Adventures in Nutopia

Back in July I talked about my good friend, Dr David Bramwell, and his book The No.9 Bus to Utopia (see here). Like me, David is a Utopian - he can see a bright and achievable future that is environmentally friendly, human-kind, planet-kind and fair to all. And it is totally possible. We have the technology and the knowledge right now. We just need the will. 

We need to reconnect with Nature and stop treating the planet as a giant grab-bag of goodies to be plundered. And we all need to reconnect with each other.

Pre-Covid, David and I did a number of speaking gigs around the UK with a group of similar thinkers that included Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Fully Charged), Sir Tim Smit (The Eden Project), Nicole Pohl (Utopian Studies, University of Oxford) and Abi Aspen Glencross, an expert in sustainable farming and laboratory-grown protein. My contribution was talking about the importance of functional, caring communities. 

David and I are also obsessed with folk history and the importance of stories. We believe that looking back is a powerful way of moving forward. What our ancestors knew came from observation of the natural world and, while they couldn't always explain the things they experienced (so, therefore, put it down to the acts of gods, demons and faerie folk), they were right. And science is finally starting to catch up. 

I’ve always instinctively known that Nature is good for me. It certainly always makes me feel good to be outside in wild spaces. It’s where I feel most comfortable. Pagan adherents and followers of other similar philosophies will tell you that the Earth is full of healing energy that we can tap into.

And they're right.

Chemists will say that there’s nothing magical about it – trees and other plants give off chemicals such as turpenes, pinenes and limonenes that can lower your heart rate, reduce your cortisol levels and even increase your production of so-called NK (natural killer) immune cells. These protect us from illness and can even send self-destruct messages to virus-infected cells and tumours. In tests conducted by immunologist Dr Qin Li of the Nippon Medical School, groups of stressed, middle-aged businessmen had their NK levels measured and were then taken for a couple of hours of forest hiking every day for three days. At the end of each experiment the participants’ NK cell counts had increased by around 40%. A month later, their NK counts were still 15% higher than they had been before the experiments started. The same measurable effects were seen in similar experiments conducted independently in Canada. 

But there's more to it than just pure science. Being in Nature makes us feel better on an emotional level. Some neuroscientists will tell you that it's because being close to Nature allows the brain to ‘take a holiday’ from complex frontal lobe-based working. Researchers Rachel and Stephen Kaplan from the University of Michigan first proposed this idea and have devoted their lives to understanding the mechanisms that underpin it. They call it Attention Restoration Theory (ART). It proposes that exposure to natural environments encourages more effortless brain function, thereby allowing it to recover and replenish its capacity for more complex tasks. 

When you watch a sunset, or see a field of vibrant wild flowers alive with grasshoppers, butterflies and bees, or watch the sea lapping on a shore, your brain’s attention is being grabbed ... but you don’t have to do anything as the result. There’s no task to perform. All you have to do is let your senses soak it all up. Rachel Kaplan calls it ‘Soft Fascination.’ The Japanese call it Boketto or ‘gazing absent-mindedly into the middle distance without thinking about anything in particular’. 

Call it science. Call it mindfulness. Call it magic.

But it is 100% real and hugely important for the future of us and the world we live on. 

All of which brings me back to David who has launched a new podcast called Adventures in Nutopia. It's wonderful, uplifting and smart. And it will allow you to see a world that could be so much better than it currently is.

You can find it on iTunes. Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Or just click here.