What Can We Do to Restore the Balance of Our Ecosystems — and Recover Our Mental Health?
If having a healthier environment means living a happier life, would you care more about the Earth?
It’s not an accident that so many of us — and more and more of us — are falling into depression.
If I suggested that that our mental health is linked to the health of our environment, would you believe it?
On Instagram, someone asks in relation to the climate crisis movement: “The world has been ending since 1920 so why should we believe it now?”
And thereabouts are statements of a similar nature — “Climate change is a hoax.” “Global warming is natural.”
These statements are valid from a sociological point of view. Science can be challenging to understand for most of us who do not work in scientific fields, and also for most of us who are not educated about natural ecosystems.
And it is true, the world indeed is not ending. Not today and likely not in a few lifetimes.
But we cannot deny that our world is disturbed, and our two homes are no longer thriving at a healthy balance.
I say *two homes* because we each live in two homes: the Earth and the human body. These two abodes are intimately linked.
Before we get to the Science part, I’m going to be philosophical for a bit and throw in something from The Upanishads — a collection of ancient stories from India; a part of the Vedas. In it, one story posits that the human body is elemental. Just like nature.
Earth is our flesh. Water is our blood. Air is our breath. And fire is our soul.
Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates also associated the human body with natural elements, which he described in the field of early medicine as the four humours — chemical systems that regulate human behaviour.
And although human knowledge has since evolved, modern studies do not deny the link between environmental health and human health.
A 2019 study by the journal of Psychiatry Research concludes that children who grew up in high pollution areas and low exposure to natural outdoor environments significantly suffered depression by the time they reached 18.
Last year, the World Health Organisation revealed that, globally, “more than 300 million people of all ages suffer from depression”.
When you think about it, a large chunk of the world population are living under fluorescent light (instead of sunlight), breathing poisonous gases, listening to noise (rather than the mellifluous sounds of nature), drinking artificial drinks, eating processed foods. An unnatural lifestyle inevitably brings about unnatural diseases. Depression is only one of them.
So. Is there anything we can do to help our natural world — and our mental health — recover?
Yes. By changing our lifestyle habits, we still can.
Here are manageable areas where we can help restore the natural balance of our habitat and support all life that live in it.
Food Consumption and Waste
The Earth’s biomes (such a rainforests) produce much of the oxygen we need to survive. They also produce clean drinking water.
Because large populations are eating large amounts of meat, biomes are being shaved: trees are being felled to so that cows and other livestock can graze.
The more we eat meat, the more governments and private companies will supply the demand that we create. Which means more forests will be shaved. The Amazon burning was intentional. It was not wildfire. It happened because of our poor lifestyle choices.
So my question is this: Do you want to breathe fresh air AND have clean drinking water AND save yourself and your children from diseases OR do you want to keep eating large quantities of meat when you can have the healthier alternative? (It’s called vegetables.)
Moving on to other food-related and material consumption…
“A whopping 91% of plastic isn’t recycled.” (National Geographic — Planet or Plastic, December 2018)
When you buy water from a plastic bottle — or indeed anything in plastic packaging — the waste goes to only three places: (1) the ocean or other bodies of water, (2) in a landfill, (3) in the atmosphere (when burned). This means that we are either drinking plastic, eating plastic, or breathing plastic.
Most things come in plastic these days, you will argue.
Yes, I agree. But we can still choose items not in plastic packaging and we can still refuse plastic bags, plates, cutleries, cups, straws.
Bring tote bags with you at all times. Bring your own food container (for takeaways) and your own mug (for coffee and smoothies). As for straws? Past the age of three almost anyone can expertly drink from a glass. If you haven’t developed those motor skills as an adult, at least use a metal or bamboo straw.
When buying fresh produce, you can source food not wrapped in plastic. Visit your local wet markets, farmers’ markets, green grocers — they most likely have loose (not pre-packed) veggies.
For hydration on-the-go, you can boil tap water, let it cool, then decant in a metal water bottle that you can travel with everywhere. When you’re out, you can also ask restaurants to refill your personal bottle. (Some establishments will charge you for water refill but it will still be cheaper and better than buying water in plastic.)
I understand that these suggestions *seem* like Too. Much. Effort.
But when you evaluate how you use your energy and time, you might admit that large chunks of it are spent on unproductive activities. Everything we do is a choice and each of us can rise above our excuses, laziness, ignorance and indifference.
Electricity
Electricity production is one of the largest causes of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2017, EU member states collectively produced 6.73 million tonnes of CO2 (according to the BBC).
That is equivalent to carbon emissions from 1.3 million extra cars on the road for a year…and that’s only some parts of Europe.
What can we do?
🏅 Use appliances that are energy efficient.
🏅Switch off lights and appliances that are not in use.
🏅Unplug idle devices.
🏅If you live in cold weather countries, layer up at home during the winter so you won’t have to blast your indoor heating to tropical temperatures.
🏅If you can afford it and if it applies to your environment, switch to renewable energy sources such as rooftop solar panels, solar ovens, solar water heating, small wind turbines.
Travel and Transport
Fossil fuels burned for road, rail, air, and marine transportation accounted for 23% of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2010. That was nearly a decade ago, so you can imagine how much more pollution we’ve racked up between then and now.
We can do our part by creating the least amount of air toxins when travelling from A to B. I’m talking about:
🏅 Walking 🏅 Cycling 🏅 Longboarding 🏅 Carpooling 🏅Sailing … any mode of transport that requires little to no fuel consumption.
Obviously these will not always be applicable to our situation at all times, but they are options for whenever possible.
Walking and cycling also promotes cardiovascular health and agility. What is good for the body is good for the environment, and vice versa.
Tourism and Leisure
The hotel sector is one of the largest contributor to pollutants because hotels use up a large amount of energy — water, electricity, humans; and also generate a lot of food waste.
The Paris Climate Change Agreement highlights that the hotel industry must reduce carbon emissions by 66% by 2030 and 90% by 2050 to stay within the 2˚C threshold — the tipping point of our ecosystems.
🏅 When going on holiday, you can choose eco-friendly hotels. (How to know if a hotel is eco friendly? This article has a clever checklist.)
🏅 Or even better, opt for family-run guesthouses or AirBnb instead, where you can have a proper local experience.
🏅 When looking for activities on your holiday, you can skip wildlife tourism.
Elephant riding, taking photos with *drugged* tigers, koala handling, dolphin feeding, cage diving with sharks, trophy hunting, snake charming, monkey performances, etc. — all have sinister effects to the ecosystem AND encourages generations of animal cruelty.
Human contact with wildlife does *every* harm possible to the ecosystem. But the real horror is that animal abuse happens behind closed doors, hidden from tourist eyes.
Do you really want to contribute to the suffering of animals because you think it’s cute and fun to have photos with them?
What is the alternative?
🏅 You can visit national parks where wildlife roam free and are protected; where educated professionals are involved.
If you are prohibited from interacting with the wildlife, you know that is a place that truly cares about the balance of the ecosystem and not just the money in your pocket.
Personal Style and Grooming
Fast fashion — the production of cheap clothing with short life cycles — is so mindblowingly wasteful to our natural resources.
To put this in perspective, 10,000 litres of water is required to just grow the one kilo of cotton needed for one pair of jeans. Now guess how many years it would take one person to drink 10,000 litres of water?
10 years!
We are choosing our appearance over our survival. Let that sink in.
During production, clothing factories emit heat in the atmosphere (among other things). In 2015, “the fashion industry produced almost 5% of manmade CO2 emissions — more than aviation and shipping combined”, according to Common Objective, a resource network for sustainable fashion.
On top of this, untreated chemicals are dumped in our rivers, contaminating not only the water we drink but also the fish we eat.
Disposable clothes also end up in landfills where they remain long after we are dead.
What can we do?
🏅 You can buy only second-hand clothing (which gives clothes longer life cycles). And if you really absolutely “must” buy brand new clothes, choose something not just fashionable but also practical; something that won’t fall apart after ten washes.
🏅 If your favourite pieces get damaged or start to disintegrate, you can have them repaired. You can also find them a new owner or a new purpose.
🏅 You can resist the urge to shop unnecessarily. You don’t need 10 different winter coats, even if you live in Alaska.
🏅 You can learn to mix and match your wardrobe creatively, instead of spending on new pieces every few weeks.
When it comes to grooming, there are small-batch, cruelty-free, organic alternatives to commercial mass produced toiletries…and they smell and feel even better! Shampoo bars are a wonderful solution to plastic-free haircare.
That’s it!
There is so much more we can do, but why not start with these small but radical lifestyle changes?
It will take a lot for us to reverse the damage we have done and to reclaim our health and to support our beautiful planet’s recovery. The Earth has given us so much. So much. So, so much. We *need* to learn to give back…and if we’re not planting trees and being John Paul Jose, the least we can do is change our harmful habits.
If you learned something from this article, share it with your friends so that they too can contribute to the healing we all need.
