Environmental generational amnesia

[Pausha Foley]

An interesting study showing that humans may suffer from our separation from nature much more than nature will:

"We as a species will adapt to the loss of actual nature. How could we not?
We either adapt or go extinct. But because of biophilia—because
of our evolutionary need to affiliate with nature—we will suffer
physical and psychological costs. We will also be drawn to increasingly
sophisticated and pervasive forms of technological
nature, which will provide some but not all of the benefits of
actual nature. In turn, there will be a downward shift (as there
has been already) in the baseline across generations for what
counts as a full measure of the human experience and of human
flourishing. This shift makes and will continue to make societal
change difficult. For example, if you try to explain to a person
what we, as humans, are missing in terms of the fullness of the
human relation with nature, a well-meaning person can look at
you blankly and respond ‘‘but I don’t think we’re missing anything.’’
It is hard enough to address environmental problems,
such as global climate change, when people are aware of them; it
is all the harder when they are not. Thus, the problem of environmental
generational amnesia may emerge as one of the
central psychological problems of our lifetime."

http://depts.washington.edu/hints/publications/Human_Relation_Techn...