Only Plants Can Save the People

In 2016 I believed this to be true: “Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo/ Only the people can save the people.” It’s the Latin American protest phrase recently used by communities recovering from devastating floods in Spain.

In that spirit, the day after Donald Trump’s first election, I made a pledge to myself (and a plea to others) to welcome difficult conversation, to “call in” rather than “call out,” and to trust the basic goodness of neighbors to bring us through the administration to a safer world of shared values, acceptance, and care.

But eight years later, contemplating another outrageous Trump ascendence, my faith has wavered. Although I still believe in people, we, alone, just don’t seem to be enough. So today, amid intersecting ecological, social, and political crises, I’d like to propose a different phrase: “Only the plants can save the people.”

Plants, on the other hand, are peaceful and apolitical—complex, adaptable, even sentient beings that began filling Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen 2 billion years before the first bipeds traversed soil on two feet.

Hear me out: Is it such a radical idea to suggest we might do well to look beyond human ingenuity alone, and instead toward the vast interconnectedness of species with whom we share the planet? The worldview that puts homo sapiens at the top of the decision-making ladder seems to have done little but entangle us in useless loops of struggle and defeat. Climate disaster has become just another thing many people now accept; a new normal that’s easier, bafflingly, than making any kind of structural shift to quell its root causes.

And yet, while humans doomscroll through paralysis, plants continue sequestering carbon, supporting biodiversity, cleaning the water and the air, and mitigating erosion. What might the world look like if we actually sought leadership, with renewed reverence and kinship, from the dirt beneath our feet?

In 2016 we’d learned to live with burning forests, but not a fire season that spans more than half the year. We knew about hurricanes, but inland folks never imagined the waters could come for them. Over the past eight years, we’ve seen MAGA amplify while biodiversity plummeted. Greenhouse gas levels rose while children in cages screamed for their families; floods, fires, and droughts accelerated while a global pandemic exacerbated suspicions and divisions. Temperatures ticked up as a racial justice reckoning raged and state-sanctioned military violence quashed peaceful protest on public streets and university campuses.

Plants, on the other hand, are peaceful and apolitical—complex, adaptable, even sentient beings that began filling Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen 2 billion years before the first bipeds traversed soil on two feet. The argument that they can save us isn’t a fairytale dream, but one based on real scientific scholarship, ecological principles, and the acceptance that humans are just one small part of a complex web of life on the planet. Native plants that have evolved in sync with insects and animals in specific bioregions are what will continue to support the trophic levels of all life, from insect to megafauna, on which our very existence as humans depends. This basic biological truth persists no matter how many billionaires claim we can technologize our way out of ecological collapse.

There is even evidence that nature can mend divisions between people. From Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods to more recent studies linking gardening to general well-being, we are learning “officially” what most people who come in from a walk in the woods or a dip in a sparkling lake have known for millennia: that time spent mingling with and caring for species outside the human realm is not only healing, but critical for our survival. Caring for the natural world can actually ameliorate all sorts of ailments, like loneliness, isolation, and depression—ills that may contribute to the surge of anger and loutishness that’s been plaguing our society.

Over the past eight years I’ve had two children, and I’ve watched them transform from furry, wriggling infants to curious kids who talk to plants and animals just as they talk to other humans. My son spent the morning of November 6 dancing around in pink bunny pajamas, feeding oatmeal to his stuffed animals. My work, now, is focused on preserving his joy while being honest about the fact that there’s been an almost 70% decline in species’ populations since I was his age. My daughter, who will spend her formative years in a country whose top officials don’t value her life, got on the bus to public school today, where she’ll be compelled to put her hand over her heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. My work, now, will be to teach her that “America” could stand for a promise of what’s to come; it could honor the billion-plus acres of thriving forest and prairie, the billions of birds and buffalo that fed its landscapes before colonizers arrived. “God” could stand for the spirit of the land that sustains us.

. My belief is that the plants can save the people; my hope is that we’ll let them.

This is not to suggest we turn our backs on other urgent struggles, like resisting authoritarianism and militarism, protecting human rights, stopping fossil fuel extraction, preserving our public education system, further democratizing healthcare access, and more. It does not mean we stop prioritizing the intergenerational solutions of climate justice communities hit first and worst by the ravages of these intersecting crises.

What it does mean is no one has to wait to get started. While those larger struggles persist, we can make change right away in our own homes and neighborhoods.

According to entomologist and Homegrown National Park founder Doug Tallamy, the American lawn (think bright green rectangle) took up close to 63,000 square miles as of 2021. That’s 63,000 square miles of “no vacancy” for the plant life that’s sustained us for millions of years; 63,000 square miles kept poisonously crisp with chemicals, mowers, and blowers. Those miles, almost the size of all our national parks added together, are currently acting not as the carbon sinks, watershed managers, and biodiversity regenerators they could be, but rather as a vast food desert for the insects and birds that critically transport energy within and across bioregions.

Luckily, transforming empty landscapes into regenerative ecosystems is something we can do without professional help or waiting for the next election. Volunteer networks, native plant landscaping companies, books, regional “how-to” guides, and do-it-yourself trial and error are all useful—critical, even—for beginning the vast rewilding needed to improve our environments and communities. A single milkweed plant in a pot won’t change the world, but in community, it’s a great start.

We might not have control over the next administration’s assault on the environment. But for now, what we can do is plant native plants on land that’s considered “private.” That could be three feet on your apartment’s fire escape, a 20x20 green lawn, a garden space in front of your small business, or replacing a tangle of invasives in your backyard. We have the power to change our relationship to the Earth; to do something good, simple and measurable; to reshape the landscapes of the future and transform them into bird-and-bee commons—now—without waiting for policy from above. And we can do it while forging relationships within our communities, getting outside and away from the manipulations of screens, reconnecting with our instincts, rebuilding alongside the species with whom we share the planet by digging our hands in dirt that knows no borders.

My hope is the despair many of us feel in the face of the next administration will not be met with more despair, or even with anger. My hope is we’ll collectively say “enough,” that we’ll recognize our shared worth and commonalities not only with each other, but with the other species around us. My belief is that the plants can save the people; my hope is that we’ll let them. And in reconnecting with our local landscapes, we can reconnect with each other, so that four years from now, the people will be able to save the people once again.