The pandemic has allowed many of us to develop a new appreciation of the great outdoors. But of course, this renewed engagement with nature comes at a time when our natural world is facing an unparalleled climate crisis.
I’m a psychologist interested in how people engage with and think about nature, in this precise historical moment when it is unprecedentedly threatened. In my new book Anthropocene Psychology I consider how we live in and with nature and how this poses profound and troubling questions.
If you’ve never heard of the Anthropocene, here’s a very brief primer. Anthropos is Greek for human and cene refers to a distinctive geological time period. The term is used to convey how, for the first time in history, the Earth is being transformed by one species –
By Sara Wright
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Last week on a mild sunny day I tipped balsam greens for my wreaths. I breathed in the pungent fragrance with an enthusiasm that can only come from absence. For the last four years I have had to drive up to the mountains of New Mexico to find Colorado fir for greens (also a tree we have here in Maine, although unlike balsam it is not native).
The scent of balsam to my mind is like no other. Science informs us that the Pinenes from this tree are the most powerful of all conifers. These chemicals act as natural bronchodilators and are also the most effective air purifiers.