Weather change – Culture change… the influence of climate change on culture

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What will we do as we move towards a less stable climate, as extreme weather becomes more common? 

Already we are a species divorced from the natural environment, in concert with which we spent millennia evolving. We have lost not only our intuition, instinct and responsiveness to the rhythms of the living world, but also our ability to think outside. Not to think “outside the box”, I do mean think outside.

The important things in our world are all done inside. The things that are valued; law, medicine, business, even arts and culture. Our outdoor selves, for the majority of people, are felt during small gaps in “real life”; recreational time when we tend the garden or take a walk, or in summer play on the beach, camp and do outdoor sports. 

What is the impact of this? We can’t do surgery or use computing systems outside so why bother to discuss the indoor nature of virtually all professions? The point is not to suggest we find outdoor alternatives for our existing professions, but merely to reflect on where this has taken us.

With an ever increasing distance from the living world, and a tendency towards health and safety legislation, suing and compensation in the case of accident, we are pathologically averse to any unpredictability. While we may exhort the wonders of the natural world and clearly see the need to encourage our pollinators to thrive, our seas to be filled with life not plastic, and the remaining tigers to have some chance of survival, we cannot go that step further to accept the releasing of the reins that is involved in taking our place in the living world again.