Name: 【TED】Emma Marris: Nature is everywhere -- we just need to learn to see it (Nature is everywhere -- we just need to learn to see it | Emma Marris)
Uploaded: 2017-01-31T09:25:35.000Z
Duration: 15 min 53 s
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We are stealing nature from our children.

Now, when I say this, I don't mean that we are destroying nature

that they will have wanted us to preserve,

although that is unfortunately also the case.

What I mean here is that we've started to define nature in a way

that under the definition we're creating for ourselves,

there won't be any nature left for our children

to live, to grow their crops and their timber,

we would weigh 10 times as much as all the wild mammals put together.

We have added little plastic particles to the sand on ocean beaches.

We've changed the chemistry of the soil with our artificial fertilizers.

And of course, we've changed the chemistry of the air.

you'll be breathing in 42 percent more carbon dioxide

So all of these changes, and many others,

have come to be kind of lumped together under this rubric of the "Anthropocene."

And this is a term that some geologists are suggesting

given how pervasive human influence has been over it.

Now, it's still just a proposed epoch, but I think it's a helpful way

to think about the magnitude of human influence on the planet.

What counts as nature in a world where everything is influenced by humans?

So 25 years ago, environmental writer Bill McKibben said

that because nature was a thing apart from man

that every centimeter of the Earth was altered by man,

In fact, he called his book "The End of Nature."

I disagree with this. I just disagree with this.

I disagree with this definition of nature, because, fundamentally, we are animals.

in the context of all the other animals with which we share a planet,

and all the other plants, and all the other microbes.

is not that which is untouched by humanity, man or woman.

I think that nature is anywhere where life thrives,

anywhere where there are multiple species together,

anywhere that's green and blue and thriving and filled with life

Now, I understand that there are certain parts of this nature

Places that we think of as kind of Edenic representations

of a nature before we screwed everything up.

And in a way, they are less impacted by our day to day activities.

Many of these places have no roads or few roads,

But ultimately, even these Edens are deeply influenced by humans.

Now, let's just take North America, for example,

So between about 15,000 years ago when people first came here,

they started a process of interacting with the nature

that led to the extinction of a big slew of large-bodied animals,

from the mastodon to the giant ground sloth,

all of these cool animals that unfortunately are no longer with us.

you know, the ecosystems didn't stand still.

Massive ripple effects changed grasslands into forests,

changed the composition of forest from one tree to another.

that seem to remind us of a past before humans,

we're essentially looking at a humanized landscape.

Not just these prehistoric humans, but historical humans, indigenous people

all the way up until the moment when the first colonizers showed up.

And the case is the same for the other continents as well.

in a very influential way for a very long time.

And I said, "Where? Where? I want to go."

And I was like, "Oh, the Amazon. I was just there.

It's awesome. National Geographic sent me to Manú National Park,

but it's a big chunk of rainforest, uncleared, no roads,

one of the most, in fact, biodiverse parks in the world.

And when I got in there with my canoe, what did I find, but people.

People have been living there for hundreds and thousands of years.

People live there, and they don't just float over the jungle.

They have a meaningful relationship with the landscape.

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【TED】Emma Marris: Nature is everywhere -- we just need to learn to see it (Nature is everywhere -- we just need to learn to see it | Emma Marris)

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