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[archive: 2016] Connected but Disconnected

2016-12-21

Original title: Connected but Disconnected: Understanding our Relationships to and Divisions from Nature in an Era of Social Inequality and Environmental Exploitation

Published December 21, 2016

Present-day note (2025):
This post was originally written in 2016 and is preserved largely as-is, as a snapshot of how I was thinking at the time. Some details are dated; others still feel relevant. If I were writing it today, I would frame parts of it differently, but I am leaving the original voice intact.

Introduction

There is a massive, far-reaching and fundamental disconnect between humans and the environment as well as humans with each other. Take a peek into any part of history and you will notice a pattern of humanity gradually drifting apart from our connectedness to nature and, instead, becoming more human-focused, selfish (egocentric), greedy and inevitably—as well as simultaneously—divided from nature and each other in an endless global quest for power and control. This division ultimately led to and normalized vast inequality, exploitation, and the countless social and environmental problems that we face today.

Whether relying on political, economic, militaristic, religious or other inadequate solutions that essentially maintain our existing state of affairs, we will never solve these social and environmental problems until we understand and address the entangled connections between them.

Part I: The Problems

Some scientists have put forth the idea that we live in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in response to humanity’s dominating impact that has shifted the state, dynamics, and fate of the planet. From climate change to environmental pollution to ecosystem destruction to animal decimation to chemical exposure, humans—both collectively and individually, consciously and unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally—have taken part in centuries of environmentally detrimental activities worldwide.

At the same time and along the same lines, human well-being continues to suffer in both Global North and Global South countries despite rapid scientific, technological, medical, and educational progress being made. The obesity epidemic, eating disorders, diseases (e.g. cancer), inadequate health care systems, food deserts, drug abuse, stress, depression, suicide, murder, gun violence, religious fundamentalism, war, political oppression, corruption, instability, human rights violations, misogyny, child labor, child abuse, bullying, discrimination, racism, poverty, and other forms of human inequality and exploitation persist alongside this so-called progress.

Despite these problems, we tend to irrationally focus on and fear certain hazards such as plane crashes or terrorism which statistically pose little threat compared to more likely hazards such as car accidents or disease. Many of the hazards we are confronted by are invisible to us, in part due to corporate lobbying and regulatory capture that prioritize profit over safety.

Climate change, though increasingly visible through record-breaking temperatures, droughts, extreme weather events, and sea level rise, is often dismissed because it does not always register in daily life. Like many social and environmental problems, climate change is a symptom. Symptoms can only be treated. If we are to get serious about climate change and similar crises, we must address the root cause: ourselves, and the social, political, and economic systems that shape our behavior.

Part II: The Causes

Same, but Different

We live in a dualistic society and depend on dualistic ideological frameworks: good and evil, natural and unnatural, human and animal, civilized and primitive, self and other. These binaries assign value hierarchies that justify domination and inequality. What we identify with is elevated; what we do not is diminished.

Ideas labeled as “natural” are particularly dangerous, as they are framed as inevitable and beyond critique. Capitalism, for example, is often treated as the natural endpoint of human progress, despite the immense harm it causes. Calling something natural removes it from democratic dialogue and social criticism.

Affluence, not population size, is a primary driver of environmental degradation. Wealth enables greater extraction, exploitation, and consumption, trapping societies in a treadmill of production that accelerates ecological collapse.

Similarly, appeals to “human nature” are frequently used to justify selfishness, violence, and exploitation, turning harmful behaviors into self-fulfilling prophecies.

Infinite Frontier, Finite Earth

Another deeply embedded myth is the idea of conquest as progress. From westward expansion to space exploration, domination of land, people, and ecosystems has been framed as moral and inevitable. Space exploration, often justified as a survival imperative, risks becoming another extension of anthropocentric, imperial logic—an escape hatch rather than a reckoning.

Part III: The Solutions

Business as usual cannot solve the crises it created. We need frameworks rooted in ecocentrism, feminism, holistic justice, and total liberation. Ending the exploitation of animals and dismantling patriarchal power structures would alleviate many interconnected health, environmental, and social harms.

We must adopt a precautionary principle in the face of uncertainty and recognize that there is no truly “green” market-based solution to perpetual consumption. The most effective environmental action is refusal: buying less, reusing more, and living simply.

Political change will not occur without public pressure, but individual action matters just as much. People are both the problem and the solution.

Why save humanity at all? Because we owe it to each other, to marginalized communities, and to the planet. A symbiotic relationship with nature is not utopian fantasy—it is the only viable path forward.

Humans occupy an infinitesimal moment in cosmic time. Whether we continue to exist is irrelevant to the universe, but deeply relevant to us. If we wish to survive, we must fundamentally rethink how we live, relate, and define progress.

References (archival, 2016)

The following references are preserved from the original version of this essay, written in 2016. They reflect the academic sources, framing, and constraints I was working within at the time.

Part I: The Problems

Part II: The Causes

Part III: The Solutions