activism is medicine
health and relevance for the human animal
How do you respond to your encounter with “The Knowledge?” How do you react to the terrifying realization that our biosphere and our future are in grave and imminent danger? Do you retreat into the comfort of denial, hopium, and inactivism, or do you take a stand for the planet and the future?
In the popular imagination, activism is usually seen as an inconvenient, difficult, and stressful enterprise. But what if we’re wrong about all of that? What if there are genuine health benefits that come with engagement? Could activism actually make the human animal stronger?
This book offers a surprisingly positive vision and a path towards meaning and relevance in the face of extreme, almost unbearable circumstance. If your hair is on fire about the state of the planet and you’re in need of medicine, this book is for you.
from the introduction…
Doing nothing is an extremist position.
Dr. Charlie Gardner, conservation biologist
When I travel the world of activism and engagement, people sometimes ask “When did you first become radicalized?” Or to put it another way, How did you come to your extremist perspective? Were you always this way, or was there a pivotal event that changed your world view? Why are you so different from other, normal people?
I listen politely, but before long I become confused. It sounds like maybe I’m being judged as an outlier, a troublemaker, or someone who’s camped out on the lunatic fringe. Maybe it’s a compliment or maybe I’m being lumped in with the crazies. These days, it’s hard to tell.
The problem is that when it comes to the word radical, there are just too many definitions in play. Sometimes it means “going to the root of things,” but it also suggests extreme beliefs, especially the destruction of established social and cultural norms. And it can even mean excellence, as in “your moves that climb were totally rad, dude.”
But speaking for myself, I’m not at all sure that the word fits, at least not in the way that most people understand it. Instead, I’ve lived some powerful experiences that have given me insight into the state of the planet and the role that humans might play. Along the way, I’ve come to realize that my personal philosophy is not radical at all, but deeply conservative. In fact, interviewers might do better to ask “When did you first become conservatized?”
To answer that question, my journey began decades ago in the Boy Scouts, when I first learned to pay attention to the natural world. I got comfortable in the mountains and in turn, my sense of biophilia began to grow. But then I read Paul Ehrlich’s 1971 book The Population Bomb and got my first glimpse of a looming, dysfunctional future. A few years later I flew over the Pacific Northwest in a small aircraft and witnessed the vast clear-cuts that scarred every mountain and valley, a checkerboard of habitat destruction as far as I could see.
Next up was the program in human biology at Stanford, a long apprenticeship in the martial arts, and a year in massage school, all of which intensified my curiosity about the history and function of the human body, especially in a historical context. Along the way, I saw the gruesome photos of the Alberta Tar Sands project and followed the 2016 pipeline protests at Standing Rock. I witnessed the decimation of shark populations in the restaurants of Hong Kong. I saw my childhood bioregion destroyed by development; rich orchards and green spaces obliterated by McMansions, relentless commerce, and outrageous affluence.
Trying to make sense of it all, I read every green book I could get my hands on: The Green History of the World, Overshoot, Sand County Almanac, Silent Spring, Green Rage, The End of Nature, The Voice of the Earth, and of course, The Monkey Wrench Gang. I followed the careers of writers and activists around the world: Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Dave Foreman, Edward Abbey, Theodore Roszak, E.O. Wilson, Paul Watson, Derrick Jensen, Greta Thunberg, and a host of others. I read deeply about the world views of native and indigenous people around the world and I even traveled to Africa to study our ancestral homeland where I spent some time with the Hadza bushmen.
Was I radicalized by these experiences? Not in the way you might think. Ultimately, I began to realize that the true radicals on this planet are those who are destroying the natural world—the only life support system in the known universe. Fossil fuel executives are radical. Corporations that practice strip mining, sea floor mining, deforestation and industrial scale fish harvesting are radical. Politicians who refuse to deal with climate chaos and extinction; anyone who sides with the continued destruction of the biosphere—these are the true extremists of our age.
In contrast, the defenders of our planet are best described as conservatives and conservationists. Those who protest, those who get in the way, those who speak out and disrupt the radical acts of industrial-scale violence, inconvenient people who aren’t afraid to speak up—these people are doing essential, courageous, creative, and inspirational work. They are agents of nature, defending herself.
And while I may be deeply conservative in my views, I’m also angry, which is say, my hair is on fire. Everything I hold dear is being systematically destroyed by greed, ignorance, and bad actors. I’m outraged that defenders of the Earth are being targeted for prosecution and like many, I’m suffering my share of grief, anxiety, and pain. As someone who identifies deeply with the natural world, I feel the destruction as a direct, traumatizing assault on my body and my spirit. My heart is breaking.
This is why I write. This is why I speak. This is why I need the medicine. And so my friend, this book is dedicated to the conservatives among us: the biophiliacs, the disruptors, and the creators. If your hair is on fire and you need the medicine, this book is for you.