[D66] 'Humans are not prepared to protect nature'

[R.O.]

https://www.dw.com/en/how-do-we-change-peter-sloterdijk-environment-coronavirus-on-the-green-fence-climate-change/a-53533840

Environment
'Humans are not prepared to protect nature'

Why do we find it so hard to change our behavior? German philosopher 
Peter Sloterdijk explains how this is connected to the climate crisis.


Peter Sloterdijk describes change as the modern name for something that 
classical philosophy called becoming, because everything that is, is not 
given in stable, everlasting forms but has to become what it is. He says 
modernity is all about interfering with this process of becoming, and 
putting it or pushing it into a direction that fits better with human 
purposes.

DW: So we are always changing then?

Peter Sloterdijk: Yes. Nature as such is a self-changing entity. And all 
we can do is — as it were — keep riding on the wave of change.

As we look to the future and that wave gets bigger and bigger with 
regard to the danger of climate change, there are some big changes that 
we have to make as a species. And it seems at the moment we're not able 
to make them. Why?

Human beings are not prepared to protect nature in any sense. Because in 
all our history as a species, our deepest conviction always was that we 
are the ones who have to be protected by the powers of nature. And we 
are not really prepared for this inversion. Just as a baby cannot carry 
his or her mother, human beings are not prepared — or not able — to 
carry nature. They must learn to deal with this immensity. This is a 
huge challenge because there is no longer the classical excuse that we 
are too little or too small in order to deal with such immensities.

Is it a narcissism that is preventing it? What is the problem?

I sense the problem is one of scale. We are almost physiologically 
unable to add up the results of our own behavior — to cosmic 
consequences. We are deeply convinced that all we do could and should be 
forgiven. From an ecological point of view, we are living in a period of 
time of lost innocence.

[...]


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