Let Us Not Abandon the Earth

[forestofglory]

I was recently reading something that featured a science fiction trope that I've seen a background detail in a bunch of things and that I really dislike: humans have abandoned the earth to let nature heal.

This feels like fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between humans and nature. Most ecosystems on Earth are fundamentally shaped by human actions. People set controlled fires, harvested wild plants, grazed animals, copiced woods, ect. Are modern humans doing a good job of maintaining these types of relationships? For the most part no. But that doesn't mean that I think the earth would be better off without us.

And we would certainly not be better off without the earth. Every time I read something where the earth has been destroyed or abandoned I feel deep sense of grief, even thought these works generally treat it like no big deal.

I'm frequently frustrated by by the careless way the concept of wilderness is propagated in popular culture. While the concept of wilderness is appealing it generally rests on false understanding of history. I want more fiction to engage with the idea that we can be good members of the community of nature, and that we don't have to either destroy or leave.

Comments

[dolorosa_12]

I dislike stories about humans abandoning the earth, but for a slightly different reason — it feels like a cowardly attempt to avoid responsibility, or the difficult work of restoring a ruined planet, or the need to make significant changes in our ways of living, with an assumption that there'll always be a new planet to move on to and continue the same harmful patterns of consumption, destruction and extraction.

One of my very favourite books — Earthsong by Victor Kelleher — does have a premise that humans abandoned the earth when it became uninhabitable, but instead of it reverting to 'wilderness' when they leave, the natural world develops in strange and unsettling ways, and the book challenges what we understand as 'human', 'nature', and the relationship between the two.

One of the other people I subscribe to on Dreamwidth, chestnut_pod, has just written a great post which touches on the same issue that you're discussing here - that stories which position 'untouched wilderness' as a fundamentally utopian thing have completely misunderstood the relationship between human beings and the natural world.

[forestofglory]

Thanks for the link! I've been hesitant to pick up A Psalm for the Wild-Built because Becky Chambers has nodes this kind of thing in some of her other works. Give this review I think I will pass.

[dolorosa_12]

Chambers is extremely hit-and-miss for me too, so I was grateful for the review! I'm glad it was helpful for you too.

Is it all right if I link this post of yours on my Dreamwidth? I found it interesting to read in conjunction with chestnut_pod's post, and would like to share both with other people. Obviously no problem if not.

[forestofglory]

Please do link. It's always ok to link to any of my public posts.

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you!