Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World

by Glenn A Albrecht

As climate change and development pressures overwhelm the environment, our emotional relationships with Earth are also in crisis. Pessimism and distress are overwhelming people the world over. In this maelstrom of emotion, solastalgia, the homesickness you have when you are still at home, has become, writes Glenn A. Albrecht, one of the defining emotions of the twenty-first century. Earth Emotions examines our positive and negative Earth emotions. It explains the author's concept of solastalgia and other well-known eco-emotions such as biophilia and topophilia. Albrecht introduces us to the many new words needed to describe the full range of our emotional responses to the emergent state of the world. We need this creation of a hopeful vocabulary of positive emotions, argues Albrecht, so that we can extract ourselves out of environmental desolation and reignite our millennia-old biophilia―love of life―for our home planet. To do so, he proposes a dramatic change from the current human-dominated Anthropocene era to one that will be founded, materially, ethically, politically, and spiritually on the revolution in thinking being delivered by contemporary symbiotic science. Albrecht names this period the Symbiocene. With the current and coming generations, "Generation Symbiocene," Albrecht sees reason for optimism. The battle between the forces of destruction and the forces of creation will be won by Generation Symbiocene, and Earth Emotions presents an ethical and emotional odyssey for that victory.

Genres: Nature, Philosophy, Environment, Nonfiction, Science, Theory, Outdoors

256 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2019

Reviews

[Saige · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Albrecht puts forth a whole host of new terms and ideas to categorize and discuss how people relate to the earth, the other living beings around them, and the destruction that we are wreaking against the whole of the natural world. This is a necessary and vital project - we need words for the world that we seek to create. I think Albrecht's focus on symbiosis is extremely powerful. It completely shifts the dominant, patriarchal, "survival of the fittest" model in favour of reminding us that all life is collaborative, and that only in collaboration can we save our own skins. He doesn't pull his punches, discussing capitalism, empire, and colonial violence with a tone of disgust that I find acutely appropriate. Albrecht also brings to his philosophy a distinct sense of his own emplacement as a person living in Hunter Valley, a personal touch to the work that I think drives his points home all the clearer. The vocabulary he offers is functional, useful, and does make me want to cry a little. But with climate realism, I fear that tears are par for the course.

With all that said, I think he very much jumps the gun at the end of this text and veers off into some WACK ideas. To focus obsessively on life, casting death as evil, flies in the face of everything I understand about symbiosis. Sometimes the forest has to burn for the new trees to grow. Also what in the name of god is "androgenous intelligence"???? He talks about some new androgenous intelligence as if it's a given that there are male and female intelligences to begin with? And casting men as the majority of his imagined "green muscle" with the BAREST gesture towards histories of patriarchy and the reasons why men seek positions of violence in society really did not fly for me. That whole section was misguided at best, intensely misogynistic at worst. So I think I'll take many of Albrecht's ideas about earth emotions, and let his ideas on how the Symbiocene will come about to lie fallow in the wetlands.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has to be one of the weirdest books I have read in a long time, and the weirdest book I have read and enjoyed in even longer. Albrecht does what he sets out to do in creating a whole range of new words to describe the emotional responses to what people experience in the Anthropocene. While some of the words mean little to me, either they aren't something I feel or the obscure etymology and formation meant they were hard to follow. However, others were deeply interesting such as Solastalgia. The description of the feeling of nostalgia and sadness associated with experiences of changes in place during the Anthropocene. This is a concept of great use in describing the range of experiences of people on the frontline of the climate crisis and is my key takeaway from this book.

While often Albrecht's writing is intelligent and deals with nuance he also at times comes across as naïve. His encouragement of patriotism, tribalism and regionalism seem to be in good faith, but also slip into the risk of being weaponised by eco-fascists. He could have engaged further in what he meant by these topics and I think throughout there is a slight risk of being misinterpreted or manipulated that is inherent in such a word heavy book with so many changing meanings and new ideas. I don't think Albrecht has been specific enough throughout to manage this very well.

[Adam Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Earth Emotions as a book intrigued me for its offering of a discussion of the “full range of our emotional responses to the emergent state of the world”. A world that is upset by the trauma of climate change and environmental crises, but also a world optimistic.

And indeed, the book does a good job of defining a whole suite of terms to describe various Earth emotions. Some of these terms may become part of the popular vernacular. Others may obscure otherwise clear thought. It also creates a compelling alternate worldview to the depressing destruction of the so-called Anthropocene. For all of these reasons, Earth Emotions is likely to be on reading lists for students of environmental philosophy.

[philosodendron · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a bizarre book. Infuriatingly unsystematic and random. Did we really need an analysis of Avatar in the middle of all this? How many funky neologisms based on latin and germanic roots does it take to make the rather obvious point that "nature destroyed feels bad" and "animism feels good"?

Apart from the emotion typology which is at least fun and fruitful regardless of how stringent it may be (similar to how personality typologies tend to be bullshit but at the same time very fun and fruitful), the outlook of the book is just confusing and, I think, confused. Not all relations in nature are mutualistic. Death and decay, here, seem associated with evil, seem excluded from the Utopian future of universal symbiosis - what a toxically positive vision! Ends with "all is well on earth". All will never be well. That is not a desirable outcome.

But then, it turns out, that that universal symbiosis isn't universal after all but federalistic, because we are big time into what the author calls "bioregionalism". It's bold and interesting to talk about allegiance to a local place and culture and anti-globalism in an environmental context and how, in that sense, nationalist movements like "Generation Identity" may have "a point" as the author phrases it. But, in this case, I just don't get where it is going. The author neither commits to the undesirable implications of expanding the idea of conservation of endemic nature to cultures (i.e. separating human cultures and all the xenophobia that comes with that) nor do we get a convincing argument as to how and why we can block such implications. At one point, the globalized "melting pot" of eco-systems is presented as "a reality" we can no longer change, and so is the globalized "melting pot" of cultures. So... it is a bad thing and we only have to accept it because we can't change it, not because we agree with it? If you are going to go down the path of endorsing regional and local allegiance in a nature as well as culture context as part of your Utopia, but also keep bringing up how climate change will lead to mass migration, then you better have a really well-conceived philosophical defence system against the easy leap from "This is OUR land and people" to "This is OUR land and NOT YOURS, so go away". You can't just open this can of worms and then not name the worms.

Then the term "Jihad" is thrown around in bizarre ways, and the woes of masculinity in the 21st century are solved by channeling the "ALPHA" MALE SENTIMENTS into "GREEN MUSCLE" for "WW3". Wtf did I just read.

[Mariemelrose]

Finally in😉. In Earth Emotions, Glenn Albrecht, explores the need for new more suitable terms for new feelings, new sensations in our world of upheaval, forced migration, forced displacement and changes to and within our familiar physical, cultural and emotional environment in which, he argues, we are in symbiosis. Albrecht debunks terms such as ' the environment', 'nostalgia', among others..... as obsolete in light of our new, enlightened understanding and knowledge of the above mentioned changes and situations. Albrecht's work is based on empirical as well as geo-political observations. Just as a botonist before newly discovered plants, Albrecht needs more suitable, more specific lexicon to the familiar generic ones. His study helps us to better understand the traumatism felt, for example, when The Hunter Valley farmers saw their farming land converted into coal pits. The plight of the Australian aborigines is seen from another perspective. I strongly recommend this book to anybody, David, who enjoys more than just a getaway story for distraction. It is both quite easily read as well as thought provoking.

[Spijker Mans · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book starts with a clear personal viewpoint that leads to the philosophical inquiry of an alternative epoch. Sometimes it is a bit long-winded but the conclusion makes up for it with clear visions. Albrecht does not claim a certain truth and merely proposes an alternative, leaving many questions to be explored. Critical notes on the Anthropocene are provided, but it remains primarily hopeful.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential book with some important insights into how we navigate and express our emotions in this age of climate emergency. I felt it slipped a bit in the final pages, with some of the hopes for the next generation in terms of population and technology revealed a very western centric approach, but this doesn't detract from the very helpful and important work of this book and the writer

[Sigrun Hodne]

An eco philosophical dictionary for the world to come.

[Tija Bija · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Emotions are primary and primordial forces that motivate us to action." What emotions do motivate the modern human? And can we actually define 21. century emotions and anxieties? Do we even know where they are coming from and what are the consequences?
~~~
"Language extinction goes hand in hand with endemic landscape and biota extinction", therefore Glenn sees the need for new words that describe new emotions. Earth Emotions speak about current century and newly descriptive terms help to understand mostly explainable emotions and how psyche and body connects with Earth, moreover how climate change affects mental health.

His neologisms are created based on real human experiences, mainly found in his homeland Australia. Here are just few concepts, that gave me an AHA moment:

Solastalgia is the nostalgia (= homesickness) you have "when you are still located within your home environment". "The increasingly pervasive feeling of sadness and loss for a world that’s being irreversibly altered". "Longing for Home without Ever Leaving." Solastalgia appears after the loved natural or built environment has been destroyed by natural and artificial causes (drought, fire, flood, war, terrorism, land clearing, mining, rapid institutional change, and so on).

Another — "Environmental generational amnesia" describes how "each generation knows less about their bioregion." It means that new generations take this Earth state and antropogenic pollution as a norm. It leads children to have little or no empathy (at all) for wilderness = places largely untouched my humans. There is a worry that new generations may mature into adults that have fear at the appearance of unexpectedness, so they more likely spend their time in climate controlled boxes and grow their ignorance to "otherness".

These and other negative Earth emotions obviously lead to various mental and physical issues as well. Therefore it is important to gain a knowledge of these Earth connected emotions in the first place.

Glenn suggest that during this massive environmental change and due to human desolation and separation from (biological) nature we are entering "the age of solastalgia" and "emotional death" (with respect to nature). Expectedly there is also emergence of “nature-deficit disorder”, "self-annihilation", "biophobia", "ecoparalysis" (also my fav), "ecoanxiety", "ecocide", and "ecophobia", "terrafurie", "tierracide", "tierratrauma", "meteoranxiety"(also cool one) and more and more negative eco-emotional states.

Author hopes our planet to exit Anthroposcene, because there can not be “good Anthropocene”; current ~scene is only gona lead humans to destruction and possible extinction.

Glenn creates a word for hopefully next new age - Symbioscene. Without a new ~scene "this Earth will be “sacrificed” and the Anthropocene will go cosmic, even universal".

To conclude this book greatly influenced my own research into underestimated world of emotions and made me question limits of language... "Earth Emotions" have plenty of references to other environmental philosophers (like E.O.Wilson) and eco-feminists and other scholars, so in a way this book is a symbiosis of ideas for healthier planet.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philosopher Glenn Albrecht, in writing Earth Emotions, is creating a language that ties together humanity and our surrounding environment, both in the positive and negative. He has created an extensive glossary of terms that relate to emotional responses to nature and environment. The book begins with the negative in concepts like "solastalgia", "the existential and lived experience of negative environmental change" (p38), then follows with the affirming in concepts like "Symbiocene" or a future epoch of mutualism between people and their environment.

Despite the threat that the book overcomplicates its own language, Albrecht keeps his argument relevant and justifies each term well. In doing this, he writes more like an artist, creating a vocabulary rather than using one that is already there.

Occasional deviations in the narrative are distracting, such as zealous criticisms of space research, or a lengthy analysis of people's responses to the film Avatar, but overall this is a positive book. The final chapter, which reads like a science fiction imagining of a utopia, is uplifting and heartwarming, and presents a vision of a positive future that is rarely found in literature on the devastating effects of the Anthropocene.

[Rajesh Hegde · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book did a good review of the current climate crisis around the world and the negative psychological responses of the people to the crisis. The book also proposed alternative green world where positive eco-psychologcial responses could be generated. You will learn bunch of new words from the environmental psychology field through this book.

The main criticism for this book, which is primarily a eco-psychology overview of climate change, is it doesn't empower the readers to go in the real world and create a wave of positive eco-psychology around us. Ultimately, the readers have to navigate their local landscape with all the pitfalls and challenges on their own. This book seems more academic than practical for a layman person to act on climate change.

[Sally Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a deeply philosophical book about the changing emotional connections humans make with the lands upon which they live. I particularly enjoyed the chapter explaining 'Solastalgia', a word coined by Albrecht in 2003 to describe the 'homesickness you have at home' as the lands we live upon are degraded by forces (usually) outside of our control (think mining). A book for our time, which offers optimistic possibilities to address our earth emotions now and into the future.

[Mason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though occasionally weighed down by the philosophical/linguistic analysis, Albrecht offers several interesting frameworks – in particular, the Symbiocene – that provide fruitful territory for artists to imagine into being.

[Alex Tischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very original thinker, he has coined more terms than years people live. Sumbiocriticism, Symbiocene, solastalgia, etc. Some of his ideas are very redundant, though powerful. As a philosopher, I appreciate his optimism and productive potential of hope, not despair in creating terms, fields, and concepts that reflect getting out of our mess.

[Mills College Library]

304.2 A341 2019

[Margo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book captured my interest when it was introduced to me during Positive Psychology module in university. Our lecturer referred to it a lot and used many of the words introduced in the book to emphasise how interrelated are the concepts of nature connectedness and mental wellbeing. I found the new terms fascinating and intriguing and after reading the book I still see them the same way. But the question I have now is if it’s really the new terminology that we lack to finally feel motivated enough to take actual action in battling climate change? I personally don’t think so.