Where’re We At Now? 20 Questions for Earth Day
bristlecone pine. tempera & chalk on paper. © Rowan Kilduff
1. Can you remember the first time you saw a picture of the Earth?
2. Who are your neighbors (apart from humans)? Name them.
3. Think of a time when you met a wild animal (or plant or place).
4. Think of 5 animals that you are prejudiced against.
5. Think of 5 animals that you are prejudiced in favor of.
6. Have you ever been in a wild place that blew your mind? What did that feel like?
7. What urban wild animals (or wild plants) need more attention?
8. Do you think people can ‘grow with less’, live with less, or are the best possible solutions to the climate or energy crisis technological?
9. Will technological solutions lead to more production, and thus towards ‘more’ or to some other way?
10. Do you know what trees grow in your neighborhood? Name as many as you can.
11. Do you know what would be the first to grow back after a clear-cut in your area? Name as many as you can.
12. What do the following words say to you: home, nature, highway, region, trail, permeability, interconnection, interpenetration, interdependence.
13. When you think of the Earth do you think of ‘fragility’ or ‘resilience’?
14. What role can art have (all kinds) these days in connection with rewilding, wilderness, and ecology?
15. Do activists spend too much time fighting people/groups, and how else could their energy and time be spent (towards the same goals)?
16. Has ‘Earth-in-crisis’ become a bandwagon that is cool to jump on, like ‘eco’, ‘bio’, ‘sustainability’, etc.? And is that a good or bad thing?
17. Was Jacques Cousteau correct in criticizing Greenpeace for being against the proliferation of nuclear weapons on ecological grounds only (for example: making coral reefs radioactive)?
18. Is there a chance to turn things around (loss of habitat, global cooking, runaway consumerism, corporation control of governments, loss of community) or is it all too little, too late?
19. Is it true that change for the better will only come from the top (from putting pressure on governments and big business)? Or is that just media misdirection these days to take away personal responsibility and potential (to think in new directions)?
20. When was the last time you’ve been kayaking, rafting, biking, running, etc., in or near wilderness?
Inspired by the “Where You At? Quiz” in Coevolution Quarterly by Jim Dodge et al. 1980.
Rowan Kilduff is a dad, mountain-runner, and activist-artist. He writes on the connection between ecological and world peace; wilderness, urban wildlife, and forests, and he is the author of a few books, as well as various articles that appear in print and online. He lives in Central Europe, currently up and down between 49 and 52°N.
I used to give a slightly different version of these questions to my students at the beginning of every year, then depending on the class subject, review them again at the end of the year. Same title though, “Where You At?” They thought it was funny. (Not funny ha ha, but funny depending on the times, I taught for 31 years). I hope I did some good but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.
The place that earliest blew my mind was the region due north of Lake Superior, which I was privileged to see every year while growing up. I have heard that this area has been nominated for status as a World Biosphere Reserve but don’t know what that entailed or if the status has been granted. The Lake Superior region now is what I consider home.