New words for a changing earth

Environment philosopher Glenn Albrecht seeks a new vocabulary to deal with the emotional distress of environmental change.

Hidden under the fabric of modern life is our unending quest for being with nature. Yet, nature-deficit socialisation has emerged as a distress condition that afflicts us, forcing us to escape from the humdrum of life into the wilderness every so often. Given that a global epidemic of depression is upon us, has our dream run of existence already reached a precipice? Or so it seems if the overwhelming usage of negative eco-emotional typology in recent times is any indication. It is not without reason that terms like biophobia, ecocide, toponesia and ecoparalysis have come to dominate our assessment of the impact of Anthropocene as a fait accompli for living beings.

As climate warming and environmental disasters occur with growing intensity, the ascendency of negative emotions remains a compulsive human response which acknowledges that fear of nature is not only real but systemic too. Every human culture has its own version of battling negative emotions to stay ahead, else humans would have long been consumed by the cumulative impact of destructive emotions. While both types of emotions are necessary, we need to understand why pessimism and distress are overwhelming people the world over and how can ways be found for nurturing emotions of optimism and empathy to bring order. There is no denying that for the situation to change, the disoriented and distressed state of being needs an urgent resolution.

If negative emotions are allowed to expand and dominate, the fear of systemic ecosystem collapse will further distance each subsequent generation from nature and life. Unless checked, not only will environmental degradation continue to increase but each generation will accept the impoverished nature as the norm. This will only allow the Anthropocene obscenities to attack the foundations of life and life processes. It is only through a hopeful vocabulary of positive emotions that the condition of environmental general amnesia can be overcome. Will new words help us capture the chronic nature of biophysical changes differently?

It is this compelling question that environment philosopher Glenn Albrecht has sought to answer through new words that capture the feeling of psychological desolation. Borne out of his lived reality of homelessness and powerlessness in Australia’s Hunter Valley, Solastalgia was coined to capture the homesickness one feels when one is still at home. Created in 2003 by combining solacium (comfort) and algia (grief), the word has gained credence in academic debates and popular culture to describe a form of emotional distress caused by environmental change. While creating a word doesn’t give the experience more power, it does give power of better understanding and reflection. Albrecht deserves praise for breaking the limits of vocabulary to make a better sense of the world we live in.

The power of Earth Emotions lies in it being imaginative and real at the same time. This deep and meticulously researched book introduces the reader to as many as a dozen new words, from soliphilia to sumbiophilia, without which the full range of our emotional responses to the rapidly transforming world may not get addressed. It was the gradual success of solastalgia that encouraged Abrecht to invent more words to direct positive emotions towards repairing human-earth relationships. Soliphilia came out as one that describes peoples’ response to biophysical desolation by political and policy action.

No protective layer

By placing a form of love at the core of the new vocabulary, Albrecht has treaded a not-so-linear path of replacing negative with positive earth emotions. Given the sheer embeddedness of the Anthropocene in every aspect of life, the protective layers of positive emotions have literally been peeled away. There are no two thoughts on it, and all the more reason for rediscovering lost words for landscapes, natural objects, and natural processes to identify feelings and emotions. It is a pioneering undertaking that the author describes as neither idealist nor atavistic, however, it allows the reader to understand what it is like to avoid being tossed about in an environmental storm.

Earth Emotions is a work of interdisciplinary philosophy that unites eco-crises with eco-linguistics. It is an ambitious undertaking that questions the very premise of global governance that has led us to this imminent state of ecological, economic, and climate collapse.