Getting to Green by Frederic C. Rich

Author:Frederic C. Rich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

I feel unable to end this exploration of reasons why we should care for the natural world without making the simple point that both nature itself, and the caring for it, makes us happy. Beauty and love of place explain this in part, but are not sufficient to explain the unique emotional state that is induced by exposure to the natural world. And here I also do not mean the various types of transcendence and spiritual experience induced by nature, although they can be part of it too. Nor do I mean only the connection, perhaps evolutionary, that humans feel with other forms of life, which E. O. Wilson and others call biophilia.57 I mean something more simple: an appetite to be outside. A feeling of coming home when we come to a relatively natural place. Profound contentment, akin to that we feel when sitting in front of the fire, where 200,000 years of experience have imprinted a deep genetic signal that associates the fire with safety and comfort. If we are feeling troubled, hurt, or angry, we know that simple exposure to trees, plants, rocks, water, and animals, in almost any conceivable combination, makes us feel better. Nature makes us happy.58

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