When I met David Attenborough in 1982, I was a nerdy little kid in awe of the natural historian I had watched lead a tour through evolution in the BBC television series Life on Earth. Broadcast on PBS in the United States, the series stood next to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos as one of the two defining TV viewing experiences that introduced young Generation X to the mind-blowing wonder and mystery of science.
A red-eyed tree frog strikes a pose [Eric De Vries, public domain]
I had seen the original Star Wars in 1977 in my first visit to a movie theater, been buried in Marvel and DC comics since kindergarten, and started reading classic SF novels in elementary school. When we watched Attenborough and Sagan on PBS as a family, there was as much a sense of excitement around science as there was around science fiction.
In those long-ago days before MTV’s success convinced producers that blindingly fast edits were necessary for creating audience excitement, a kid could be transfixed and hypnotized by calmly narrated nature films that moved at what now seems a glacial pace. Today, even the science fiction movies of that era seem sleepy. Back then, everything was amazing.
After I heard Attenborough give a talk at the Darwin Centenary Conference at Cambridge, I stood in line with my newly purchased paperback of the Life on Earth book and waited to talk to him. When it was my turn, the best I could muster was, “Can I have your autograph?” It’s funny to me now how starstruck I was then by a scientist.
An awesome responsibility
Nearly forty years later, a friend sent me an Attenborough quotation that often appears in print and periodically pops up on social media. The popular passage quotes the final words to his 1979 Life on Earth book, the very one that I had autographed as a kid.
The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.
The sentence immediately preceding the quotation makes clear that Attenborough is by no means forwarding any sort of Christian dominion theology or promoting the idea that we have a right to rule the planet.
But although denying that we have a special position in the natural world might seem becomingly modest in the eye of eternity, it might also be used as an excuse for evading our responsibilities.
Humans are not predetermined to be lords of the earth. As a lover of Norse mythology, I embrace the story of the one-eyed Odin and his brothers creating the first humans from trees – not as literal truth but as a reminder that we are relative latecomers to the pageant of life on the world the myths call Midgard, the middle space.
As Attenborough emphasizes, our smallness in the grand scheme of things is out of proportion to our impact on this planet and the monumental size of the harm we continue to wreak. Just this week, the natural historian publicly spoke out yet again about the deadly acceleration of human-caused climate change and the urgent need for serious action to be taken now.
When Attenborough writes of responsibility, he speaks a truth that many of us refuse to hear. It is a much more comfortable thing to criticize and complain than it is to stand up for positive but painful progress and to make meaningful modifications in our own lives.
Climate change is an enormous concept that is very difficult to grasp, both intellectually and emotionally. The scale of transformation that must be made boggles the mind, so people of positive intent perform small acts with tiny global impacts (recycling a soda can, purchasing a reusable coffee mug) instead of creating or joining mass movements to drive consequential action (ending the use of fossil fuels worldwide, funding reusable energy systems at home and in developing countries).
Three directions
For those of us who practice any modern form of so-called “nature religions,” invoke the spirits of the land, or venerate the deities of earth, water, and sky, there is a spiritual imperative paired with a scientific one. Do our deeds live up to our vows? Whatever fine words we say in ritual to honor the powers are all too easily canceled out by our harmful action and casual inaction as we tsk-tsk over the ongoing damage being done to the physical manifestations of spirits we profess to honor.
As a practitioner of Ásatrú, I believe in three directions of responsibility – to those who came before, to those who share this time with us now, and to those who are yet to come. With responsibility comes the imperative to act. We must make up for the mistakes of those who preceded us, take meaningful action to improve life for all now living, and do all that we can to help build a brighter future for all children of all nationalities, races, ethnicities, identities, and creeds.
The lore of Ásatrú and Heathenry does not focus solely on the divine and the supernatural. It also tells of the tragedy of Sigurd, the bravery of Hervor, and the self-sacrifice of Beowulf. A great value is placed on honest friendship, hard deeds done out of love and loyalty, and a strong sense of responsibility to others. Of course, there are selfish characters, but there is often strong criticism of them in the tales – and especially in the words of Odin in Hávamál (“Sayings of the High One”).
If we believe in the value of these tales, we should place a value on the lives around us as those we lionize did in their own times. This seems like a very basic concept, yet we are surrounded in today’s United States by many fellow citizens who loudly declare their individual rights while brushing aside any reminders of their responsibilities to the community.
Climate change ethicists have long discussed the general human inability to feel an emotional attachment to imagined descendants very far beyond those that we may meet in our lifetimes. The farther out beyond children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren we imagine, the less we can envision these possible future individuals as real people rather than as constructs and numbers.
Maybe hoping that people will make drastic changes in their lives for the sake of theoretical future humans they will never meet is too much to ask. Maybe we are simply too limited as a species to truly care about those who only have the potential to be born long after we’ve been buried or burned.
Making a difference
I believe in the value of deeds. I believe in the importance of action.
For those who simply won’t or can’t make major changes for the good of those separated from them by vast distances of space and time, there are simple actions that can be taken today that will have a direct, positive, and powerful impact on those living people who are the closest and most important – our family, friends, colleagues, and community.
Get the COVID-19 vaccine. Wear a mask when necessary. That’s all there is to it.
If making up for the gross polluting mistakes of the dead seems unfair, committing to campaign for the final end of fossil fuels feels too inconvenient, and building a better life for future children of the wider world sounds like someone else’s problem, getting the vaccine and wearing a mask are simple acts that will make a difference right now to those we can see, hear, and touch.
I won’t bother to list the statistics regarding the benefits of community vaccination and masking. In the overheated kettle of online rhetoric surrounding vaccines and masks, there is a conspiracy theory to rebut every scientific study. With each day and each new bursting bubble of purulent nonsense, I come closer to understanding the twisted mindset that led to the denunciation of Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin. It’s still here and still shouting down the science.
Yes, as Americans under the Stars and Stripes, we have every right to be frightened of modern medicine that explains itself in journal articles using advanced technical jargon. We have every right to refuse to wear masks with straps that make our ears sore. We have every right to show we care more about our own ability to understand and level of personal comfort than we do about the lives of those who live around us.
If we decide to stand on these rights, maybe we should give up the rhetoric of “our glorious pagan ancestors.” There are many reasons to give up on that hoary old concept, but not the least of them is the sheer nonsense of valorizing ancient peoples for their supposed hardiness, adventurousness, and willingness to laugh in the face of death when standing up for their communities while simultaneously crying “You can’t make me!” regarding a small needle shot in the upper arm and a thin paper mask on the lower face.
Redirecting the discussion
In 2021, I find myself reconsidering the words of the natural scientist I was awed by in 1982. From a coupling with science fiction to a pairing with spirituality, I did not then and do not now see science as a separate enterprise from the rest of life.
Papa Hildebrand, Attenborough lecture ticket, and Life on Earth [Karl E. H. Seigfried]
Attenborough’s considered words are as powerful to me now as they were then. Who will heed them?
I believe we must consider what he has to say and redirect our national discussion from rights to responsibilities. We must spend less time venting about our legal right to think only of our individual wants and instead care more about the community’s needs.
I hope that we can work together to heal the planet. If not, I pray that we can at least take baby steps towards helping each other get past the coronavirus years. If we’re not even willing to do that, maybe we’re not much of a culture.
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