Ending the War Between Humanity and Nature: Rethinking Everything

Patrick C. Lee

Aug 2020 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

About this ebook

This book offers plausible explanations for people’s puzzling unwillingness to address the human-nature interactions that have led us to the precipice that is climate change today. Humanity and nature are at war; the evidence is all around us: catastrophic weather events, rising sea levels, extinction of species, famine, wildfires, melting polar ice, millions of environmental refugees, and toxic pollution of air, water, and soil. The list goes on and on. What is causing this war, and how can it be stopped? Is this war an unintended consequence of economic and environmental imperatives pulling in opposite directions? This book takes the question—and its answer—to a deeper level. It argues that the root cause of our war on nature might be found in the time-honored, historically deep myths, narratives and stories we tell ourselves—and have been telling ourselves for centuries—about humanity’s place in (or out of) the natural world.

About the author

Patrick C. Lee is a Professor Emeritus of Developmental Psychology. His areas of scholarly interest have included infant and childhood sociality, language acquisition, cognitive development, theories and models of child development, children’s television, the development of metaphor and perspective-taking in childhood. He has held appointments at Harvard University, Columbia University and the University of Toronto before shifting his interests to the study of children and the natural environment, and the impact of nature and environment on human development. He has published over 30 papers and books, among them his seminal article “The Human Child’s Nature Orientation” in the journal Child Development Perspectives in 2012.