Nature is everywhere -- we just need to learn to see it | Emma Marris

159,485 views ・ 2016-08-19

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
We are stealing nature from our children.
0
12560
3280
00:16
Now, when I say this, I don't mean that we are destroying nature
1
16840
3056
00:19
that they will have wanted us to preserve,
2
19920
2376
00:22
although that is unfortunately also the case.
3
22320
2656
00:25
What I mean here is that we've started to define nature in a way
4
25000
3816
00:28
that's so purist and so strict
5
28840
3016
00:31
that under the definition we're creating for ourselves,
6
31880
2736
00:34
there won't be any nature left for our children
7
34640
2376
00:37
when they're adults.
8
37040
1200
00:39
But there's a fix for this.
9
39120
2536
00:41
So let me explain.
10
41680
1240
00:43
Right now, humans use half of the world
11
43680
3456
00:47
to live, to grow their crops and their timber,
12
47160
2696
00:49
to pasture their animals.
13
49880
1896
00:51
If you added up all the human beings,
14
51800
1816
00:53
we would weigh 10 times as much as all the wild mammals put together.
15
53640
4240
00:58
We cut roads through the forest.
16
58800
2320
01:01
We have added little plastic particles to the sand on ocean beaches.
17
61680
4336
01:06
We've changed the chemistry of the soil with our artificial fertilizers.
18
66040
5096
01:11
And of course, we've changed the chemistry of the air.
19
71160
3216
01:14
So when you take your next breath,
20
74400
1856
01:16
you'll be breathing in 42 percent more carbon dioxide
21
76280
3856
01:20
than if you were breathing in 1750.
22
80160
2200
01:23
So all of these changes, and many others,
23
83280
2456
01:25
have come to be kind of lumped together under this rubric of the "Anthropocene."
24
85760
4080
01:30
And this is a term that some geologists are suggesting
25
90480
2536
01:33
we should give to our current epoch,
26
93040
1816
01:34
given how pervasive human influence has been over it.
27
94880
2760
01:38
Now, it's still just a proposed epoch, but I think it's a helpful way
28
98320
3856
01:42
to think about the magnitude of human influence on the planet.
29
102200
3680
01:46
So where does this put nature?
30
106800
1696
01:48
What counts as nature in a world where everything is influenced by humans?
31
108520
3720
01:53
So 25 years ago, environmental writer Bill McKibben said
32
113400
4176
01:57
that because nature was a thing apart from man
33
117600
4496
02:02
and because climate change meant
34
122120
1576
02:03
that every centimeter of the Earth was altered by man,
35
123720
3616
02:07
then nature was over.
36
127360
2096
02:09
In fact, he called his book "The End of Nature."
37
129480
2360
02:14
I disagree with this. I just disagree with this.
38
134000
2256
02:16
I disagree with this definition of nature, because, fundamentally, we are animals.
39
136280
4336
02:20
Right? Like, we evolved on this planet
40
140639
2817
02:23
in the context of all the other animals with which we share a planet,
41
143480
4096
02:27
and all the other plants, and all the other microbes.
42
147600
2576
02:30
And so I think that nature
43
150200
2296
02:32
is not that which is untouched by humanity, man or woman.
44
152520
4056
02:36
I think that nature is anywhere where life thrives,
45
156600
4136
02:40
anywhere where there are multiple species together,
46
160760
3016
02:43
anywhere that's green and blue and thriving and filled with life
47
163800
3216
02:47
and growing.
48
167040
1200
02:49
And under that definition,
49
169600
1896
02:51
things look a little bit different.
50
171520
2536
02:54
Now, I understand that there are certain parts of this nature
51
174080
3696
02:57
that speak to us in a special way.
52
177800
2616
03:00
Places like Yellowstone,
53
180440
1656
03:02
or the Mongolian steppe,
54
182120
1696
03:03
or the Great Barrier Reef
55
183840
1336
03:05
or the Serengeti.
56
185200
1496
03:06
Places that we think of as kind of Edenic representations
57
186720
4016
03:10
of a nature before we screwed everything up.
58
190760
2600
03:14
And in a way, they are less impacted by our day to day activities.
59
194560
4016
03:18
Many of these places have no roads or few roads,
60
198600
2696
03:21
so on, like such.
61
201320
1576
03:22
But ultimately, even these Edens are deeply influenced by humans.
62
202920
5776
03:28
Now, let's just take North America, for example,
63
208720
2256
03:31
since that's where we're meeting.
64
211000
1616
03:32
So between about 15,000 years ago when people first came here,
65
212640
3416
03:36
they started a process of interacting with the nature
66
216080
2496
03:38
that led to the extinction of a big slew of large-bodied animals,
67
218600
4376
03:43
from the mastodon to the giant ground sloth,
68
223000
2256
03:45
saber-toothed cats,
69
225280
1256
03:46
all of these cool animals that unfortunately are no longer with us.
70
226560
3616
03:50
And when those animals went extinct,
71
230200
1816
03:52
you know, the ecosystems didn't stand still.
72
232040
2576
03:54
Massive ripple effects changed grasslands into forests,
73
234640
3616
03:58
changed the composition of forest from one tree to another.
74
238280
2800
04:02
So even in these Edens,
75
242000
1656
04:03
even in these perfect-looking places
76
243680
1816
04:05
that seem to remind us of a past before humans,
77
245520
3496
04:09
we're essentially looking at a humanized landscape.
78
249040
3080
04:12
Not just these prehistoric humans, but historical humans, indigenous people
79
252960
3576
04:16
all the way up until the moment when the first colonizers showed up.
80
256560
3240
04:20
And the case is the same for the other continents as well.
81
260480
2776
04:23
Humans have just been involved in nature
82
263280
2816
04:26
in a very influential way for a very long time.
83
266120
2880
04:30
Now, just recently, someone told me,
84
270440
1776
04:32
"Oh, but there are still wild places."
85
272240
1856
04:34
And I said, "Where? Where? I want to go."
86
274120
2216
04:36
And he said, "The Amazon."
87
276360
1896
04:38
And I was like, "Oh, the Amazon. I was just there.
88
278280
3456
04:41
It's awesome. National Geographic sent me to ManΓΊ National Park,
89
281760
3136
04:44
which is in the Peruvian Amazon,
90
284920
1576
04:46
but it's a big chunk of rainforest, uncleared, no roads,
91
286520
3656
04:50
protected as a national park,
92
290200
1616
04:51
one of the most, in fact, biodiverse parks in the world.
93
291840
2696
04:54
And when I got in there with my canoe, what did I find, but people.
94
294560
4120
04:59
People have been living there for hundreds and thousands of years.
95
299640
3816
05:03
People live there, and they don't just float over the jungle.
96
303480
2856
05:06
They have a meaningful relationship with the landscape.
97
306360
2600
05:09
They hunt. They grow crops.
98
309480
2296
05:11
They domesticate crops.
99
311800
1496
05:13
They use the natural resources to build their houses,
100
313320
2896
05:16
to thatch their houses.
101
316240
1256
05:17
They even make pets out of animals that we consider to be wild animals.
102
317520
4016
05:21
These people are there
103
321560
2096
05:23
and they're interacting with the environment
104
323680
2096
05:25
in a way that's really meaningful and that you can see in the environment.
105
325800
3496
05:29
Now, I was with an anthropologist on this trip,
106
329320
2216
05:31
and he told me, as we were floating down the river,
107
331560
2856
05:34
he said, "There are no demographic voids in the Amazon."
108
334440
4656
05:39
This statement has really stuck with me,
109
339120
1936
05:41
because what it means is that the whole Amazon is like this.
110
341080
2856
05:43
There's people everywhere.
111
343960
1280
05:45
And many other tropical forests are the same,
112
345880
2336
05:48
and not just tropical forests.
113
348240
1576
05:49
People have influenced ecosystems in the past,
114
349840
3216
05:53
and they continue to influence them in the present,
115
353080
2776
05:55
even in places where they're harder to notice.
116
355880
3160
05:59
So, if all of the definitions of nature that we might want to use
117
359720
5216
06:04
that involve it being untouched by humanity
118
364960
2976
06:07
or not having people in it,
119
367960
1336
06:09
if all of those actually give us a result where we don't have any nature,
120
369320
5336
06:14
then maybe they're the wrong definitions.
121
374680
2416
06:17
Maybe we should define it by the presence of multiple species,
122
377120
3496
06:20
by the presence of a thriving life.
123
380640
2040
06:23
Now, if we do it that way,
124
383440
2016
06:25
what do we get?
125
385480
1456
06:26
Well, it's this kind of miracle.
126
386960
2376
06:29
All of a sudden, there's nature all around us.
127
389360
2280
06:32
All of a sudden, we see this Monarch caterpillar
128
392160
2696
06:34
munching on this plant,
129
394880
1856
06:36
and we realize that there it is,
130
396760
1816
06:38
and it's in this empty lot in Chattanooga.
131
398600
2800
06:42
And look at this empty lot.
132
402320
1336
06:43
I mean, there's, like, probably,
133
403680
1776
06:45
a dozen, minimum, plant species growing there,
134
405480
2936
06:48
supporting all kinds of insect life,
135
408440
2256
06:50
and this is a completely unmanaged space, a completely wild space.
136
410720
4336
06:55
This is a kind of wild nature right under our nose,
137
415080
2976
06:58
that we don't even notice.
138
418080
1480
07:00
And there's an interesting little paradox, too.
139
420760
2216
07:03
So this nature,
140
423000
1816
07:04
this kind of wild, untended part
141
424840
2656
07:07
of our urban, peri-urban, suburban agricultural existence
142
427520
3776
07:11
that flies under the radar,
143
431320
2376
07:13
it's arguably more wild than a national park,
144
433720
3680
07:18
because national parks are very carefully managed
145
438160
2416
07:20
in the 21st century.
146
440600
1736
07:22
Crater Lake in southern Oregon, which is my closest national park,
147
442360
3576
07:25
is a beautiful example of a landscape that seems to be coming out of the past.
148
445960
5176
07:31
But they're managing it carefully.
149
451160
1736
07:32
One of the issues they have now is white bark pine die-off.
150
452920
3576
07:36
White bark pine is a beautiful, charismatic --
151
456520
2496
07:39
I'll say it's a charismatic megaflora
152
459040
3016
07:42
that grows up at high altitude --
153
462080
1656
07:43
and it's got all these problems right now with disease.
154
463760
2976
07:46
There's a blister rust that was introduced,
155
466760
2136
07:48
bark beetle.
156
468920
1496
07:50
So to deal with this, the park service has been planting
157
470440
3576
07:54
rust-resistant white bark pine seedlings in the park,
158
474040
3720
07:58
even in areas that they are otherwise managing as wilderness.
159
478560
3040
08:02
And they're also putting out beetle repellent in key areas
160
482200
2816
08:05
as I saw last time I went hiking there.
161
485040
1880
08:07
And this kind of thing is really much more common than you would think.
162
487640
3336
08:11
National parks are heavily managed.
163
491000
1696
08:12
The wildlife is kept to a certain population size and structure.
164
492720
3056
08:15
Fires are suppressed.
165
495800
1536
08:17
Fires are started.
166
497360
1296
08:18
Non-native species are removed.
167
498680
2176
08:20
Native species are reintroduced.
168
500880
1696
08:22
And in fact, I took a look,
169
502600
1336
08:23
and Banff National Park is doing all of the things I just listed:
170
503960
3056
08:27
suppressing fire, having fire,
171
507040
1456
08:28
radio-collaring wolves, reintroducing bison.
172
508520
2216
08:30
It takes a lot of work to make these places look untouched.
173
510760
3216
08:34
(Laughter)
174
514000
3056
08:37
(Applause)
175
517080
3400
08:43
And in a further irony, these places that we love the most
176
523080
4455
08:47
are the places that we love a little too hard, sometimes.
177
527559
2697
08:50
A lot of us like to go there,
178
530280
1416
08:51
and because we're managing them to be stable
179
531720
2536
08:54
in the face of a changing planet,
180
534280
2056
08:56
they often are becoming more fragile over time.
181
536360
2400
08:59
Which means that they're the absolute worst places
182
539440
2456
09:01
to take your children on vacation,
183
541920
1936
09:03
because you can't do anything there.
184
543880
1896
09:05
You can't climb the trees.
185
545800
1296
09:07
You can't fish the fish.
186
547120
1216
09:08
You can't make a campfire out in the middle of nowhere.
187
548360
2616
09:11
You can't take home the pinecones.
188
551000
1656
09:12
There are so many rules and restrictions
189
552680
1905
09:14
that from a child's point of view,
190
554609
1967
09:16
this is, like, the worst nature ever.
191
556600
1800
09:19
Because children don't want to hike
192
559320
2616
09:21
through a beautiful landscape for five hours
193
561960
2336
09:24
and then look at a beautiful view.
194
564320
1856
09:26
That's maybe what we want to do as adults,
195
566200
2000
09:28
but what kids want to do is hunker down in one spot
196
568224
2912
09:31
and just tinker with it, just work with it,
197
571160
2216
09:33
just pick it up, build a house, build a fort, do something like that.
198
573400
3560
09:38
Additionally, these sort of Edenic places
199
578160
2536
09:40
are often distant from where people live.
200
580720
3256
09:44
And they're expensive to get to. They're hard to visit.
201
584000
2936
09:46
So this means that they're only available to the elites,
202
586960
2776
09:49
and that's a real problem.
203
589760
1600
09:53
The Nature Conservancy did a survey of young people,
204
593000
3376
09:56
and they asked them, how often do you spend time outdoors?
205
596400
3200
10:00
And only two out of five spent time outdoors
206
600120
2536
10:02
at least once a week.
207
602680
1216
10:03
The other three out of five were just staying inside.
208
603920
3016
10:06
And when they asked them why, what are the barriers to going outside,
209
606960
4096
10:11
the response of 61 percent was,
210
611080
2976
10:14
"There are no natural areas near my home."
211
614080
3080
10:18
And this is crazy. This is just patently false.
212
618200
3696
10:21
I mean, 71 percent of people in the US
213
621920
2976
10:24
live within a 10-minute walk of a city park.
214
624920
2776
10:27
And I'm sure the figures are similar in other countries.
215
627720
2656
10:30
And that doesn't even count your back garden,
216
630400
2136
10:32
the urban creek, the empty lot.
217
632560
1960
10:35
Everybody lives near nature.
218
635160
1896
10:37
Every kid lives near nature.
219
637080
2656
10:39
We've just somehow forgotten how to see it.
220
639760
2056
10:41
We've spent too much time watching David Attenborough documentaries
221
641840
3176
10:45
where the nature is really sexy --
222
645040
1656
10:46
(Laughter)
223
646720
1016
10:47
and we've forgotten how to see the nature that is literally right outside our door,
224
647760
3936
10:51
the nature of the street tree.
225
651720
1936
10:53
So here's an example: Philadelphia.
226
653680
2776
10:56
There's this cool elevated railway
227
656480
2376
10:58
that you can see from the ground, that's been abandoned.
228
658880
2416
11:01
Now, this may sound like the beginning of the High Line story in Manhattan,
229
661320
3416
11:04
and it's very similar, except they haven't developed this into a park yet,
230
664760
3296
11:08
although they're working on it.
231
668080
1536
11:09
So for now, it's still this little sort of secret wilderness
232
669640
3176
11:12
in the heart of Philadelphia,
233
672840
1416
11:14
and if you know where the hole is in the chain-link fence,
234
674280
3096
11:17
you can scramble up to the top
235
677400
2056
11:19
and you can find this completely wild meadow
236
679480
2816
11:22
just floating above the city of Philadelphia.
237
682320
2160
11:25
Every single one of these plants grew from a seed
238
685200
2336
11:27
that planted itself there.
239
687560
1336
11:28
This is completely autonomous, self-willed nature.
240
688920
2936
11:31
And it's right in the middle of the city.
241
691880
2256
11:34
And they've sent people up there to do sort of biosurveys,
242
694160
3216
11:37
and there are over 50 plant species up there.
243
697400
2440
11:40
And it's not just plants.
244
700560
1256
11:41
This is an ecosystem, a functioning ecosystem.
245
701840
3496
11:45
It's creating soil. It's sequestering carbon.
246
705360
2456
11:47
There's pollination going on.
247
707840
1896
11:49
I mean, this is really an ecosystem.
248
709760
1960
11:53
So scientists have started calling ecosystems like these "novel ecosystems,"
249
713400
3856
11:57
because they're often dominated by non-native species,
250
717280
2576
11:59
and because they're just super weird.
251
719880
1736
12:01
They're just unlike anything we've ever seen before.
252
721640
2456
12:04
For so long, we dismissed all these novel ecosystems as trash.
253
724120
4016
12:08
We're talking about regrown agricultural fields,
254
728160
2416
12:10
timber plantations that are not being managed on a day-to-day basis,
255
730600
3576
12:14
second-growth forests generally, the entire East Coast,
256
734200
2656
12:16
where after agriculture moved west, the forest sprung up.
257
736880
4136
12:21
And of course, pretty much all of Hawaii,
258
741040
2616
12:23
where novel ecosystems are the norm,
259
743680
2816
12:26
where exotic species totally dominate.
260
746520
2576
12:29
This forest here has Queensland maple,
261
749120
2416
12:31
it has sword ferns from Southeast Asia.
262
751560
2840
12:35
You can make your own novel ecosystem, too.
263
755160
2056
12:37
It's really simple.
264
757240
1216
12:38
You just stop mowing your lawn.
265
758480
1496
12:40
(Laughter)
266
760000
1576
12:41
Ilkka Hanski was an ecologist in Finland, and he did this experiment himself.
267
761600
3696
12:45
He just stopped mowing his lawn,
268
765320
1576
12:46
and after a few years, he had some grad students come,
269
766920
2536
12:49
and they did sort of a bio-blitz of his backyard,
270
769480
2496
12:52
and they found 375 plant species,
271
772000
4256
12:56
including two endangered species.
272
776280
2120
12:59
So when you're up there on that future High Line of Philadelphia,
273
779560
6456
13:06
surrounded by this wildness,
274
786040
1816
13:07
surrounded by this diversity, this abundance, this vibrance,
275
787880
3776
13:11
you can look over the side
276
791680
1256
13:12
and you can see a local playground for a local school,
277
792960
3256
13:16
and that's what it looks like.
278
796240
1936
13:18
These children have, that --
279
798200
2016
13:20
You know, under my definition,
280
800240
1456
13:21
there's a lot of the planet that counts as nature,
281
801720
2376
13:24
but this would be one of the few places that wouldn't count as nature.
282
804120
3336
13:27
There's nothing there except humans, no other plants, no other animals.
283
807480
3376
13:30
And what I really wanted to do
284
810880
1456
13:32
was just, like, throw a ladder over the side
285
812360
2096
13:34
and get all these kids to come up with me into this cool meadow.
286
814480
3536
13:38
In a way, I feel like this is the choice that faces us.
287
818040
3296
13:41
If we dismiss these new natures as not acceptable or trashy or no good,
288
821360
4600
13:47
we might as well just pave them over.
289
827040
2576
13:49
And in a world where everything is changing,
290
829640
2536
13:52
we need to be very careful about how we define nature.
291
832200
2800
13:55
In order not to steal it from our children,
292
835800
2056
13:57
we have to do two things.
293
837880
1936
13:59
First, we cannot define nature as that which is untouched.
294
839840
3840
14:04
This never made any sense anyway.
295
844360
1576
14:05
Nature has not been untouched for thousands of years.
296
845960
2496
14:08
And it excludes most of the nature that most people can visit
297
848480
3816
14:12
and have a relationship with,
298
852320
1976
14:14
including only nature that children cannot touch.
299
854320
3400
14:18
Which brings me to the second thing that we have to do,
300
858360
2616
14:21
which is that we have to let children touch nature,
301
861000
2496
14:23
because that which is untouched is unloved.
302
863520
2496
14:26
(Applause)
303
866040
2960
14:35
We face some pretty grim environmental challenges on this planet.
304
875400
3736
14:39
Climate change is among them.
305
879160
1536
14:40
There's others too: habitat loss is my favorite thing
306
880720
2496
14:43
to freak out about in the middle of the night.
307
883240
2696
14:45
But in order to solve them,
308
885960
1336
14:47
we need people -- smart, dedicated people --
309
887320
2736
14:50
who care about nature.
310
890080
1776
14:51
And the only way we're going to raise up a generation of people
311
891880
2976
14:54
who care about nature
312
894880
1216
14:56
is by letting them touch nature.
313
896120
2176
14:58
I have a Fort Theory of Ecology,
314
898320
2296
15:00
Fort Theory of Conservation.
315
900640
1896
15:02
Every ecologist I know, every conservation biologist I know,
316
902560
3216
15:05
every conservation professional I know,
317
905800
1896
15:07
built forts when they were kids.
318
907720
2200
15:10
If we have a generation that doesn't know how to build a fort,
319
910840
2936
15:13
we'll have a generation that doesn't know how to care about nature.
320
913800
3176
15:17
And I don't want to be the one to tell this kid,
321
917000
2256
15:19
who is on a special program
322
919280
1336
15:20
that takes Philadelphia kids from poor neighborhoods
323
920640
2456
15:23
and takes them to city parks,
324
923120
1416
15:24
I don't want to be the one to tell him that the flower he's holding
325
924560
3176
15:27
is a non-native invasive weed that he should throw away as trash.
326
927760
3080
15:31
I think I would much rather learn from this boy
327
931760
3176
15:34
that no matter where this plant comes from,
328
934960
2656
15:37
it is beautiful, and it deserves to be touched and appreciated.
329
937640
4176
15:41
Thank you.
330
941840
1216
15:43
(Applause)
331
943080
8190
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7