The Heartbroken Planet

Receding into ‘post-human epistemology’

Human beings have forever grappled with questions of sorrow and happiness, in an eternal quest to understand the human condition, often reckoning with the limits of existence vis-a-vis the host planet. We are temporary residents on the planet and never before have we known so much about the Earth and never before have we felt such estrangement, at the same time. In the 21st century, a host of official terms like “climate anxiety,” “climate grief,” “Gaia’s revenge,” “Sostalgia,” “Eco-grief” and “Ecocide” have come forth to symbolize epistemological constructs, that we feel about climate change, the loss of Nature and the overall disembodiment of modern human beings from the host planet.

There lies an intrinsic relationship between the environment, our estrangement and the general pathos (suffering) which makes us feel sad, anxious, desperate and sometimes plain heartbroken. That pathos which is being expressed in philosophical, cultural and aesthetic terms allover the world. As a species, we are lost in this immense infinite cosmos, all be it grappling with our future on a degraded planet, now invoking a global existential threat. What Friedrich Nietzsche once termed “humanity’s place in the universe…” is back with a host of unavoidable questions of survival, pointing to our limits as a species as well as our current relationship with the rest of the planet.

The story that I am about to tell is just another way to make sense, make “oddkin” with the “Heartbroken Planet” and commence a spiritual departure, from the world within which we are currently entrapped. The point of addressing planetary grief is based on an unacceptable possibility of extinction as well as the realization that the planet was never “ours” to begin with. Is human extinction some “far off event” or is it ongoing? Who will be left standing to make sense of the eventual collapse, of civilization? What consequences of the past are manifesting upon the present and the future? There are no totalizing arguments here based on science nor any techno-fix hubris. The “pale blue dot” (Carl Sagan) suspended in a sun beam, our only home, and why does it make us sentient beings feel so ‘blue’?

The world is experiencing an overshoot, or say maelstrom of media coverage, documentaries, big data, institutional debates and public opinion (and outrage) about climate change and the consequences of irreversible ecological loss. Yet there seems very little discourse or available informative tools to make sense of climate anxiety and grief. How should one deal (and feel) about climate change or such incredible planetary shifts? If we were to view climate as a living entity, all be it immense yet ambient, totally palpable, diffused but tangible. As vast as the entire sky or the deep oceans, and at the same time as minuscule, like the particles in the air we breath or the water we drink. Anguished everything, did we modern human beings?

As the most powerful species on earth, we lack the language and comprehension to make sense of such a colossal entity, that we define as climate. One which is directly affecting our daily mood as well as a range of deeper emotions. One that is pushing us towards a future made of unknown perils. Daunting and presumptuous, most linear ways of thinking and text fails to explicate the situation, especially when we step away from the headlines and “climate sirens” cleverly deployed by mainstream media, by scientists, energy experts and policy makers.

In this age of climate catastrophe, we see the emergence of diagnostic and conceptual tools, which help us perceive or understand the ‘affect’ of a world - one that we have failed to protect and perhaps altogether save. The structure of our entire lives, which are predicated by political, economic, technological and cultural constructs, is but infiltrated by a sense of alienation. Regardless of which nation or class we belong to, the question of climate change is immediate as well as intimate. Is the planet receding into ‘post-human epistemology’? Or is it our limits as a species, to make sense of a world where no one is in control anymore, of anything important?

The question being, how do we shift our understanding (and existing mentality) that frames most environmental discourses, to the one which is about the planet as a living entity, that bears affect upon every human and non-human entity. Do we common people make a distinction between the ‘world’ and the ‘Earth’? Stable universal definitions aside, the need for emotional and psychological resilience is vital to make sense of the ongoing havoc, made of extreme weather events, gradual loss of ice, ever increasing heat waves, the acidification of oceans, mass extinction and a range of seemingly irreversible changes taking place across entire ecosystems.

In their new book titled ‘The Sad Planets’ authors Dominic Pettman and Eugene Thacker unpack several new counter-insurgent definitions as short sequences, centered around climate grief and the overall alienation of human beings from Nature and the Earth. “The experience of climate events at whatever level, be it out there or at my doorstep, then opens onto more abstract and more ambivalent dispositions… Steadily we are loosing faith in the universal myths of eternal progress and growth…As the instances of climate based migration increase around the planet, at what point in the future will human beings feel exiled from the planet itself.” According to the authors, the plethora of information about the near-term aspects of climate change, sometimes as contradictory, has also impacted us, about our relationship to the future, as well as “our ability (or inability) to plan for it, given the tenuous and unstable character of climate events themselves.” The central argument made by the authors, is about the current age, being different from earlier secular epochs where “human continuity” was taken for granted, unlike now where we have to deal with the dynamics of “situatedness and accompanied fragility”.

In tangible ways climate grief can be compared to pre-existing definitions of grief. “Grief is a normal human reaction to loss, or anticipated loss” says Andrew Bryant, a therapist and social worker based in Seattle. At a non-specialist level, we can understand grief as a loss of stability or a predictable future, or as some people define it as “anticipating exposure to other people's loss, that most often triggers grief”. Beyond those definitions, climate grief has unique characteristics, in terms of not having a historical record. For starters, climate change, in many circles is still controversial, which can make people wary about discussing their feelings with others. We can ignore all the pitched battles between the believers and non-believers, as each side is most often out to defend their prevailing worldview or at best their economic privileges and status.

Aspects of gradual loss in terms of biodiversity, also triggers grief (Sostalgia) that proliferates far and wide within society. A recent Nature magazine article states “the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List concluded that the species at risk, from three of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss - habitat loss, over-exploitation for international trade and invasive species… we still find that 91% of threatened species have insufficient representation of their habitats.” Systems imposed by human projects such as globalization, maritime trade, mining, transport, extraction based economies, the internet and tourism can be viewed as sub-constructs that add up to become the “biggest drivers”. Surely some of us can anticipate with reason, that the entire system is a source of “planetary agony” and the consequent grief and rising anxiety.

The existential nature of climate change often manifests in reality as grief and anxiety, that is directly felt (and expressed) by angry teenagers, by radical eco-warriors, land protectors, the indigenous peoples and to a large extent by people who can anticipate overall sadness, uncertainty and loss. Since the change is local as well as global, people in varying ways feel (and see) entire ecosystems of which they are a part of, changing for the worse. Something that is vastly different from loosing a person or a pet, because at the epicenter of climate grief is the fundamental loss of meaning, of life itself. Furthermore, a person may grieve for the anticipated or ongoing losses of other species and other people, which in the case of climate change is potentially everyone. But we can metabolize, one horrific event after another, like a newsreel.

When we hear teenagers like Hilda Nakabuye (Uganda) or Greta Thundberg (Sweden) speak, we sense a “disenfranchised grief” that they are able to project using strong words or even real tears that often underline their speeches. Current society, as weaponized by the endless proliferation of technology, is practically inept, culturally speaking, to deal with this type of grief, fragility and rage. The reason more and more people are turning away from the totalitarian nature of the state, much like mainstream science, both most often backed by technological hubris, instead finding new hope with indigenous knowledge and empathy, that is based on care giving, mutual resistance and collective trauma. A technological society presently cannot underscore our collective responsibility as a species, to deal more kindly (and ecologically) with one another and preserve (and cherish) that microdot in space, or better as a “pale blue dot” - our only home that we have known and will ever know.

As individuals or as society, when we feel helpless facing big threats, everything begins to get worse and worse, like a spiral of despair. Without cognition, we release stress hormones into our bodies, that end up causing despair, amplifying anxiety, anger as well as guilt. We look for other people or constructs to blame. While some find a “great surrogate activity” in vilifying fossil-fuels and leaders, others find comfort in magical thinking or just escaping into the privacy and depths of remaining Nature. But for a majority of us, thinking becomes less compassionate, less creative and less flexible. In this state its “very hard to know how to respond to complex problems. Despair, however, is not a strategy nor a coping mechanism” (Greenpeace).

At a purely abstract level, one can perceive the ‘planet’ as a brain and the ‘world’ as a mind, yet very closely connected. Hence, within a species we have many different types of minds and consequently as many different worlds, that come in and out of existence through language, mythology, art, philosophy, knowledge, science, data, photos etc etc. As Martin Heidegger’s “worlding creatures” we are able to create ‘worlds’ out of the same planet that we live within. Even as that appears as a really powerful idea, it begins to fall apart when framing a singular valid worldview of the entire planet. Unraveling in a million different ways, the process appears more like perplexing alienation, being practiced by modern human beings over and over again.

But we are not exclusive as a species, that is capable of feeling and making sense of sadness or anxiety or the heart-broken status of the planet. What do the trees, plants and critters feel? What coping mechanisms must they apply? Just because we have no communicative systems in place yet to measure or connect with them, does not make climate grief a proprietary human condition. The “pathos of existence” that Virgil and the pagan poets expressed centuries ago, was inclusive of every living being, not seen under an anthropocentric lens. Even most sorrowful events like the Apocalypse or “end of times” was framed by a finality of sorts. Like arrows pointing towards a future with meaning. Friedrich Nietzsche’s image of modern man, thriving in his godless world, never-the-less is incapable to find purpose or meaning, while whirling endlessly in hubris, vice, materialism, emissions and arrogance. Anthropocentrism, that has wielded a degraded earth, billions of meaningless lives, endless specters of war, then provides all the heartbreak at a planetary level. Collectively speaking, we cannot deal with that yet, right?

Can we heroically pull ourselves out of this void, literally by our own hair? Will our “Promethean ego” eventually rescue us, from the dwindling chances of long term survival? Alas No. As a species, which is so powerful yet totally lost, we are taking every other species down with us. Each “micro-generation” is more freaked out than the last one, regardless of what all medical science and clinical therapy can provide for. The “great acceleration of everything” is also spurring climate grief and anxiety across societies small and big. Almost as a final reckoning, the last milestone, of a disastrous trajectory, lead by modern techno-industrial civilization. The utterly reckless self-serving cultures perpetuated by modern human beings, still thriving in their private technology, wealth and property. And to be clear, that is a good thing. For what comes next, might as well be a “a new social order, sans capitalism, without rampant exuberance and the utterly stupid infinite-growth mentality” (Gareth Dale, The Ecologist). But as of now, we are akin to passengers inside some vehicle heading towards a precipice, who prefer to look in the rear-view mirror, just to reassure themselves that we still on the road, and can pull the brakes in time.

Grief and sorrow is visible at every moment, spewing forth in thousands of different ways on our screens, on social media, via propaganda, counter-propaganda, videos, memes, daily news, fake-news, graphs, charts etc etc. For some people that too equates to a ‘business model’ of collecting dimes and cents. We see horrific images of genocide next to cute cuddly privatized pets, next to conspiracy theories next to dancing well-being solutions, proliferated by systems which by construct are senseless generators (and hosts) of content, with no real beginning nor end. “Doom scrolling” forever. The internet will never be exhausted or end happily. Yet we can be sure of one thing, that one has to be some sort of ‘zen black belt’ to be OK with all that we see and consume, and most of us mere mortals cannot escape the ever deepening wounds of this heartbroken planet. “The Great Derangement” and this systemic chaos and out-of-control despair will not prevail forever. Embrace the “Heartbroken Planet” for all else that can be left behind and done with…

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