Ecological identity and deep ecology

Most of us feel overwhelmed when we trawl through the news and I’m not surprised many people prefer to just switch off. Particularly for younger people, there is a growing epidemic of eco-grief.

So what must it be like to be an ecologist and to have that gloom front and center of our waking consciousness, day after day?

This was a question posed by David Rutledge (Philosopher’s Zone, ABC Radio National) in a recent interview with John Seed. The interview is a ‘a surprisingly upbeat conversation about optimism, pessimism and ecological identity’, enjoy!

Listening to this interview made me realise that, by the very nature of the work we do, we have an in-built resilience. Central to all of this is the philosophy of deep ecology. We’ve touched on the power of nature for lifting our mood in previous articles, but experiences with nature also nurture our ecological identity. And finding your ecological identity may just be an effective way of dealing with eco-grief. So if you haven’t heard of deep ecology before, I think you’ll find this interview enlightening.