Another year goes by. New year, new problems and challenges… Or not, because some problems have been here for a while. For example, the environmental crisis. Since it is already 2023, we can say that fifty-one years have passed since a global group of scientists denounced in the renowned Meadow’s report the disastrous situation our planet was going through [1].

Fifty years means half a century of scientists foreseeing how the current course of human action was going to cause irreversible damages to the Earth. It could have been and still could be avoided by acting immediately, and yet have we changed our path or solved anything? No, we have not. Of course, environmental laws have been implemented, and awareness is slowly but constantly growing among population. Good news, but still not good enough. Scientists write new reports saying that deeper changes are in need. And our society still seems deaf to them.

Because we do not listen to science, activists began to appear in the conversation, trying to get the message to the people. To draw attention to the environmental collapse, several actions have been taken: from the first show Greenpeace prepared to stop a nuclear test [2], to peaceful protesting like Fridays for Future [3] to the latest – and, as always controversial – form of protest directed towards art and museums.

The common and final goal of these actions should still be the same: make society truly aware of the environmental crisis and help people concretely change how they live. Nonetheless, it seems like the message gets lost in translation. We, humans, have a difficult time interiorizing facts when they are presented as raw data. We are not computers. Scientists can say whatever they want, in the most moderate or apocalyptic tone possible, and activists can take the most controversial action they can think off. Still, it will not get into our minds. We need something else. As much as we like to think of ourselves as purely rational creatures, our values, lifestyle, and way of thinking are affected by tons of non-purely scientific notions. A good example is literature.

Literature heavily influences us from the very beginning of our life and can shape our way of thinking when we are growing up, as well as change it once it is more or less defined. There are widespread fields of literature studies dedicated to analyzing how race, gender, or class displayed in literature affect society, and how those topics are dealt within books. It does not sound crazy to try a similar assessment with human relationships and the environment, does it? That is when ecocriticism comes up.

Ecocriticism is a new field of literature studies, defined as the study of relationships between literature and the environment, or between the human and non-human [4]. And this could be a great way of passing the message to the people because the main goal is to transmit a message, a lesson. And that is exactly the purpose of a narrative. The definition of a narrative is based on three main elements: a series of non-random events (1) that happen to some characters with a minimum degree of human-like consciousness (2), from whose experiences humans can extract some morals (3).

There is a lot to be done in the ecocriticism field, but it is worth to keep an eye on it and its possibilities to help heal the relationship of human and Nature by literature. Maybe the most straightforward example is a new subgenre of Sci-Fi called Cli-Fi – from Climate-Fiction [5]. However, ecocriticism can be used in absolutely any piece of literature.

Ecocriticism is just getting started, but on many pieces of literature, there are powerful environmental messages that can resonate within the readers. Because these ideas are not just thrown into a climate report or scientific paper but interwoven in a story with analogies to human experiences, readers will assimilate them more easily and add them to their values. If that occurs, catalyzing new habits and environmental changes becomes easier. And change is what we need to achieve.

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References:

[1] Kahn, M. E. (2022, July 12). What the controversial 1972 “Limits to Growth” report got right: Our choices today shape future conditions for life on Earth. The Conversation. Retrieved on 12 January 2023 from https://theconversation.com/what-the-controversial-1972-limits-to-growth-report-got-right-our-choices-today-shape-future-conditions-for-life-on-earth-184920

[2] Warner, A. (2021, October 15). The Canadian concert that kicked off Greenpeace. CBC. Retrieved on 13 January 2023 from https://www.cbc.ca/music/the-canadian-concert-that-kicked-off-greenpeace-1.6209314

[3] “Fridays for Future” activists protest worldwide. (2022, September 23). DW. Retrieved on 14 January 2023 from https://www.dw.com/en/fridays-for-future-activists-protest-climate-change-around-the-globe/a-63222091

[4] Konyar, J. (2022, October 23). Ecocriticism’s struggle to define our relationship with nature. The Varsity. Retrieved on 13 January 2023 from https://thevarsity.ca/2022/10/23/ecocriticisms-struggle-to-define-our-relationship-with-nature/

[5] La ciencia ficción tenía mucha razón. (2022, August 15). El País. Retrieved on 13 January 2023 from https://elpais.com/masterdeperiodismo/master2022/2022-08-15/la-ciencia-ficcion-tenia-mucha-razon.html

Cover- and preview image: Watercolor of a sea and a tree placed on an open book. Free-source photo by Degroote.Stock on Freepik.