Flaviano, Emerald O.

2007-03313
MA Art Studies (Art Theory and Criticism)

How do we respond to this child?

How do we respond to this child—in actions and words—in a way that would go beyond shallow
ecology, drawing on the concepts of Morton, especially those hinged on a keen sense of
belonging and sharpened sensory perceptions. You might also wish to refer to The
Reenchantment of the World by Morris Berman and The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram.

It’s not every day that a young girl confronts a room full of important people to plead for the
environment, for the future of her and her children’s generations. This and the continuing
relevance of Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s words, delivered at the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, contributed to its recent
online popularity. The video recording of her brief speech in an Earth Summit panel is viral,
circulating on Facebook with the title, “This girl silenced the UN for 5 mins in 1992”1 and continues
to gather millions of views.

Nothing much has changed really, almost 30 years after this speech—this was a common refrain
from the people who watched the video. Sure, it was at the Earth Summit that Severn attended
that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which aimed to reduce
greenhouse gases emissions in the atmosphere, was signed. But even the UNFCCC itself is
testament to the inertia of the world’s policymakers when it comes to actually making a real impact
in efforts to reverse the human damage to the environment. It took five years for the Kyoto
Protocol, twenty-three for the Paris Agreements to be adopted, which actually hold nations
accountable to pledged amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

One 1 June 2017, US President Donald Trump signified his intention to withdraw his country from
the Paris Agreement. Aside from the widespread and fiercely critical response that his
announcement drew, it gave videos like Severn’s special significance. Now we can talk about the
environment again. Now we can talk about climate change and face ourselves—and the world’s
children, because a twelve-year-old Severn still speaks to us of accountability—and the damage
that human greed has wrought on the planet. It’s funny, when I think about the fact that in 1992,
I was part of the world’s children that Severn spoke for, and now, twenty-five years later, I’m on
the other side of the fence, an adult.

To be properly ecological, Morton argues, we must be able to make the things that surround us
sensuously and always present. All activity is framed by the environment, and all human actions
affect the world around us. The role of language and art in representing this environment would
be crucial here, especially when their forms are “impeded or thickened”. In the face of science
and its promise of total understanding of the world around us, it is necessary to make the world
unfamiliar, to tax our senses in making sense of our encounters with it.

Shallow ecology focuses on the practical stuff—policy and more science and technology—to
solve our problems, rationalizing taking care of the environment only insofar as it is in the interest
of us humans. From the perspective of deep ecology, it is not enough to change policy—though
it certainly would be the important first and immediate step to take. We need to change our basic

1 The version circulating on YouTube is titled, “The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes.”
understanding of nature and our place within it to slow down the pace at which we have caused
the planet to change. Policy can only do so much, yet even so, international treaties such as the
Paris Agreements have been criticized for being too late and promising too little. For me, it starts
really with a return to a wonder of the environment, but not the Romantic idealizing wonder that
animated English nineteenth century literature that Morton criticizes. Make the environment
(ambience) material and sensuous via unfamiliar forms of language and art—this would be the
goal. The crucial thing, of course, would be how to translate this into actionable objectives. Who
would be the primary agents—aside from the literary and artistic types of course—of these
objectives?

Children like Severn are impressionable. They can still be made to see (be with?) the world
differently from how we see it. That she is a passionate environmentalist like her father at the
young age of twelve proves that instilling that wonder in childhood is possible. A respect for the
environment and the acknowledgment of our own small and insignificant place in it, are things
which should not only be taught in science classes, but also integrated in lessons in literature and
art. Our living together in respect with our environment would thus go beyond wise use and
consumerist measures, but extend and seep into our everyday lives.