In environmental chemistry today, my professor brought up how the people of Iceland had a funeral for a glacier which melted due to climate change. In class, I voiced my opinion for why having a funeral for dying parts of the earth was a good thing, why personifying nature isn’t woo-woo but might just be necessary to actually make change. Sometime after class, my professor emailed me, saying my perspectives may have swayed her opinions. I replied with a further defense of my stance. Here is that response.
“Here’s a more elaborate perspective on the matter:
As a global society, we wouldn’t be where we are today without science. That’s quite an understatement. Speaking rather generally, though science has brought us very far, it’s also managed to almost wholly neglect any spiritual component or connection to the natural world. We have become separate from nature. We have been more or less conditioned to see this planet as something we can extract resources from, not someone that’s alive, that has a place at the table. I believe the scientific community has a lot to learn with respect to the indigenous religions and belief systems of the Americas and other places across the globe. Maybe it’s time we, as a society, stopped judging native people’s sun dances and conversations with trees and started listening. I think they were on to something.
If we started treating earth as Mother Earth, maybe people would start worrying about her. When we worry, we care–then we are moved to action. I sincerely think we need more than just good science to convert the masses. We need some reason for everybody to care, something that goes across partisan lines. I think a funeral for a glacier is a step in the right direction.”