I’ve been thinking a lot about wilderness. After all, it is Earth Day, and after about five minutes of nostalgically browsing PCT pictures from this summer, I decided to dedicate a blog post to this most treasured holiday.
So, in the spirit of Passover (which, for my non-Jewish readers, starts this evening), why is Earth Day different from all other days? For one, it inspires a barrage of community events, social media posts, a Snapchat filter, and even a carefully considered blog from yours truly. But, to take the metaphor a bit further, as Passover celebrates Jewish liberation from horrific circumstances of slavery, Earth Day celebrates…what exactly? The Earth’s liberation from the catastrophe of human impact? And if it does, if we do take one day per year to recognize and appreciate our Earth, what does that say about the other 364?
In our current moment, wilderness is revered. Experiences of wilderness are majestic, romantic, even spiritual. I’ll be the first to own up— my Instagram feed is rife with nature shots attached to inspiring quotes from the likes of John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, both of whom dedicated their lives to writing about the unparalleled majesty of the wilderness. But it was not always this way. Just centuries ago, wilderness was a threat to be overcome. Without a moment’s notice it could kill men, slay species, and reduce civilization to dust. To our ancestors, the wilderness was beast to be tamed, not ogled at.
And tame it, they did. We now live in a world wholly insulated from the threat of wilderness, from the shoes on our feet to the way our homes are built. With the exception of natural disasters (which, albeit, are becoming more frequent and dangerous), our presence in nature has become a luxury to be enjoyed rather than a challenge to be overcome. And this, I think, is our problem. Because the more we think of ourselves as separate from nature, the easier it becomes to abuse it.
This is not a new idea. I first came across this contradiction while taking a class at UM’s Camp Davis Rocky Mountain Field Station in Jackson Hole, WY, right at the base of the Tetons. My classmates and I read Bill Cronon’s “The Trouble With Wilderness”, an initially controversial yet nowfoundational text of modern environmental thought. It is at once deeply powerful and troubling—seriously, once you’re done reading this post, drop everything and go look it up. In the piece, Cronon shares his concern about the “dualism” of wilderness and civilization— that is, when we consider our lives wholly separate from a so-called wilderness. I say “so-called” because Cronon imparts that wilderness, too, is socially constructed; before its designation as the first national park in 1872, Yellowstone was nothing but a gigantic caldera with a thriving grizzly bear population. We created its cultural importance by defining it as such. Cronon says that this dualism is not only deluded; its dangerous, because by placing ourselves opposite wilderness, we relieve ourselves of our actual connection to the earth, and thus, our obligation to protect it. In his words, “the point is not…that our devastating effect on the earth’s ecosystems should be accepted as inevitable or ‘natural’. It is rather that we seem unlikely to make much progress in solving these problems if we hold up to ourselves as the mirror of nature a wilderness we ourselves cannot inhabit”. The point is clear, and it is one that has been made many times before: nature and humanity are deeply connected, and our neglect of this fact is a direct cause of the environmental destruction we are dealing with now.
So now what? We have a problem of consciousness, and it can only be fixed by reframing how we think about wilderness. As Cronon says, we can start with a feeling of wonder. Wonder feeds all of our feelings about nature, be they artistic or spiritual or even fearful. We respect and revere nature because it is seen as wholly dissimilar from our own lives. And from this source of wonder, we deem it necessary to protect. But what about the parts of nature that are not so awe-inspiring—perhaps the water that flows from your tap, or the pine tree planted in your backyard? What is the different between that pine and one standing amid the peaks of the Tetons? As Cronon points out, they very well could have originated from the same seed. The only difference in the trees is how we perceive them: one as ordinary, one as sublime.
Both are part of this world that we claim to protect, and SHOULD protect, not only on Earth Day, but every day of the year. Which is why I find the concept of Earth Day problematic. It’s not that we don’t need one day per year to celebrate the Earth—we do, and god knows that if I were in the States right now I would be the first to capitalize on the Interior’s offer of free admission this week to all national parks in honor of the holiday (holler at this link for info). Instead, my concern is that we need this day at all to recognize and revel in the beautiful Earth that we call home. Because it home. And we shouldn’t need sweeping vistas or rushing waters to realize that. Home is the grass on your lawn and the herbs in your garden; it is the stones on your driveway and the glint of the sun through your bedroom window. Those things are just as worthy of wonder as any mountain peak, and we should think of them as such on day of the year, not just April 22.
So this Earth Day, take a moment to appreciate the wonder in the wilderness around you. And then do it again, tomorrow. And the next day. And every day, until we as a world understand our place in wilderness—because we have a place—and our responsibility in inhabiting it.