Deep Ecology: Our Relationship with Nature

In our third episode, Shanny talks with Chris Diehm, Professor of Philosophy and program director of Environmental Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and Ella Janson, a UWSP alum who holds degrees in Environmental Ethics, Drama, and History.

In this episode, we talk about the study of Deep Ecology, our own relationships with nature and the environment, and I ask Ella how her Humanities degrees helped her with her life and career after graduation!

If you are enjoying No Cure for Curiosity, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.  It helps other people find the show.  And please continue the conversation on our new Facebook page at www.facebook.com/NoCureforCuriosityPodcast.

You can send comments to nocureforcuriosity@outlook.com.

Our intro music was written by UWSP music student Derek Carden and our logo is by artist and graphic designer Ryan Dreimiller.

Transcript

Shanny Luft: 0:03

Thank you for listening to no cure for curiosity. This is episode number three. And today I'm sharing a great conversation I had with Chris Diehm and Ella Janson. Chris Diehm is Professor of Philosophy and the Environmental Ethics Program director at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He has taught environmental ethics courses for over 20 years and served as the research fellow with both Pace University and the Nature Conservancy. Chris and I have been colleagues in the Department of Philosophy where I teach religious studies for over a decade. Joining us will be Ella Janson. Ella is a recent graduate of UWSP. Ella holds degrees in environmental ethics, drama and history. In this conversation, we talk about environmental ethics, what deep ecology means, and in the end, I asked Ella about her undergraduate degrees and how they have prepared her for life after college. But the conversation begins with Chris's new book, Connection to Nature, Deep Ecology, and Conservation Social Science. And you have a new book, do you want to talk about it a little bit?

Chris Diehm: 1:03

You know, I was thinking about this just before we got on the call. And I honestly, I regularly forget the title of it, because it's not exactly my title. There are some negotiation with the publisher. So you know, we have to help. It's like a 50-word title and subtitle. My hope is that people will just abbreviate the very long title to the first three words, which are Connection to Nature.

Shanny Luft: 1:28

Who do you think is the audience for that book? Is it for the average person to pick up who's interested in this subject? Or is it for students? Or are you really talking to other people in your field?

Chris Diehm: 1:37

I prefer to write for more general audiences if I can, although as an academic, right, you don't have a lot of opportunities to do that. And so I think there are parts of this book that would be pretty easily readable by like an educated general audience, college students could read it. The sad part is that the very first part of the book is the most theoretically dense. And so I feel like people start reading it, hit that hit that first chapter wall, and then set it down, and not get to everything after that, which is the stuff that's actually a lot more readable.

Shanny Luft: 2:11

Ella, Chris and I were talking about people to bring into this conversation. And you were one of the first people who came to mind and so we're really glad you could join us. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Ella Janson: 2:22

Yeah, so I guess I graduated from UW-Stevens Point back in 2019. Though, I switched my major quite a few times. I eventually settled on environmental ethics, as well as drama and history. Since my graduation, I've been working in a couple of different areas of the community. I'm currently an AmeriCorps member who's serving central for farm Central Rivers Farmshed as a volunteer coordinator. So that's been a lot of fun. I'm on my second term for that. I'm also an aspiring farmer. So I am working with Rising Sand Organics, which is a cooperative farm over in Custer, and I grow flowers, and I'm kind of working on becoming more of a floral designer. That's been a lot of fun. And definitely, I think where my recent kind of aspirations have taken me.

Shanny Luft: 3:04

Chris, you are an environmental ethicist?

Chris Diehm: 3:06

Yes, sir. That's what they call me.

Shanny Luft: 3:08

What

Chris Diehm: 3:08

Can I tell you? Can I tell you my my sort of dirty little academic secret, this might not make it into the podcast,

Shanny Luft: 3:13

please do.

Chris Diehm: 3:15

So

Shanny Luft: 3:15

it's gonna make it into the podcast

Chris Diehm: 3:18

my formal training, I actually think this should make it in the podcast, because it is a it is a testament to what you can do with education. My formal training in environmental ethics consists of one undergraduate course that I took as a junior from a guy who does environmental ethics, but at the time was not his area of specialization. I didn't take a single graduate course in the subject, I have never had any kind of, you know, formal training other than that one college class. And when I went to graduate school, I didn't go to graduate school for environmental philosophy. And so you know, I just, I was always an interest as an undergraduate from from the point I took the class on, and I continued to study it on my own. And so I just kind of I made myself into an environmental ethicists over the years that I began teaching it, and almost everything I've ever published is in the area of environmental ethics, and I, you know, I've done a reasonably good job of it. And I've, you know, have one undergraduate course, under my belt.

Shanny Luft: 4:20

So I'm gonna assume that most people listen to this don't know what deep ecology is. So is there is there like an easy explanation you could give?

Chris Diehm: 4:27

Ella, would you have a

Ella Janson: 4:28

Yeah, I guess, like I've, I've always really understood it as sort of understanding the ways in which yourself is not only contingent upon but like, also, like, I don't know, I feel like just like innately involved with the other aspects of the natural world, and using that sort of as a platform to advocate for more conservation based actions and behaviors. think I think that's, that's pretty accurate. I mean, there's

Chris Diehm: 4:48

Yeah, I there's a really strong emphasis on understanding that people are a part of nature, and that you use that that framing of what it means to be human. As a kind of platform from which you develop all your other ideas, there, there are kind of two hypotheses that are that are, in fact, turns out empirically testable that deep ecological philosophy generates. So the two hypotheses are that if you feel more connected to nature, you will tend to value it more highly. And you will value it in ways that promote its protection. And that that will actually have behavioral outcomes too. That you will actually behave differently when you feel more sort of a part of, and akin to things in the natural world. So it's, it's a kind of philosophy that's emphasizing connectedness to nature, and criticizing disconnection, saying, right, that part of what's driving some of these problems is a deep sense of disconnection from nature, especially in Western culture.

Shanny Luft: 5:52

There's a part of deep ecology that seemed to me a little bit like the language of religion. And I wasn't sure how you would feel about that. Even how you would feel about me saying that, right? It reminds me a little bit of the language of this may sound totally off the wall. So you could tell me if you think it's crazy, but when I was reading your paper, and then other deep ecologists talking about our disconnection to nature, it resonated with me as similar to Adam and Eve and the fall from grace and our human disconnection from God. Right, that that what it's prescribing is that there is something missing from humanity. And in Christianity, that might be our connection to God. And in deep ecology, it's our connection to nature. I found that what to me seemed like, a religious framing really interesting, but I wasn't sure how you would take it or what you would think about that.

Chris Diehm: 6:43

Um, I, you know, I'm a pretty flexible guy. So I'm open to, you know, lots of different frames. I worry sometimes about saying things that way, because deep ecology, I think, in the past got a little bit of a bad rap. Because when you start saying, well, there was a fall, then it starts to sound like you've got some like romantic nostalgia for a bygone past. And maybe that past wasn't as romantic or nostalgic as it, you know, you're making it out to be and it wasn't so great. And no, you know, yet it always like historical and sort of anthropological discussions about what people were really like before this time or that time. And I just I find that, you know, not that they're not productive conversations, but they're, they're not conversations that I find especially helpful to have. I think, my sense of it. Shanny, you would know more than me that lots of people around the world still today have cultures of connectedness. You know, I teach a course on American Indian environmental philosophies. And honestly, this whole semester that I teach this stuff all I think, is like Geez, like, like, these people don't have problems of feeling disconnected, like, this isn't their cultural framework. There's a lot of like, Eastern thought that kind of like makes its way into deep ecology, where I think there are sort of like, cultures of connection. I do think that, you know, it's kind of empirically true that we in the West, don't have this. And why we don't have it, you know, is is a matter of debate, like maybe it's maybe it's the influence of Christianity. Maybe it's the influence of like Western philosophy, a lot of people kind of theorize maybe it's the Industrial Revolution, maybe it's all three, you know, maybe it's none of the above.

Shanny Luft: 8:23

Yes, I had Industrial Revolution on my bingo card.

Chris Diehm: 8:26

Ella, do you have something like if you had to say like, why do you think it is that Westerners are so like, we seem to be generally fairly disconnected? Like, if you would you point to one thing and say, I think it's x.

Ella Janson: 8:37

Yeah, I think it's hard to point to one thing. I do think that like, there might be ideological underpinning to like

Chris Diehm: 8:40

There are kind of two ways in which people talk multiple things that maybe do like contribute to it like this idea of like kind of a dualistic conception of like, our relationship to the environment, or like some sort of like undercurrent of hierarchy. But I don't know if like, in focusing on those two causes, it's like, there hasn't been like many kind of movements and moves made by humanity that then like impacts that disconnection. about connection or disconnection. One is basically kind of in terms of lifestyle. So sometimes people will say, oh, when you know, we're so disconnected from nature, what they mean is literally we don't spend a lot of time in nature. But the sort of deep ecology side of it is, is more like psychological. It's, it's our feelings of connection. Whether we view ourselves as fundamentally like a part of nature or as separate from nature.

Shanny Luft: 9:33

If you were to put on virtual reality glasses that made you look like you were in nature, would that count as giving people feelings of connection? Like, do you actually have to be in nature? Or can you just think you're connected to nature?

Ella Janson: 9:47

There was actually a really interesting study that Chris, you actually had us read in our advanced environmental ethics class where it did do a comparison between like, technological nature and regular nature and whether or not it had the same effects and largely it was found that it wasn't as efficient or like garnered the same feelings or reactions as like actually being outside. Obviously, we're also at a point where like, we can only get so far. So like maybe if our virtual reality glasses become so advanced, it really will be indistinguishable from like being outside. Personally, I feel like people should just go outside because it seems like you're over complicating everything if you're like, I don't know, and also wasting a lot of resources when you can, like, literally just walk out your door. But I overall think that like, kind of going back to your point Shanny about, you know, like, there's the disconnection from nature and like reconnecting yourself from nature could be a potential solution, as well as you know, spending time in nature.

Chris Diehm: 10:36

So it's true, right, that like that people who spend more time in nature feel more connected to it. But then I think Shanny's question, you get to this thing of, like, we live in this world, where we're just saying, right, like, people spend more and more time indoors. And honestly, a lot of these studies that like that measure, like the amount of time outdoors that people spend, they're not even measuring really time in nature. They're literally just measuring time outside of a building.

Shanny Luft: 11:00

What was this statistic about the amount of time people spent outdoors?

Chris Diehm: 11:03

They surveyed mothers, and they said, like, how much time how many of you spent at least a certain amount of time or like, you know, at least one day outside per week. And it was like 70% of mothers said that they did that. But when they asked about their kids, they asked the mothers, how many of your kids do that? Only 30% said, Yes. So there's this there's this really clear every study, you see, no matter what they say the numbers are, it's all dropping off. And my suspicion is that if you look at the amount of time that people actually spend in nature, for many people, it's next to zero minutes. I mean, but if by nature, you mean an environment that is in which the forces that dominate are largely not cultural.

Shanny Luft: 11:48

So okay, that's exactly what I was gonna ask next is what's what counts as nature? If I if I stand next to a tree, am I in nature?

Chris Diehm: 11:54

Yeah,

Shanny Luft: 11:54

But you're not necessarily.

Chris Diehm: 11:56

So the therapeutic stuff that's like what Ella was talking about before, where they did this studies of, you know, people in an office building, and some of them have a window, some of them have an HD screen that looks just like the window, and some of them have nothing at all except the wall. And they regularly find that people reap therapeutic benefits from time outdoors, quote, unquote, outdoors. And what they generally find there is that the more natural the environment is, the greater the benefits. So that's that's on a spectrum, right? So when you're in a really like a dense urban environment, where there might be a tree, you know, planted every half block or so, you do not reap therapeutic benefits, like you would if that was a block that was lined with trees. Nor is that as good as if it's a forest where there's not pavement at all. So there's this kind of spectrum of therapeutic value of nature. They haven't really done the same kind of studies on on people's sense of connection to nature, like whether, like, like what kinds of environments seemed to most generate connection. But I will say that they have done some things where they've tried to figure out like, do zoos give people a sense of connection, and zoos don't seem to do it as well as like nature does. So these more like manicured environments seem like they don't do the same kind of job, either therapeutically or in terms of connection.

Shanny Luft: 13:19

Yeah, all of my questions, right? Not all of it. But I have a long list of questions that are all about cheating, deep ecology, like, what about virtual reality? What if your house has a lot of plants? What if you have six pets? What if, like, I kept thinking of ways to try to? Are there ways that you can have some aspect of nature, that will give you the same experience? So you're saying a little bit, but may not really.

Chris Diehm: 13:44

My sense is that like with virtual reality experiences, there are studies actually, that show that virtual reality has therapeutic benefits to people like you can actually lower your heart rate and lower your blood pressure if you do like VR nature, experiences take a VR nature walk. But my sense is like with connection to nature, you would just get like a little bump, and then it would go away. And you know, if you want it to be meaningful, right? You want this to be you don't want it to be just something that like kind of like the Disney effect, right? You go to the theme park and you're super jazzed on Disney for a week. And then then you're done. Like, you want to create some kind of lasting sense. I mean, we're talking at some some level about people's identity, right? How you define yourself. It's like an existential thing. And I don't think you get like existential change from you know, like, five minutes of this or 10 minutes of that. And so it seems to me like it's you need something more sustained. You need something with lots of like, rich sensory elements. And I know VR can be that way. But I don't I don't think it's it's at least not yet. It's nowhere near right. Kind of like the real thing. And the other thing that they regularly find in these studies about about time outdoors, is that one of the things that it's really easy to forget this, but when you spend time outdoors, it makes you comfortable in the natural world. It makes you feel comfortable and competent. And these these, this idea of environmental competencies is huge.

Shanny Luft: 15:13

Ella, do you ever feel like, in my mind, I'm kind of imagining connection to nature, as like a scale that goes up and down different natural experiences like zoos will give you zoos will give you two nature points. But Yellowstone National Park gives you 50 nature points. I'm curious about your own personal experience about connection to nature.

Ella Janson: 15:33

Yeah, I think especially living in Wisconsin during the winter, sometimes it's a little bit difficult, like I notice, kind of in my own sort of trajectory. And when I feel like the most bogged down, and the most just kind of like unhappy with things. I usually like think back to my weekend, like how much time I actually spent outside, like, I don't think I've gone on a walk and a couple of days. And like I even noticed, too, I've uh, so it's kind of funny, we're talking about how plants I have like a lot of houseplants. And I noticed that they tend to be doing the best when I'm spending like even though like during my busiest time of year during the farm season when I'm outside pretty much like all day. Like, I also noticed that when I come home, I still have that extra motivation to like take care of the life around me and like to care for it where like in the winter, like, I feel like, I'm not really necessarily as busy. But I'm like, Okay, I'll just like water them tomorrow. Like it's fine. You know, like I do notice, like there is not only I think psychological benefits that I definitely gain from spending more time outside. But I noticed too, that like my own attitudes to like the little plants around me changes, depending on how much time I spend outside.

Shanny Luft: 16:34

What about people that don't have opportunities like we do in Wisconsin? Sounds like a commercial for Wisconsin. Right? If you if you if there are lots of people in America who aren't near a national park, what are you supposed to do if if you live in an urban environment, or live in a place that just doesn't have a lot of natural opportunities?

Chris Diehm: 16:52

I think like the answer is bring the nature to the people. Not not in the sense of virtual reality. But we just need to do a way better job of more and better urban green space. So we need like real green space, we need substantial amounts of it. And it's got to be accessible to people. Right? Equitable and accessible, safe. I just I think that's that's like one of the biggest challenges for like 21st century conservation.

Shanny Luft: 17:19

Ella, have you always been really connected to nature? Do you? I mean, Have you always been really interested in environmentalism and or environmental issues? Or is it something that developed over time?

Ella Janson: 17:27

It definitely developed over time. I grew up I think, in a very, like, I was very lucky in my young adult life where I spent almost all of my childhood outside, we had a ravine behind my neighbor's house and we would go and like play make believe and just like mess around there was like this whole stream that ran through it, and we'd like build like little like castles out of branches and whatever. And I like that was a huge, huge part of my childhood. And then I think coming to college, like it really helped sort of reinvigorate like that aspect of like my childhood that I felt like I lost during like my teenage years. And luckily I think that Stevens Point definitely is a community that has a lot of outdoorsy folks and like a lot of opportunities, you know, like living so close to Schmeeckle, having the Green Circle Trail. And I do notice that too, is like being a I think, a really large aspect of privilege and a lot of our lives in this area.

Chris Diehm: 18:15

Ella did the place that you played in as a child that you name it, like did you have a name for like, like a pet name or something?

Ella Janson: 18:22

Yeah, okay. So the stream I was kind of glamorizing it a little bit. The stream itself was like, kind of a sewer runoff a little bit. So it's orange, and like, there's a whole lot of clay underneath it. So we called it the Rusty River.

Chris Diehm: 18:35

Okay, so Rusty River.

Ella Janson: 18:36

Yeah, well, you know, it's mostly the clay. I think.

Chris Diehm: 18:40

We're hoping it wasn't the dioxins or something. So yeah. Shanny, did you when you were a kid, did you? Did you have a like a place that you played outside a lot?

Shanny Luft: 18:52

Yeah. So I lived in a suburban neighborhood, but across the street from my house was a huge forest. And me and my friends would go out there and we just spent hours sort of like inventing different neighborhoods in the forest different. We made bike trails and dug holes and a friend of mine in that same forest. He when he was really young, he found all these cool marbles and he collected a huge pile of them and then brought them back home. And his dad explained to him that they were rabbit poop. He didn't realize that's what they were.

Chris Diehm: 19:22

Life lesson. The reason I was I was asking is because like the the places that people have experiences of childhood, I've just found kind of anecdotally it's almost not almost always but like at least half the time people have a name for. My place was called whale rock. So when I was really young, my family lived really kind of in Baltimore, like in the in a more urban part of Baltimore, but they by my family moved out to an area and there was nothing right this was like pre cable and pre digital technology. I wasn't like maybe fourth grade, third or fourth grade. So really the only thing to do was to ride bikes to the river. My brother and I hated it there but we complained endlessly to our parents. We were old enough to be able to kind of make the distance on our bikes to this river. The Gunpowder River, that it turned out was actually a state park.

Shanny Luft: 20:16

You mentioned that you've asked a lot of students about the names of the place that they associate with their childhood, like a lot of them have a Whale Rock.

Chris Diehm: 20:24

Rusty River, I like. Ah, I've heard I've tried to think so. A student who is currently in a class like regularly refers to a place that she played called, let's say called Birches Bridge, that apparently had no birch trees there. There was one student who, who this is like, I love this that she said, we called it Wonderland. So I like that one. And I've had people tell me that as adults, they have gotten like tattoos of places they've like, it's like, the things that people do to kind of flag their attachments to places are pretty are pretty wide ranging but tattoos seem to me to be one of the more substantial.

Shanny Luft: 21:01

Do you have any tattoos of Whale Rock?

Chris Diehm: 21:03

I don't.

Shanny Luft: 21:04

Does your brother?

Chris Diehm: 21:05

No, but you know, it's funny, because neither of us realized how significant that place was to us. Until I you know, I started teaching about these subjects. And I was thinking like, do I even have any examples of things like this, like you have these kind of attachments to places? And at some point, I thought, yeah, you know, I think I think if I really if I really am being honest with myself, I think it's Whale Rock, which I haven't been there a long time, right? It's it's back where I'm from Maryland, where Shanny is also from, but I thought, yeah, the more I thought about it, the more I thought, yeah, like this actually is a really good example of this thing. And some of the kind of behavioral implications like the kind of protective feelings that you have for places like this. And I remember very distinctly, distinctly one time, I happened to be talking to my brother on the phone, and I said, I was talking about whale rock. And it was just like, you could everything about his voice changed. And his whole like demeanor was just like, Oh, my God, and it's just you could just tell that he was like, instantly taken back to this place. It was super meaningful for him too we had never talked about it, you know, but as adults, we started talking about it. It was just the the deep sense of attachment was like so immediately obvious. Oh, right. Like this was going on for him, too.

Shanny Luft: 22:12

Have you ever gone back there later in life as an adult?

Chris Diehm: 22:16

Yeah. So the story that that prompted me to tell this in class actually, was that I live in Wisconsin now my brother now also lives in Wisconsin, like three blocks away from me. But before he moved, I went there to kind of help him pack up some stuff. And whale rock is in a river where the Gunpowder River and he said, You know, I have a friend who, who has some kayaks, and if you want, we could go kayak down the Gunpowder. I had literally never done that, in all the years that I like, I was a little kid and we just splashed around in the river, you know, rode our bikes, so but he said, I, you know, can go kayaking. And I said, Oh, that sounds great. This is what he said, You know what, I can even take us down the stretch of river that goes by whale rock. And we are paddling, I, you know, coming from a totally different direction, hadn't been there in 10 years, never been in a kayak. I didn't know where I was. But we're coming around this bend of the river. And he says, Hey, you know, whale rock's right around the corner. And I was like, Oh, that's pretty cool. And we got to whale rock, we come around the corner we see it. And there's like a family of three people standing on it. And they had a dog. And the family kind of got off the rock. And the dog stayed on it. And we both started back paddling. And we looked at each other because the dog looked like it was gonna poop on that rock. And we were both pissed off. We were like, Oh my god, those people if they let that dog poop on that rock, oh, I'm gonna be so mad. That's whale rock man, and you do not let your dog poop on whale rock. We were just, we were both like getting super worked up at the thought that this dog was gonna poop on this rock. And it was like that was when it struck me. I was like, I think I care a lot more about whale rock than I ever could have imagined. Like, I'm feeling so protective of it. And that's what kind of got me thinking about a lot of these subjects.

Shanny Luft: 23:56

So there's something really fascinating about that. But before I tell you what, specifically I find interesting about it, I want to ask Ella the same question. Have you ever gone back to what was it called Rusty River?

Ella Janson: 24:05

Yeah, Rusty River. Yeah, I remember, like the first time I went back, like I was with my childhood friend back after I kind of like was home from college. And we were like, Oh my gosh, like, let's go to the rusty River. And we like made a huge deal about it. And now when I go home, I always my mom and I go on walks every morning with our dog, and we always like make sure to like kind of like loop back through the ravine up behind our neighbor's house. So it has kind of still remained like a pretty big part. It's interesting. It's crazy how much it's changed too so like I feel like that's like what's a little sad is I like go back there and like all of our like, little like tree castles have like fallen apart. And I don't know, you can tell like a bunch of the teenagers or the youth of the community like to use that place to do or like drink and like you know, so it's always like, there's always a lot of litter and things which is always really sad for us. One time I found like a bowling ball down there. I don't know how it got down there a bowling ball.

Shanny Luft: 24:58

Oh bowling ball.

Ella Janson: 25:00

Yeah, I think I still actually have it upstairs in a box somewhere. But I was like, Why the heck is there a bowling ball down here?

Chris Diehm: 25:06

You know, every time people talk about this, and I get you're having done the like, read the social science, I always hear these echoes of the social science, because one of the things that they found is that people who are more attached to places, they notice problems like environmental problems more than other people do, including litter. So like, like the fact that Ella, you go there, and you see the litter, because you're attached to that place, you notice things differently, like, like you literally relate to the place differently than someone who's not attached. Because you're concerned about it, right? You have this sort of feeling of a fondness for it. And so like, you notice the litter's there. And like somebody else who walks through it who's not attached, they might not see it at all, they wouldn't even see the bowling ball, or they like it just wouldn't register, right? It just it would be like a non issue for them. So like these attachments really do drive, they drive things like our focus, like our attentional focus it's super interesting.

Shanny Luft: 26:01

That is fascinating. What I'm gonna share is when I have gone back to it, not recently, but the few times I went back to that woods that I talked about, from my elementary school, middle school, high school years, the the most immediate the very first observation I had was, it was tiny, right in my memory. This was like, a German forest. It was like Grimm's Fairy Tales. Like I, I wasn't 100% sure there weren't monsters in it was just huge and sprawled forever. And it seemed, it was just so full of discoveries. But then in reality, when I went back to it, I'm like, wow, this seems a lot smaller. It's like, yeah, if you walk 100 feet, you're actually in someone else's backyard. I don't remember. I don't remember it being that small. How did I get lost in a forest that is barely a block?

Chris Diehm: 26:53

You get throw a baseball across. It's you know, that's so funny, Shanny, because I have the exact same experience with whale rock my recollection so so whale rock is on is on a stretch of the Gunpowder River, the river is crossed by a road named Falls Road. And there's a bridge right, that goes across it right there. And we would always like you kind of ride down this hill to the bridge. And on the other side of the bridge, we would ditch our bikes off the side of the road. And it's my recollection is you would go for like four hours down the trail. And, you know, you'd have to stop for lunch and like, water your horses? Re-circle the wagons and, but it's like, you can see the rock from the bridge. It's like, if as an adult, it's like you take 40 paces, and you're on the rock. And I felt like how did I think that this was such like a deep woods experience as a kid. But to me, you know, like the thing that that that that shows you I don't have children. But I think man, anybody who has kids like this is the lesson is that it doesn't take much. It's very, it's it's like you don't need to take your kids to Yellowstone, for them to form what are actually very healthy attachments to the natural world healthy, it's a it's healthy, physically, it's healthy psychologically. Right? There's these therapeutic benefits, but it's also when kids can form attachments to things when people can feel safe adults and kids feeling safe and and sort of comfortable. And like you kind of belong in the places where you live. That's really important psychologically. And I think it's just like, it does not take much. Take your kids outside, take, like, you know, if you had to give like a recipe for like, what's the best way to kind of maybe set your kid up the care about the planet, here's the recipe, take them outside a lot. Take them to the most natural place you have access to let them engage with that place freely. Like all that kind of exploration and discovery, you're talking about, Shanny, don't structure the time. Let them just play, support their play, possibly play with them. And there you have it. Like that's the formula. It's it's like it's not it's kind of not rocket science. And it's not anything that requires wilderness. It it turns out, you know, like, like when they do studies of people, adults tend to find these more local kind of environments like drab and boring. Adults kind of want more and better and bigger. What a little kid needs is a Rusty River to go play in and hopefully not get poisoned by.

Ella Janson: 29:24

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 29:25

Part of this I really want to ask you both about is when I thought about that woods that I used to hang out and as a kid, one of my first memories is that it was dangerous. And part of that danger, like you said was just a kid who didn't realize I was not really that far from my house. There were not bears in Reisterstown, Maryland. I was much more safe than I realize.

Chris Diehm: 29:46

Yeah, it's that is a super common thing. And it's a pretty well documented thing that like the perception of risk and fear of the natural world is a really big part of it. And that's why I was saying before, I think I think part of the fear is itself product of the the lack of time in it. That right? If you have parents who don't spend time in nature, they're way more afraid of nature than somebody who did. And then they don't have their kids go out in the natural world or they don't go out with their kids. And, but I also think that, um, I think there's gender differences in like perceptions of risk in the natural world. And I don't I, you know, to me, it seems like, like, the way that you overcome it is, is by doing it right, you have to kind of spend time out there and do it. Ella, so I'm kind of curious, though, like, so I know, you have a kind of crew of people that you spend time outdoors with, and and it's often it's often like an all all female crew, what's your perception of like, risk and fear? When you spend time outdoors.

Ella Janson: 30:45

Like, I definitely think that I feel that when I'm actually like, in like a more natural area, I feel less fear. Like, I find that like, in the more urban area, I am just like, personally, like, the more concerned I am for like my own safety or my friends' safety. Because there's usually like, just like more people walking around. And I think that there is like, kind of like, you know, definitely some like inherent risks for both genders. But like, more specifically, women have, like, you know, walking home alone at night and things like that. I feel like when I'm in like natural areas, even in Stevens Point, if I can't see a road, like I feel even more safe, you know, and like, of course, like there's like always worries that there like will be a monster somewhere, you know, even as an adult. But I do think that being in a more natural area has always been like a little bit more appealing to me, because I don't quite feel as worried that I'm going to run into someone that could potentially like do myself or my friends harm.

Shanny Luft: 31:39

It's interesting to me, it sounds like you got a degree in environmental ethics was one of the things you studied in school. And it sounds like you have really applied that to the things you're doing in your career.

Ella Janson: 31:50

For me, like, like, I feel like through philosophy, I was able to gain a wide set of skills that I can like literally apply, like right now like I'm my friends and I are starting like a taproom and cafe artists' collective and like doing all these crazy weird things. And like, I don't know, like my philosophy background, specifically environmental at like ethics gave me sort of a backdrop to be able to pursue almost anything like I'm like about to start a business and I don't have a business degree. And I don't feel like anyone that I'm around who maybe has studied that in their past necessarily feels that they are more or less qualified than I am.

Shanny Luft: 32:23

That the argument you just made is I think the argument that I'm most attracted to, you gain a set of skills that can be applied to lots of things. It's like your ability to creatively pursue all kinds of professional interests seems to be expanded. You're starting a business?

Ella Janson: 32:36

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 32:37

What's the play? What's the business?

Ella Janson: 32:37

It's called Company it's going to be if you guys know Altenburg Dairy, that old building that's being turned into the Central City Market. So we're partnering with Upstream Cider and Main Grain well, Main rain Bakery's gonna be sharing he space and selling some stuff uring our hours. But some riends and I are becoming easehold members of this ooperative on the altenburg j ltenberg cooperative. And w're gonna have Upstream Cider a d hopefully a few other i dividuals selling drinks, w're going to have coffee. And t en sort of the the little s htick of our taproom is that we're an artists' collective. S actually, like my friend Emm and I are writing a series o zines currently that will b released where we're going t direct one of my favorit feminist plays at the end of th summer. Trifles by Susan glaspell, was written in 1916. She was involved a lot in Provincetown Players, it's like known as like one of the first ever, like serious feminist works in the western canon. So that's kind of what we're starting up. But I mean, last summer, I started my own business with flowers. I wasn't at that point merged with Rising Sand Organics. So I had Ella's flowers, and I made it solid about a buddy had sold it markets in the co op and a few floral shops and things. Yeah, so like, I feel like it really does, like empower you to sort of just forge your own path and fall into something that I don't know, you sort of develop, I think a lot of interests as a philosophy major or a humanities major, and then you can kind of like, just take what you will and sort of go anywhere with those interests.

Shanny Luft: 33:58

That's fantastic.

Ella Janson: 33:59

Yeah, we a lot of fun.

Shanny Luft: 33:59

congratulations. And also you are the first person to actually have an ad on this podcast you're promoting your business.

Ella Janson: 34:06

Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, y'all should become patrons. We're gonna launch our website this week. It's gonna be great.

Shanny Luft: 34:12

Come back on the podcast. After it gets started and tell us about it.

Ella Janson: 34:15

I would love to absolutely love to

Chris Diehm: 34:18

I'll be your sidekick, Ella for that.

Shanny Luft: 34:21

Chris Diehm, Ella Janson it has been such a pleasure to talk to the two of you.

Chris Diehm: 34:25

Yeah, absolutely. Shanny Thank you.

Ella Janson: 34:26

Yeah, this is great. Thank you for having me on.

Shanny Luft: 34:30

Thank you for listening to No Cure for Curiosity. I had such a blast talking to Chris Dean and Ella Janson, about deep ecology and sharing our childhood memories. If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast app. It helps us promote the show and helps other people to find it and No Cure for Curiosity just launched a Facebook page. If this episode reminded you of your favorite childhood hangout, or if you had a special name for it, please join our Facebook page and tell us about it.

Gretel Stock: 34:58

This podcast is brought to you by University College at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Our mission is to provide coordinated intentional and inclusive services and opportunities through our core values of connecting, supporting, collaborating and engaging. Learn more about UW-Stevens Point and all our programs at uwsp.edu.