et al, Yard Vegetation is associated with gut microbiota composition.)
Ten diverse innovations in living architecture - ranging from technologies and research to project certification and policy - plus trends and recommendations for future endeavors.