How Environmental Generational Amnesia Affects Our Mental Health

Written by

Robin Tricoles · BrainFacts · July 24, 2023

Interview with Peter Kahn, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

Most people are familiar with amnesia, the inability to recall events that happen before or after a significant incident, such as a head injury. But what about environmental generational amnesia or EGA, the phenomena by which across generations, the norm for a healthy, natural world declines?

Each generation largely accepts the environment they are born into as nature’s norm, no matter how degraded that environment may be. Studies have shown that urbanization is linked to mental illness, such as depression, which is why access to nature in urbanized areas may improve mental health. A recent study even suggests greater exposure to green space may also slow genetic aging, though the effect varies across race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Another study indicates a 90-minute nature walk elicits beneficial neural activity in a part of the brain associated with depression and anxiety.

Peter Kahn, director of the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems (HINTS) Lab at the University of Washington, coined the phrase “environmental generational amnesia” and calls EGA “one of the fundamental, deepest psychological problems of our lifetime.” The psychology professor studies the rapid degradation of the natural world and the acceleration of technological advances. BrainFacts.org speaks with Kahn about how EGA affects our psyches and brains, as well as ways to address this collective blind spot and why it is necessary to do so. For Kahn, understanding EGA is where we start to fight climate change.

As Human Beings We Destroy Nature, but We Never Fully Realize the Extent of the Damage and Loss

Written by

Audrey Garric · Le Monde · April 14, 2022

Featuring Peter Kahn, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

Mr. Kahn is a professor in the Department of Psychology and the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington and director of a laboratory that conducts research on human interactions with nature and technology. He calls for a rethinking of our relationship with nature and with other humans in order to solve the climate crisis.

Scientists have been warning us about the environmental crisis for decades; its impact is worsening all over the world and yet, mobilization remains minimal. Why don’t we act in accordance with the severity of the problem?

There are many reasons that contribute to this: people’s focus on the short term and their seemingly endless desire for consumption; big business, where their business models profit from environmental damage and sometimes contribute to misinformation; divisive politics, where group identities are built around skepticism towards science in general, and climate science more particularly. There is also the blame game. Or putting off the effort until later, like a drug addict who puts off detox until tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. Finally, there is the problem of environmental generational amnesia.

Generational Amnesia: The Memory Loss That Harms the Planet

Written by

Richard Fisher · BBC · June 24, 2021

Featuring Peter Kahn, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

According to Kahn and Weiss, we all experience this environmental form of generational amnesia. It is not so much that individuals fail to recall the past they themselves have lived, it’s more that humanity collectively “forgets” the natural world as it once was, as the generations pass. “The problem is one of the most pressing psychological problems of our lifetime,” they write. “It is hard enough to solve problems, like deforestation, ocean acidification, and climate change; but at least most people recognise them as problems.”

Even the most familiar examples of nature, close to home, can be forgotten. Zoologist Lizzie Jones of Royal Holloway, London and colleagues recently interviewed people living in the UK about their perceptions and memories of 10 species of garden bird, both at the time of the survey and their recollection of when they were 18 years old. They found that younger people, who were closer to the age of 18, were less able to describe the true long-term ecological change that had happened among British bird populations. As Jones and colleagues pointed out, murmurations of starlings were once a common sight in the UK but their numbers in England alone declined by 87% between 1967 and 2015. Another example might be the “windscreen phenomenon”, which describes the observation by all but the youngest generations that fewer insects are splattered on their cars nowadays.

Is there any way to avoid such environmental generational amnesia? It might seem that it’s simply a matter of educating each new generation, but Kahn and Weiss propose that doesn’t necessarily mean the traditional teaching of the classroom. Instead, they call on older generations to foster what they call “interaction patterns”, a more experiential approach where children and young people are encouraged to meet nature wherever they can find it.

What Counts as Nature? It All Depends

Written by

Kim Eckart · UW News · November 15, 2017

Featuring Peter Kahn, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

a waterfall surrounded by mossy rocks
The environment we grow up with informs how we define “nature,” UW psychology professor Peter Kahn says. Encounters with truly wild places inspire people to preserve them. Credit: University of Washington

Think, for a moment, about the last time you were out in nature. Were you in a city park? At a campground? On the beach? In the mountains?

Now consider: What was this place like in your parents’ time? Your grandparents’? In many cases, the parks, beaches and campgrounds of today are surrounded by more development, or are themselves more developed, than they were decades ago.

But to you, they still feel like nature.

That’s what University of Washington psychology professor Peter Kahn calls “environmental generational amnesia” — the idea that each generation perceives the environment into which it’s born, no matter how developed, urbanized or polluted, as the norm.