We owe each other everything
No, it's not cool to live like a lonely caveman
At dinner, my mum’s partner spoke about a man who lives in a cabin in the woods with no internet, no phone, no contact with the outside world. He has effectively cut himself off from the rest of us, taken a corner of the woods for himself and settled there. Around the table there was a murmur of admiration. For an instant, I felt it, too. The idea of curling up in a corner and roundly telling the rest of the world to fuck off is appealing to the part of me that resonates with the troll living under the bridge, who murders anyone who dares even to cross over him. Then that turned into envy, which morphed into disdain for both this man and myself, and guilt for envying him.
Who are we to flee into the woods? Who are we to abandon the rest of the world, which will still be hurtling towards doom while we pick mushrooms?
According to the World Health Organisation, ‘the people whose health is being harmed first and worst by the climate crisis are the people who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it: people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities’. Do you think these people can toss away their internet (if they have it to begin with) and live off the land?
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, communities have been continually evicted from their homes for years by mining companies in order to continue mining for copper and cobalt. In 2016, the village Mukumbi was descended upon by soldiers who burned down residents’ homes to force them away. The mining company responsible for this was Chemaf. One of the senior managers was present at the attack, watching soldiers setting fire to homes on their behalf. A girl under three-years-old was asleep in her home when the soldiers lit it on fire — she will never fully recover from her injuries. And there was no one to call, no one to protect them, because it was the state military burning down their homes on behalf of a private mining company. When the government burns down your village, what do you do? When you wake up to the smell of smoke, an acrid burning in your chest, your skin blistering and too many tears in your eyes to see anything at all, what do you do? And when it’s all over, when your home is gone and you have nothing, there’s no one to report this crime to and your livelihood is dust, what do you do?
In the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, there are at least 100 uncontacted Indigenous groups, trying to live off the land in peace. These are people who have never lifted a finger to contribute to the frightening state of the world, who simply want to live and look after one another, and we just can’t seem to leave them alone. Uncontacted Indigenous peoples have not built up immunity to diseases that we’re used to, like the common cold or the flu. With contact, even supposedly ‘nonviolent’ contact (by missionaries, for example), comes death by illness. But most contact is not intended to be nonviolent. Loggers and ranchers have been known to hunt down and murder Indigenous peoples in order to steal their land. They carry out massacres and take bulldozers to these people’s homes. Indigenous communities are becoming fewer and fewer, as more tribes are hunted to extinction.
I know it’s not your fault, white man gone to live in the woods on your own after a successful career in finance or tech (or, God forbid, fintech). I know you’re not striking the match that burns down Congolese people’s homes, or holding the gun that shoots an Indigenous person in the head. You object to these behaviours, of course, and you wish they would stop. Except, do you? Because throughout your career, the career that gave you the means to abandon the world and fund your new life, you benefitted from and provided support for the mining companies in the DR Congo. With every electronic device, with your electric car and your frequent phone upgrade, you silently supported the violent displacement and destruction of communities. For your managerial role, there is always someone pinned beneath your shoe, underpaid and overworked to help you make money.
It’s not just you, of course. In the Global North, we all benefit from heinous crimes committed against people in the Global South. The device I use to type this is not clean of blood. But we have to stop running from this reality. We have to let the sickness and the horror wash over us, we have to cry, we have to feel it all, and then we have to act (because what’s the point of realising any of this if we don’t do something about it?).
It breaks my heart to see you posting vlogs to YouTube about your off grid hut in the middle of the woods when people who have lived off the land of the Amazon rainforest for longer than white people have touched North American soil are being threatened in the name of ‘economic growth’ and ‘expansion’. It breaks my heart to see what individualism does to us, and what capitalism does to us. I feel that we’re becoming monsters, and I can’t stand it.
In 2024, we passed the 1.5C global warming limit for the first time, and 2024 became the world’s hottest year on record. This year was littered with natural disasters (a name I struggle with, when the cause of these disasters was anything but natural). We all watched the California wildfires rage uncontrollably towards the end of the year. In July, landslides in Kerala, India, killed more than 390 people, causing a further 273 injuries. This disaster was the result of immense rainfall in the days prior.
Mexico experienced more than 8,000 wildfires in 2024, a number difficult for me to even begin to comprehend. These fires obliterated more than 4.1 million acres, nearly a 60% increase from the destruction caused by fires in 2023. This was amplified by extended periods with no rain. The extreme weather in India, Mexico, the USA, and other countries around the world which is causing these disasters is a direct result of the climate crisis.
Climate collapse will reach you, in your lonely corner of the woods. It will reach us all. But it shouldn’t have to, for you to care. One life lost to the climate crisis is too many. One village decimated by greed is too many. One Indigenous person murdered in a bid to steal their land or convert them to Christianity is too many. Yes, in your wooden hut with its composting toilet you’re doing less damage than you were in your high earning job with your extreme consumption habits, but less damage isn’t good enough. Doing no harm isn’t enough. We have to actively do good, help people, and condemn the behaviours that led us here.
I hope it’s clear that this is not an argument against living off grid. This is an argument against abandoning society, and choosing not to love and help others. Mostly, it’s an argument against selfishness and individualism, and a plea to let yourself care about others, no matter how much it hurts.