What we can learn from moss about surviving climate disasters

December 13, 2022 Jessica Maybury

Yes, the headline of this blog post really does include ‘mosses’, that wasn’t a typo.

What can moss teach us about survival? In this article we travel together through the poetic world of environmental biology into the idea of degrowth and what I would describe generally as a kinder approach towards subverting an ecological disaster.

TL;DR: doing nothing to save the planet might save planet. So do more nothing.

For this I look to an essay titled Ancient Green: Moss, Climate, and Deep Time. It’s by Robin Wall Kimmerer a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of two books (below), is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses

What an amazing human being right, right!

So, well, mosses: according to Robin Wall Kimmerer, mosses are worth emulating because they organise their societies differently, for one.

As a species, humans have always been defined by our natural talent for expansion: being more, dreaming more, having more, growing bigger. As we know, our (human) society prioritises growth as our number one performance indicator.

When less is more and less is needed

Felipe Milanez, a professor and degrowth advocate based in the Brazilian state of Bahia, points to our addiction as a species to the love for growth as “extremely violent and racist, and it’s just been reproducing local forms of colonialism.”

But as Kel wrote in Swimming Upstream, the huge elephant in the room when it comes to solutions to climate change, is our own unchecked consumption:

I also feel that these large industry-wide planning initiatives are the best time to talk about strategies to shift to an economic system that doesn’t rely on consumption. All the big brains in one place talking about huge systemic change: it seems like the perfect time to address this enormous culture-shifting problem. Even coming out of summits like COP which are strategically focused on climate change, all the focus is on greenhouse gas emissions when there’s a huge opportunity to talk with industry and government leaders about this vast intersectional issue that covers a huge landscape of social, political, and economic challenges. - Over Consumption is the Biggest Elephant

Which is where mosses come in

Wall Kimmerer writes that mosses mostly need the same things we do to survive and thrive - but the way they meet these needs is starkly different to our own. Like us, mosses need water, shelter, warmth, safety to raise their offspring. However, unlike us, mosses don’t need much from their surroundings: ‘All they need is a little light, a sheer film of water, and a thin decoction of minerals, delivered by rainwater or dissolution of rock.’

If conditions are good, they luxuriate and thrive. But if times are bad, many mosses just stop growing and wait it out. They don’t die, they just hold on tight. And because of this, they persevere.

Taking what Kel points at, and by looking at mosses, the idea of degrowth pops up. What is it, exactly? It’s what mosses do: in times of scarcity, they stop producing, stop growing, stop consuming, and just hang in there.

Seen by its detractors as a dangerous idea (probably because it sounds dangerously like communism, oh no!), world governments are starting to wake up to the reality that we can’t consume our way to a ‘greener’ future with ‘clean’ energy.

Degrowth in real life: evolving from our capitalist system

Signs of life include and a transformation of the capitalist system that’s endangering our very species (not to mention all the other species here too):

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently cited degrowth in a major report. Great!
The European Parliament holding a conference on May 17th 2023 on Beyond growth: Pathways towards sustainable prosperity in the EU.
The European Research Council just allocated €10 million for an ICTA-UAB project that will study how to escape from a growth economy and ensure social welfare and planetary sustainability.

Note: this was described as ‘revolutionary’ by Julia Steinberger, ecological economist at the University of Lausanne in Switerland: “It gives us what we think is the best chance to explore the transformative ideas necessary to protect humanity from the intertwined crises of the coming decades: to reorient our economies away from risky growth dependence, and towards human flourishing.” - European project to explore pathways towards post-growth economics: Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA‑UAB)

Also, there was a conference in May 2022 entitled The sustainable economy we need for Europe's resilience and a European Green and Social Deal, which addressed the reformation of the current economic model beyond GDP-based growth. The stated objective of this last conference was ambitious to say the least. We all need Big Hairy Audacious Goals in our lives if we want to get anywhere (yes I’m using corporate speak, joke very much intended):

"…by 2050 at the latest, people (shall) live well, within the planetary boundaries in a well-being economy where nothing is wasted, growth is regenerative, climate neutrality in the Union has been achieved and inequalities have been significantly reduced.”

The idea of degrowth is scary. But what’s the alternative?

People see lost jobs, recessions, scarcity. But…maybe that’s what we need. It’s definitely what our planet needs. But I would argue that a recession isn’t a sign of a healthy economy anyway, and we’re headed for recessions regardless, so…

Jason Hickel, a degrowth expert who is part of the team that received funding from the European Research Council, puts it better than me:

“More growth means more energy use, and more energy use makes it more difficult to decarbonize the energy system in the short time we have left. It’s like trying to run down an escalator that is accelerating upward against you.”

And I feel that time is running out. And I know a lot of other people feel that too. Let’s close out this article with another quote from Ancient Green:

This is the environmental philosophy of mosses, that small is beautiful. They remind us of the virtue of humility, a value in short supply among the people of the Anthropocene. This view is hard for humans to accept, with our love of power and stature.

I can imagine Elon Musk scoffing at the thought of mosses being considered the most successful beings on Earth. After all, they are not the largest nor the most numerous. They have not accumulated great hoards of wealth, consumed the most stuff, attracted the gaze of billions, nor invented a way to leave the Earth. Quite the opposite: they decided long ago to stay. — Ancient Green: Moss, Climate, and Deep Time, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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