E.O. Wilson - Costa Rican Desktops and the Rise of Living Walls
Ever notice how the most popular computer desktop backgrounds are photos of beaches, mountains, sunsets, and other landscapes? Meanwhile, demand for solutions that offer access to green space in urban centers, like indoor living walls and green rooftop gardens, is on the rise...even more so after all the time we just spent locked inside social-distancing. And it’s common knowledge that homes with a view of the park or ocean are a hot commodity. This need and desire of ours to connect with Nature is widely known and felt across all people, but few know it by its technical name, ‘biophilia.’ Even fewer know the name of the brilliant mind who coined the term in the first place.
Well today, June 10, 2021, we’d like to wish a happy 92nd birthday to that very person, E.O. Wilson.
Who is E.O. Wilson?
Edward Osborne Wilson established a life-long mission to actively educate the public about the importance of conserving the world's biodiversity.
“Unless we move quickly to protect global biodiversity, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.” — E.O. Wilson
On paper, E.O. Wilson is an American biologist, world-renowned researcher, a professor and an honorary curator in entomology at Harvard University. Among his fellow playmates in the field of environmentalism, he is known as an innovator and one of the greatest thinkers of his time. He’s often referred to as, “The New Darwin.”
E.O. Wilson’s Publications and Awards
In his long career, Wilson has written more than 30 groundbreaking books and published 430 scientific papers. Some of them are the most cited in history. Along the way he’s won over 150 prestigious awards and medals around the world. This includes twice winning the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. His publications span his passion for both entomology and social behaviors, and often their intersection. He’s also been granted more than 40 honorary doctorates.
Wilson’s research on ants led to an applied scientific perspective to all social creatures and to him becoming one of the leading figures in sociobiology. He is even considered “the father of sociobiology.” In 1984 he published Biophilia. In this manifesto, Wilson romanticizes the interconnected relationship between humans and the natural world. He argued that our innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes is the very essence of our humanity and binds us to the natural world. This work introduced the word “biophilia” into the language which means "the love of all living things.”
He writes from an evolutionary perspective that the architecture of humans’ minds and spirits are deeply woven within the natural world. He postulates therefore, that when we humans are placed in a natural environment, we perform optimally from a psychological and physiological standpoint.
This fact, that connections with Nature bring both mental and physical health, are a commonly touted selling point of indoor living walls and green rooftop gardens. Green infrastructure systems such as these, sold on the merit of the health and social benefits they bring those people that experience them, have Wilson’s work to thank. His theories and revelations have justified the investment in these green solutions for places like health care facilities, schools, yoga studies, retirement homes, offices, condos and cafes.
“Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and
even spiritual satisfaction.” ― E.O. Wilson
Why is E.O. Wilson Considered a Scientific Marvel?
Wilson dedicated most of his young adult life to the evolution and hierarchical caste system of ants. After being deemed “Dr. Ant”, Wilson pivoted in his career. He took his theories around ants and other tiny creatures and applied them to all vertebrates, including primates and humans.
Side note: on a recent, pre-pandemic trip to Quepos, Costa Rica, I got to witness a favorite subject of Edward’s in action - the leafcutter ants. For reference, Wilson wrote an entire book about these ants, “The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct”, which have been declared earth’s most evolved animal society. In an incredibly well-organized fashion, I watched as a colony of these hardworking creatures formed a two-lane highway: one lane carrying chunks of leaves on their backs to their underground nest. The other lane was for the return trip to fetch more.
Video: Leafcutter Ants near Quepos, Costa Rica, by Alan Burchell, Urbanstrong
In his later works, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Wilson brought forth a very controversial speculation that like insects, hierarchical social patterns of humans may be perpetuated due to evolved genetic tendencies. His perspective received much pushback from colleagues as well as human rights activists. However, Wilson continued to defend his research and theories by publishing On Human Nature, which won him his first Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction.
The Hero We Need Right Now
If pop culture today made heroes out of environmentalists and scientists rather than Botox addicts and professional shoppers, then the likes of E.O. Wilson would surely be branded a major ‘influencer.’ To encourage such a movement, years ago Urbanstrong created a series of memes on our social media feed. Using the hashtag #climateBallers, we strove to showcase and promote the heroes we need right now. Along with E.O., we featured Jane Goodall, Naomi Klein, Berta Cáceres, Robert Swan, Susan Freinkel, David Suzuki and Dr Wangari Maathai to name a few.
E.O. Wilson, The New York Times, and Urbanstrong
In March 2018, E.O. Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times titled, “The 8 Million Species We Don’t Know.” The piece explains how understanding our planet may help us to better protect it:
“To effectively manage protected habitats, we must also learn more about all the species of our planet and their interactions within ecosystems. By accelerating the effort to discover, describe and conduct natural history studies for every one of the eight million species estimated to exist but still unknown to science, we can continue to add to and refine the Half-Earth Project map, providing effective guidance for conservation to achieve our goal.”
Recently I was invited by New York Times science journalist Claudia Dreifus to attend a live event where she interviewed Wilson. Afterwards, during a book signing, I had the honor of chatting with him briefly. After thanking him profusely for his work, I shook his hand, tried (and likely failed) to quickly explain his feature in our #climateBaller meme series, and pretty much just fan-girled in front of him.
EO Wilson and Alan Burchell of Urbanstrong, in NYC, May 2019.
After I calmed down, we discussed biophilia and the importance of creating opportunities for connection with Nature in dense urban centers like New York. He politely complimented me on the pictures I nervously showed him of our living wall installations. Overall he was a class act and total gentleman.
Happy Birthday, E.O. Wilson. Thank you for all that you’ve done to keep us humble. For reminding us that as fragile, natural creatures, we’re all interconnected and in this together...along with the birds and the bees and the ants and the trees. We should spend less time and energy resisting Nature and exploiting her for her resources, and more time playing and living amongst her, in balanced harmony, for our own sake.
