How to Enter Your Green Era
“Taylor Swift is singing us back to nature.”
Hear me out - if you think about it, pop culture is how we see and know things. For fans of Swift, the last few years have been nothing short of overwhelming and exciting, especially with the worldwide Eras Tour and the recent announcement that the re-recorded album 1989 (Taylor’s Version) will be debuting this October. Many of her tracks on the ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ albums include vivid imagery and specific lyrics that connect to nature and focus attention to the environment.
Jeff Opperman, WWF Global Lead Freshwater Scientist, took the time to quantify the percentage of nature-themed words in the lyrics of the two albums against the first 32 songs on the Spotify “Today’s Top Hits” playlist in 2021. His result?
Swift’s lyrics feature nature-themed words seven times more frequently than the lyrics of a similarly sized sample of today’s top popular songs…and without Ed Sheeran’s song “Afterglow” Swift’s frequency of nature words would have been nearly ten times greater than in the top hits.
Most of her songs refer to characters using nature in daily life as a place to escape and turn to for comfort. The subtleness of her lyrics can help listeners to connect and celebrate nature which can lead us to cultivate more mindfulness around it. Other than listening to T-Swift on repeat on your Spotify account, there are many actions you can take to practice mindfulness. Before I jump into a few eco-friendly habits to avoid, let’s first define mindfulness.
Defining Mindfulness:
A recent study published in the journal Environment and Behavior found that mindfulness exercises lead to increased feelings of connectedness with nature and pro-environment behavior. Mindfulness asks us to be more conscious of ourselves and strengthen our attention and awareness of our daily routine and how it impacts the environment.
Habits to sing, “We are never ever ever getting back together” to:
1. Excessive use of Plastic
Plastic pollution is an overwhelming long-term issue for the environment and our general health. The United Nations shared an episode from a documentary “A Plastic Ocean” by the Plastic Oceans Foundation, mentioning that over 300 million tons will be produced this year and that most plastic is never recycled. Meaning, it remains on our land and in the seas forever. You can watch the adaptation of this original documentary on YouTube.
At GoTo, we joined the Plastic Free July movement with the aim of having cleaner streets, oceans, and communities.
The UN Environment Programme encourages us to not use single-use plastic and to obtain a reusable bottle in replacement as there are health risks from the chemicals, such as BPA, that are added to plastic bottles that help make them transparent but there is also evidence that it interferes with our hormonal system. Another chemical such as DEHP, makes plastics more flexible but may cause cancer.
2. Throwing Food Out as Waste
The Food Waste Index says that across the world, 1.3 billion tons of food is either lost or wasted. Food loss and waste contribute to three main threats to our society and future – climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. One of the best practices to combat this issue is the proper composting of organic waste in our daily lives. This waste can reduce the dependence on chemical fertilizers, help recover soil fertility, and improve water retention for plants.
Some people may say “You Need to Calm Down”, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Taking action, however large or small can have a much greater impact than you think. A good place to start is with a simple Google search to see if any organizations in your area have a composting initiative, or to check out options online to build your own compost.
3. A Fixed Mindset
A recent journal published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement reviewed 30 years of research that indicates the potential that mindfulness can help transform people’s motivation for sustainability. Overcoming harmful habits is argued to be changed through emotional awareness, self-regulation, greater attention, values, empathy, and compassion. Bahl et al. (2016) created a model inspired by Buddhist interpretations of the processes involved in creating mindful insight (see Figure 1).
Thich Nhat Hahn, a Vietnamese Monk of the Zen Buddhist tradition who dedicated his life to the practice of mindfulness and compassion, suggests that mindfulness could help solve the ecological crisis:
There is a revolution that needs to happen, and it starts from inside each one of us. When we change the way we see the world…we will have compassion and understanding to treat the Earth with love and respect. […] There is no difference between healing the planet and healing ourselves. (Hahn, 2013, pp.56-57)
We need to believe, act, and behave like we can make a change in the world, because we can. Let’s gather together as advocates for change, inspiring our communities, and as fellow Swifties, to fight for our one Earth as it sings “You’ll never find another like me!”.